Implementing VMware Horizon 7 - Second Edition

Book description

A comprehensive, practical guide to accessing virtual desktops, applications, and services through a unified platform

About This Book

  • This is the first book on the market that delivers desktops and applications through a single Virtual Desktop Infrastructure platform
  • Reduce enterprise costs by dynamically allocating resources with virtual storage, compute and networking
  • This comprehensive guide provides simplified operations, improved security, and accelerated time-to-value using VMware Horizon 7

Who This Book Is For

If you are a newcomer to system administration, and you wish to implement the Horizon environment, then this book is for you. Prior knowledge of Horizon is beneficial.

What You Will Learn

  • Walk through the configuration of VMware Horizon, including the new Horizon Access Point appliance
  • Implement a multi-site VMware Horizon pod using the Cloud Pod Architecture feature
  • Understand the integration between VMware Horizon and VSAN, and see how they are deployed together
  • Explore how to implement and maintain Microsoft RDS and Linux and Windows Desktop Pools Create and optimize desktop master images.
  • Understand how to manage the SSL certificates for each of the VMware Horizon components.

In Detail

VMware Horizon 7 has been a buzz since it was announced. One of the major reasons is the introduction of the new Instant Clones feature. This book will complement the product documentation by providing real-life examples of how it is implemented along with the latest features and components of the platform.

We'll explore the latest features of the platform, including those added through product acquisitions such as User Environment Manager and App Volumes. Further on, you will also be introduced to the new capabilities added to the core product such Linked-Clone RDS pools.

Upon completion of this book, you will have an understanding of the capabilities and benefits VMware Horizon can provide to your organization, and how each of its components are implemented.

Style and approach

This comprehensive guide focuses on the practicality of VMware Horizon and how you can implement it in your organization.

Table of contents

  1. Implementing VMware Horizon 7 Second Edition
    1. Implementing VMware Horizon 7 Second Edition
    2. Credits
    3. About the Author
    4. About the Reviewer
    5. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Why subscribe?
      2. Free access for Packt account holders
    6. Preface
      1. Why virtualize our end user computing resources?
      2. What this book covers
      3. What you need for this book
      4. Who this book is for
      5. Conventions
      6. Reader feedback
      7. Customer support
        1. Downloading the color images of this book 
        2. Errata
        3. Piracy
        4. Questions
    7. 1. VMware Horizon Infrastructure Overview
      1. VMware Horizon components
        1. Horizon Connection Server
        2. Horizon Security Server
        3. Horizon Access Point
        4. Horizon Enrollment Server
        5. VMware vSphere
        6. VMware vCenter Server
        7. Horizon Composer
        8. Horizon Agent
        9. Horizon Client
        10. VMware App Volumes
        11. VMware User Environment Manager
        12. VMware ThinApp
      2. VMware Horizon licensing
      3. VMware Horizon core infrastructure requirements
        1. Microsoft infrastructure requirements
        2. Operating system requirements
        3. Database requirements
        4. vCenter Server requirements
        5. Horizon Agent supported operating systems
      4. VMware Horizon design overview
        1. Measuring Virtual Desktop resource requirements
        2. The need for vSphere reserve capacity
        3. Providing sufficient Horizon Client bandwidth
        4. The importance of a VMware Horizon pilot
          1. Performance is the key
      5. Summary
    8. 2. Implementing Horizon Connection Server
      1. Overview of VMware Horizon Connection Server
      2. Horizon Connection Server requirements
        1. Hardware requirements
        2. Software requirements
        3. Limits of a Horizon Connection Server
        4. Load balancing Connection Servers
          1. Load-balancing appliances
        5. vCenter Server requirements
      3. Horizon installation prerequisites
        1. Infrastructure and other prerequisites
        2. Create a vCenter role and grant permissions
        3. Horizon event database
      4. Deploying the first Horizon Connection Server
        1. Installing the first Horizon Connection Server
        2. Configuring the first Horizon Connection Server
      5. Configuring the Horizon Instant Clone Engine
        1. Configuring the Instant Clone Engine AD user account
        2. Update the Instant Clone Engine Domain Administrator setting
      6. Deploying a Horizon Replica Connection Server
        1. Installing a Horizon Replica Connection Server
      7. Upgrading an existing Horizon Connection Server
        1. Upgrading prerequisites
          1. Backing up the existing Horizon configuration
        2. Horizon upgrade process
      8. Backing up a Horizon Connection Server
        1. Backing up the vCenter Server database
        2. Backing up the Horizon AD LDS database
      9. Horizon Connection Server recovery
        1. Restoring a single Horizon Connection Server
        2. Removing a Horizon Connection Server
        3. Restoring the vCenter database
        4. Restoring the Horizon Connection Server AD LDS database
      10. Summary
    9. 3. Implementing Horizon Composer
      1. Overview of VMware Horizon Composer
        1. Refreshing linked clone desktops
        2. Recomposing linked clone desktops
      2. Horizon Composer requirements
        1. Hardware requirements
      3. Limits of Horizon Composer
      4. Horizon Composer installation prerequisites
        1. Horizon Composer service account
          1. Horizon Composer vCenter permissions
            1. Create a Horizon Composer vCenter role and grant permissions
          2. Horizon Composer Active Directory permissions
          3. Delegate permissions for Horizon Composer in Active Directory
        2. Horizon Composer database
      5. Deploying Horizon Composer
        1. Installing Horizon Composer
      6. Configuring Horizon Composer
      7. Backing up Horizon Composer
        1. Backing up the Horizon Composer database
        2. Backing up the Horizon Composer SSL certificates
      8. Horizon Composer recovery
        1. Restoring the Horizon Composer database
        2. Restoring the Horizon Composer SSL certificates
          1. Restoring Horizon Composer with a new default SSL certificate
          2. Restoring Horizon Composer with a custom SSL certificate
      9. Summary
    10. 4. Implementing Horizon Security Server
      1. Horizon Security Server overview
      2. Horizon Security Server limits
      3. Horizon Security Server additional considerations
        1. High availability overview
      4. Security Server network requirements
      5. Installing and configuring Horizon Security Server
        1. Installation prerequisites
        2. Security Server pairing password
      6. Deploying a Horizon Security Server
        1. Enable PCoIP Secure Gateway
        2. Installing a Horizon Security Server
      7. Updating the Horizon Security Server settings
        1. Horizon Security Server options
      8. Horizon Security Server backup
      9. Horizon Security Server recovery or upgrade
      10. Summary
    11. 5. Implementing VMware Horizon Access Point
      1. Horizon Access Point overview
      2. Horizon Access Point limits
      3. Horizon Access Point additional considerations
        1. High availability overview
      4. Horizon Access Point network requirements
      5. Preparing the infrastructure for a Horizon Access Point
        1. Installation prerequisites
      6. Deploying a Horizon Access Point
        1. Configuring the Connection Servers
        2. Deploying a Horizon Access Point
      7. Troubleshooting a Horizon Access Point deployment
      8. Updating the Horizon Access Point configuration
      9. Summary
    12. 6. Implementing a Horizon Cloud Pod
      1. Horizon Cloud Pod overview
        1. Sharing key data in the Horizon Cloud Pod Global Data Layer
        2. Sending messages between Horizon pods
        3. Cloud Pod port requirements
        4. Cloud Pod topology limits
      2. Configuring a Horizon Cloud Pod
        1. Configuring Horizon sites
        2. Associating users with Horizon sites
      3. Creating Cloud Pod Global Entitlements
        1. Create and configure a Global Entitlement for a Horizon desktop pool
        2. Create and configure a Global Entitlement for a Horizon application pool
      4. Removing a Horizon pod from a Cloud Pod
      5. Updating the settings of a Global Entitlement
        1. Editing the general settings of a Global Entitlement
      6. Determining the effective home site of a user or security group
      7. Monitoring Global Entitlement Horizon client sessions
      8. Summary
    13. 7. Using VMware Virtual SAN with Horizon
      1. Introduction
      2. Common VMware Virtual SAN terms
      3. Sizing a Horizon environment for Virtual SAN
        1. ESXi Server CPU requirements
        2. VSAN disk requirements
          1. Determining the total number of ESXi server disks required
            1. Magnetic disk capacity sizing
            2. Flash capacity sizing
        3. Sample VSAN storage sizing exercise
        4. Calculating the total number of VSAN objects required
      4. Virtual SAN and the vSphere VSAN SPBM framework
        1. Number of disk stripes per object
        2. Flash read cache reservation (%)
        3. Number of Failures to Tolerate
        4. Object space reservation (%)
      5. VMware Virtual SAN configuration overview
      6. Deploy VMware Virtual SAN
        1. Configuring the ESXi server Virtual SAN VMkernel adapters
        2. Enabling and configuring VSAN
      7. Using VSAN with VMware Horizon
      8. Summary
    14. 8. Implementing VMware User Environment Manager
      1. User Environment Manager overview
      2. User Environment Manager pre-installation tasks
        1. Configuration share
        2. Persona share
        3. Windows user folder redirection share
        4. Group policy files
      3. Installing the User Environment Manager Agent
      4. Configuring User Environment Manager
        1. Installing the User Environment Manager management console
        2. Easy Start configuration
        3. Easy Start defaults
        4. User Environment Manager group policy settings
          1. UEM user policies
          2. UEM computer policies
          3. Windows folder redirection
      5. Advanced UEM configuration examples
        1. Personalization
          1. Application profile Import / Export feature
        2. User Environment
          1. Shortcut management feature
      6. Summary
    15. 9. Implementing VMware App Volumes
      1. App Volumes overview
      2. App Volumes prerequisites
        1. vCenter permissions
      3. Configuring App Volumes Manager
      4. Deploying additional App Volumes Manager servers
        1. Deploy additional App Volumes Manager servers in a single vCenter environment
        2. Deploying App Volumes in Multi-site and Multi-vCenter Environments
      5. Installing the App Volumes Agent
        1. Configuring native load balancing for the App Volumes Agent software
      6. Installing the AppCapture program
      7. Creating an AppStack
        1. Updating an AppStack
      8. Assigning AppStacks
      9. Deleting AppStacks assignments
      10. Enabling Writable Volumes
      11. Disabling Writable Volumes
      12. App Volumes backup and recovery
        1. What to backup
        2. Recovery process
      13. App Volumes references
      14. Summary
    16. 10. Creating Horizon Desktop Pools
      1. Horizon desktop pool overview
      2. Desktop pool common terms
      3. Horizon desktop pool options
        1. Horizon Composer linked clones
        2. Instant Clone desktops
        3. Full clone desktops
        4. Linux desktops
      4. QuickPrep versus Sysprep
      5. Advantages of linked or Instant Clone desktops
      6. Considerations for linked and Instant Clone desktops
      7. Creating a Horizon desktop pool
        1. Creating a pool using Horizon Composer linked clones
        2. Creating a pool using Horizon Instant Clones
        3. Creating a pool using full clones
      8. Monitoring the desktop creation process
        1. Horizon Administrator console
        2. The vSphere Web client task window
      9. Common provisioning problems
      10. Managing Horizon Desktop pool entitlements
      11. Summary
    17. 11. Implementing Horizon Application Pools
      1. Configuring a Windows RDS server for use with Horizon
        1. Windows RDS licensing
        2. Windows RDS host recommended hardware configuration
        3. Importing the Horizon RDS AD group policy templates
        4. Installing the Horizon Agent on the Windows RDS host
        5. vSphere customization specification for the Windows RDS servers
        6. Additional resources related to using Windows RDS servers
      2. Creating a Windows RDS farm in Horizon
      3. Creating a Horizon application pool
      4. Using the Horizon client to access application pools
      5. Monitoring the status of Horizon application pool clients and RDS servers
      6. Modifying or deleting a Horizon application pool
      7. Managing a Horizon RDS farm or server
      8. Summary
    18. 12. Performing Horizon Desktop Pool Maintenance
      1. An overview of instant and linked clone maintenance
        1. Instant clone parent image update
        2. Linked clone desktop refresh
        3. Linked clone desktop recompose
        4. Linked clone desktop rebalance
      2. Managing Horizon maintenance tasks
      3. Global settings for Horizon maintenance
        1. Logoff warning and timeout
        2. Concurrent maintenance operations
        3. Storage overcommit
          1. Updating datastore storage overcommit settings
      4. Performing linked clone desktop maintenance
        1. Refreshing linked clone desktops
        2. Refreshing individual desktops
        3. Recomposing linked clone desktops
        4. Recomposing individual desktops
        5. Rebalancing linked clone desktops
        6. Rebalancing individual desktops
      5. Performing instant clone desktop maintenance
        1. Updating the instant clone desktop parent image
        2. Recover an individual instant clone desktop
      6. Managing Horizon Composer persistent disks
        1. Detaching persistent disks
        2. Recreating a desktop using a persistent disk
        3. Attaching a detached persistent disk to an existing desktop
        4. Importing a persistent disk
      7. Summary
    19. 13. Creating a Master Horizon Desktop Image
      1. The importance of desktop optimization
      2. Optimization results – Horizon desktop IOPS
      3. Optimization results – CPU utilization
      4. Customizing the Windows desktop OS cluster size
        1. Customizing the Windows cluster size during the installation process
      5. Permanently removing Windows Store applications
      6. Windows OS pre-deployment tasks
        1. Installing VMware Tools
      7. Removing unwanted application – native update features
        1. Disabling the Adobe Acrobat Reader DC update feature
        2. Disabling the Java updater utility
      8. Windows OS optimizations
        1. Disabling Windows Error Reporting
        2. Disabling automatic updates
        3. Removing unnecessary Windows components
        4. Pre-compiling Microsoft .NET Framework assemblies
        5. Disabling Windows hibernation
        6. Disabling Windows System Restore
        7. Sizing virtual machine RAM properly
        8. Setting the Windows page file to a fixed size
        9. Disabling paging the executive
        10. Disabling Content Indexing of the desktop drive
        11. Disabling Content Indexing for the remaining file locations
        12. Disabling unnecessary services
          1. SuperFetch
        13. Removing unnecessary scheduled tasks
        14. Changing the Group Policy refresh interval
        15. Disabling the Windows boot animation
        16. Optimizing the Windows profile
          1. Adjusting for best performance
          2. Turning off system sounds
          3. Disabling the Windows background and screen saver
      9. Summary
    20. 14. Managing Horizon SSL Certificates
      1. Creating a Local Computer Certificates console
      2. Requesting a certificate using Microsoft Active Directory Certificate Services
      3. Requesting a certificate with Subject Alternative Names
      4. Converting a certificate from PFX to PEM format
      5. Replacing a Horizon Connection Server certificate
      6. Replacing a Horizon Security Server certificate
      7. Replacing a Horizon Composer certificate
      8. Replacing a Horizon Access Point certificate
      9. Replacing an App Volumes Manager server certificate
      10. Summary
    21. 15. Using Horizon PowerCLI
      1. Enabling remote management on Windows
        1. Enabling WinRM
        2. Establishing a remote Horizon PowerCLI session
      2. Viewing all the PowerCLI commands and their options
        1. Listing all Horizon PowerCLI commands
        2. Displaying the options for a single PowerCLI command
      3. Sample data for Horizon PowerCLI commands
      4. Horizon PowerCLI commands not covered in this chapter
      5. Configuring the Horizon infrastructure
        1. Adding a vCenter Server to Horizon
        2. Updating the settings of vCenter Server that is linked to Horizon
        3. Removing a vCenter Server from Horizon
        4. Updating the Horizon connection broker settings
        5. Updating the Horizon global settings
        6. Configuring the Horizon license
      6. Administering Horizon desktop pools
        1. Create a dedicated assignment persistent linked clone pool
        2. Create a floating assignment (non-persistent) linked clone pool
        3. Creating an automatically provisioned full clone desktop pool
        4. Creating a manually provisioned desktop pool
        5. Updating the configuration of a Horizon desktop pool
          1. Updating a linked clone pool
          2. Updating an automatically provisioned full clone pool
          3. Updating a manually provisioned pool
        6. Refreshing a linked clone desktop or pool
        7. Recomposing a linked clone desktop pool
        8. Rebalancing a linked clone desktop pool
        9. Resetting a Horizon desktop
      7. Managing Horizon Client entitlements and sessions
        1. Adding desktop pool entitlements
        2. Removing desktop pool entitlements
        3. Entitling or un-entitling an individual desktop
        4. Disconnecting the Horizon Client session
        5. Logging off the Horizon Client session
      8. Working with Horizon desktop network label Specifications
        1. Sample network label specification file
        2. Export a linked clone network label specification
        3. Exporting a full clone network label specification
      9. Retrieving information about the Horizon infrastructure
        1. Retrieving Horizon Composer server information
        2. Retrieving a list of the Horizon desktop pools
        3. Retrieving the global Horizon configuration data
        4. Retrieving the Horizon connection broker information
        5. Retrieving a list of virtual machines managed by Horizon
        6. Retrieving the AD user or group information
        7. Retrieving information about user persistent data disks
        8. Retrieving the Horizon event reports and their descriptions
        9. Retrieving the Horizon event reports
        10. Retrieving the Horizon infrastructure health monitors and their statuses
        11. Retrieving information about remote Horizon sessions
        12. Retrieving a list of the vCenter Servers linked to the Horizon environment
        13. Retrieving the Horizon license information
        14. Reviewing the desktop pool entitlement
      10. Summary

Product information

  • Title: Implementing VMware Horizon 7 - Second Edition
  • Author(s): Jason Ventresco
  • Release date: June 2016
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781785889301