We performed a comparison between Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) and VMware Horizon Cloud based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."We use RAS to publish cloud desktops to our clients. The ability to easily publish resources to a subset of users is what we find most valuable."
"We can publish apps and desktops on Terminal Servers and seamlessly share printers. We also combine Parallels with Deepnet Security to get two-factor authentication."
"Valuable features include the ability to set up security groups for accessing certain apps, and the ability to add apps easily and centrally without touching the servers they’re hosted on."
"It is robust. We have some 75 users using it and it doesn't lag. It's very speedy."
"It permits us to control the applications that our users are able to get to, in a seamless manner. We're able to distribute applications to users' desktops, just like those applications are on each user's computer, but they're not."
"Thin client management (Windows 10 client) provides an easy way to lock down client connection to the remote infrastructure. Policies are very helpful for preconfiguring client behavior. Finally, client management is easy."
"The most valuable feature is the ease with which you can publish applications to different groups of users, by integrating with Windows Active Directory."
"The management capability from the RAS portal provides greater control than using pure MS inbuilt into RDS capabilities."
"VMware Horizon Cloud is easy to use and the full development cloud is very good. The main features of VMware are included. It's a cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructure software that allows you to permit the virtual desktops and applications to any device from the single unified management control. These are managed from the dedicated remote session desktop."
"Its advanced management features are the most valuable, especially power management. One of the really important things was to be able to have power management in a consumption world. This means that unlike a Microsoft environment, you could actually turn off virtual desktops or have them start up and shut down. If you're consuming resources in the public cloud, you want to be able to do that because when you're not using those, such as at the weekend, you want to be able to turn them off. So, the advanced options for managing the BDIs are very important."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is the ability to manage a great number of desktops at once and the remote access for users that are working from outside of the office or from different offices in the country."
"The product’s on-premise version has the ability to create an image of any updates or changes in the system."
"I honestly liked the application itself because it was just like using a desktop. You could copy and paste, inside and outside, and you could use multiple monitors. You could access it anytime, anywhere, no matter whether you were in the office or out of the office. I could leave the office, go somewhere, go back in, and everything would be there. I could just leave it up and running. I absolutely love this feature in VMware Horizon Cloud."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is all of its capabilities together."
"The tool remains pretty stable."
"The product allows a VPN connection, adding extra value to its features."
"It would be great if there were more sophisticated GPO templates/options."
"If the solution crashes, then all the customers connected through that agent, lose their session."
"HALB is not stable in our environment. When running two HALBs we have stability problems, so we use an active one and a passive for backup. Also, it would be nice to implement an upgrade of the environment without having to stop the servers. As it is, this must be done during off-hours."
"We use several gateways because access to our secret zone requires two-factor user authentication. It is a lot of hassle differentiating among users with or without two-factor. Of course, we could use two farms, but that would mean more management too."
"From a seller's point of view, there are a lot of things that they could do better in the sales cycle."
"Improvement is needed in performance monitoring of the client's endpoint, and automatic re-connection of the client in the event of circuit disruptions (this works well generally but can present challenges)."
"Since I've been here less than a year, I have had to upgrade the system three times. The first time was the major upgrade but they have upgraded twice since, and I think that's too many times in that time span."
"The customization of the web interface could possibly use some improvement. Little things, like being able to place a background image instead of just choosing from a palette of colors, would be nice."
"In the design phase, sometimes the tools for designing Horizon solutions have issues when they're calculating the number of nodes and platforms needed to support the VDI systems."
"It is very expensive. Its price needs to be improved. They can do a better job with external resources such as a USB or a hard drive. When I tried to connect using these external resources, it failed a lot of times. I had to do a shared connection with a local laptop and then connect from a network standpoint, rather than through VMware Horizon point. They definitely have weaknesses with external connections. A lot of companies probably don't let people use external connections because it defeats the purpose of having a cloud solution and keeping the data in a secure area. You can copy to an external device, and you can lose the data. A lot of companies may not focus on this feature, but if you are providing it, you should make it work."
"It can be very expensive to scale up because each part of scaling up requires you to have new components of the infrastructure."
"The product has a lot of bugs."
"There should be more emphasis on the Workspace One access part of the solution. This is essentially identity management provided with Horizon. There needs to be some kind of integration because you are able to have all of these desktops on any device, but you have to have this other component to make it easier from a single sign-on perspective. That's why there should be an emphasis on Workspace One access. It actually comes free with the product, but people don't really know how powerful it can be."
"Logging into VMware Horizon Cloud could be made easier. Additionally, the VMs could be better in their performance."
"The application remoting features have some room for improvement."
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Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is ranked 12th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 24 reviews while VMware Horizon Cloud is ranked 10th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 9 reviews. Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is rated 8.8, while VMware Horizon Cloud is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) writes "Provides good scalability and a secure environment". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware Horizon Cloud writes "Easy to use, stable, and scalable". Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is most compared with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, Citrix Workspace, Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service), Parallels Desktop and VMware Workstation, whereas VMware Horizon Cloud is most compared with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, VMware Horizon, Citrix Workspace, Oracle VDI and Sangfor aDesk VDI. See our Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) vs. VMware Horizon Cloud report.
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