wikiVMware Horizon details
VMware offers with Horizon a comprehensive product for creating and managing a VDI environment (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) including user administration and access control.
VDI offers the advantage that the end user can reach his familiar desktop or his applications from almost any end device, in addition a central management of the users and the desktops is possible.
In this article we show the requirements for the use of a simple Horizon VDI installation and its main components.
Horizon License Models
VMware Horizon is a separate product and available as a Bundle License or as an Add-on product. Both variants are available in the editions Standard, Advanced and Enterprise and differ in the included features.[1]
In addition to the Horizon components, the standard bundle also contains VMware vSphere for Desktop (equivalent to vSphere Enterprise Plus) for an unlimited number of ESXi hosts and a vCenter Server Standard for Desktop. Starting with the Advanced Bundle, VMware vSAN is also integrated. However, the bundle licensing requires that only the VDI desktops and the required view components are operated on the licensed hosts. The operation of VMs that are not required for the Horizon VDI environment is not allowed with bundle licensing. The add-on licensing contains only the Horizon components and requires an existing vSphere environment.
The Horizon Bundle and Horizon Add-on is offered as Named User or Concurrent Users licensing:
- Named User Licensing is a good choice when you want each user to have their own desktop.
- Concurrent User Licensing is suitable for all companies with a large number of employees, but only part of them work at the same time, e.g. shift operations or call centres.
With a Horizon Bundle or Add-On license up to 10 users are licensed, with 50 users, for example, a total of 5 Horizon licenses are required for Named User licensing.
-> 5x Horizon Add-On 5x Horizon Bundle.
Horizon Components
To operate a Horizon VDI environment, the following components are required (minimum requirement):[2]
- Active Directory Domain
- 1 vSphere ESXi Host
- 1 vCenter Server
- 1 Horizon Connection Server
- 1 Composer on Linked Clone Desktops
- 1 MS SQL Server
All components, except the vSphere host, are typically deployed as a VM. The Horizon Connection Server and Composer Server software is available through the VMware download area and requires a Windows Server guest operating system as a foundation.
Once the Horizon Connection Server is installed, the Horizon administration interface is available. This admin interface can be used to register all other components such as vCenter Server, Composer, SQL for Eventlog, Domain, and Remote Desktop Session Hosts (RDSH) for hosted applications.
Dashboard of the Horizon Admin Interface
Horizon VDI Desktop
After all components have been registered, a desktop pool can be created. Various options are available for the pools:
Automated Desktop Pool
- Desktop VMs are automatically created via Horizon
Manual Desktop Pool
- Existing desktops can be used for the pool
RDS Desktop Pool
- Microsoft RDS desktops can be used
The Linked Clone, Full Clone] and the Instant Clone options with the Enterprise License are available for deployment. All three require a base VM (Golden Image). This golden image consists of the desktop operating system, the desired adjustments within the guest operating system and the Horizon Agent. For the provision of Linked Clone and Instant Clone desktops a snapshot of the Golden Image is required, for the Full Clone variant a VM template of the Golden Image is required.
Access to desktops and apps
Access to the resources (desktops and apps) can be done via the VMware Horizon Client or directly via web browser. Depending on the configured user rights, users log in to the Horizon Connection Server and receive an overview of the available Desktops and Apps. As standard protocol the VMware Blast Extreme[3] protocol is used, which has been optimized for VDI, alternatively the protocol can be changed to RDP or PCoIP.
Horizon Access with Horizon Client
Horizon Access via web browser
Overview of available resources in the web view
References
Author: Sebastian Köbke
