VMware DEM vs Liquidware ProfileUnity

Welcome to this Blog Post where I will discuss two products : VMware DEM and Liquidware ProfileUnity.

Both products do ~~User Environment Management~~ Dynamic Environment ~~Manager~~ Management…

Yeah, what’s in a name, nowadays it’s getting confusing… are we talking about UEM? User Environment Manager or Unified Endpoint Management. From VMware perspective, VMware UEM = Unified Endpoint Management and User Profile Virtualization is Dynamic Environment Manager, why not User Profile Virtualization then? Well, it is more then only virtualize the user’s profile.

In basic, both product do the same, Liquidware still uses the term User Environment Manager for their product. It’s a bad thing there is no standardization for this kind of things. Vendors change their product names to much IMHO.

But that’s not where this Blog post is all about, it’s about Virtualizing the Users’s Profile!

What I want to accomplish in this Blog Post is to create a good view of both products with their pro’s and con’s and in the end, which product fit’s your environment the best.

Since June 2021, I am certified Liquidware ProfileUnity Engineer and I work a lot with VMware DEM, so a nice oppertunity to compare both of these products.

For starters, if you already have an environment with all products of VMware, (like vSphere, Horizon, App-Volumes), then you still might be interested in reading this blog, but to be honest, in that case, VMware DEM will just be the right fit for you. Because with a Horizon License (not all versions) you also may use VMware DEM, so from a cost perspective only it would be wise just to go with DEM, but also from a feature perspective, DEM also has integration with Horizon (Policies, etc), so in this case, it’s a no-brainer to use DEM. On the other hand, a LOT of customers don’t have their whole environment running on VMware stuff and don’t have Horizon,

When you might consider to migrate from VMware to another solution outside VMware, then you also might consider ProfileUnity! (even aanvullen… licentiekosten DEM, of naar Microsoft AVD (Azure Virtual Destop))

For example, if you have an environment running on Citrix, then you might consider more tools than only VMware, like Citrix WEM, Ivanti, or Liquidware ProfileUnity.
I am only comparing VMware DEM with ProfileUnity because I believe these products are close to each other when we talk about efficiency, speed, and possibilities.

Liquidware is Microsoft & Citrix Lighthouse Partner

First, I will go to the installation procedure of both products. In the whole Blog, I will start with VMware DEM and second I will do the same for Liquidware ProfileUnity and discuss the pros/cons during the process.

Both products work with 3 components:
– Management Console
– Agent (for client OS)
– Policy

I will first discuss the Management Interface, I will run both products on Windows Server 2019