Remotely access VMware virtual desktops with WSX and an HTML5 Web browser

Unlike the early years of x86 virtualization, nowadays when you mention the name VMware most people will probably assume you are talking about ESX or vSphere, VMware’s flagship server virtualization and hypervisor technology. But back in 1999, VMware started with a desktop virtualization product called Workstation. Through all of the company’s years of success in the server virtualization market, this little desktop product has continued to maintain its usefulness to corporate buyers and the community of end-users. It has been updated along the way, often adding experimental features that would one day become production-worthy and make their way into the ESX code path.

VMware has again updated its oldest-running product on the market with the announcement of VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2012. While this latest release will have new and interesting features worth discussing, one “preview” item in particular really stands out above the rest: an impressive prototype technology currently called WSX but is yet to be officially named.

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What’s interesting is that the WSX service allows users to access their virtualized desktop environments remotely via a modern Web browser interface without requiring the addition of any plug-ins, Web controls, or the installation of any thick clients on the PC. It’s ready to go, right out of the box, bringing a virtual machine to a tablet, smartphone, or any PC or device using compatible browser software.

WSX currently comes packaged with the Linux version of Workstation. Unfortunately for some, this means that the prototype currently only installs on Linux hosts as it has a dependency on the Python 2.6 binary for it to operate. But according to VMware, expect that to change as it evolves. A Windows version is expected to be released shortly. Had WSX not been packaged and delivered as part of Workstation but instead been released as a stand-alone application, it probably would have debuted as a VMware fling.

How does WSX work? First of all, it’s installed as a mini Web server in your network environment. Once installed, the service provides an interface for enumerating and accessing Workstation and vSphere/ESXi 5 virtual machines. In addition to accessing remotely, the interface goes one step further by allowing you to power your virtual machines on and off and suspend them from the Web browser.

“WSX makes use of some modern Web technologies, such as HTML Canvas and WebSockets, along with a small but powerful server to turn your browser into a full-on remote console,” explains Christian Hammond, VMware developer and virtualization blogger. “The WSX server talks to your Workstation, ESXi, and vSphere instances and relays the appropriate data up to the client running in the Web browser. With that data, the client can stay updated with the latest changes to the virtual machine and offer a full display of the console. We don’t use any plugins, meaning there’s nothing to install.”

It’s only recently that WebSockets have become a finalized standard, and that’s what VMware is using to do the bidirectional communication needed to stream content from the server.

WSX works best with the latest versions of Chrome 17, Firefox 10, and Safari 5 on Mac OS hosts. While a bit buggier, it also seems to work with Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 Preview. On the tablet side, it reportedly runs well with the Apple iPad running iOS 5+, and there has been some success reported with Google Chrome and Ice Cream Sandwich on Android devices.

As this technology is still experimental and in preview mode, VMware developers are still hard at work toward creating new enhancements to WSX. According to Hammond, some of his personal goals are to improve browser compatibility and to make it faster and easier to interact with the virtual machines with gestures (two-finger scrolling in place of a scroll wheel on tablets), gamepad controls, multitouch, and whatever else he and the other VMware developers can think up. On the other hand, VMware hasn’t officially said anything about a future road map.

While WSX won’t be replacing VMware’s PCoIP anytime soon in a corporate environment, performance is said to be good enough right now to stream a 720P YouTube video inside a virtual machine and still see near-native quality and frame rates when accessed via Chrome or Firefox on a modern PC. That alone is pretty impressive at this stage.

Although still experimental, WSX is yet another piece of technology coming out of VMware that shows off the power of application delivery via the Web. It also gives a bit more insight as to the direction of where things are headed within the walls of VMware.

Isn’t it cool that the Linux guys finally get something first from VMware before the Windows users? This announcement would have gotten them out of their seats with applause during a VMworld keynote session, to be sure.

This article, “Remotely access VMware virtual desktops with WSX and an HTML5 Web browser,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in virtualization and cloud computing at InfoWorld.com.