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After months of teasing, VMware finally allows us all the joy of six

vSphere the sixth becomes generally available and it looks like plenty of you will install it

VMware's teased us about vSphere 6 since August 2014's VMworld, then threw a big launch bash for it on February 2nd. And on Thursday Virtzilla got around to actually making it available.

Six weeks after it was launched.

The long wait doesn't look to be dampening enthusiasm for the upgrade, if this informal survey by Veeam is any guide: it found 45 per cent of respondents expect to be running vSphere 6.0 by year's end. VSphere 5.5 came in next, at 39 per cent, ahead of a vSphere 5.1 rump of 12 per cent.

Folks close to VMware of The Reg's acquaintance are certainly bullish about the release. Virtzillans feel Microsoft's given them a year of clear air by postponing the release of Windows Server Next until 2016, and don't fear Citrix which is consciously retreating from server virtualisation and is therefore now seen as a desktop virtualisation and application delivery rival only.

VMware's also made some moves in that area, as Thursday also saw “a new release of Horizon 6”. This emission is apparently not worthy of being called a point release, but adds an “early access program” for those who want to deliver virtual desktops running Linux, two new Chromebook clients for application delivery (one HTML 5, the other a “lightweight” entity) and the addition of Ipv6 support for virtual desktops. VMware has also added Common Access Card (CAC) support for virtual desktops, a feature aimed at satisfying US government customers. ®

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