Mastering VMware Horizon 7.8 - Third Edition

Mastering VMware Horizon 7.8 - Third Edition

by Peter von Oven, Barry Coombs
Released March 2019
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781789802375

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Book description

Discover advanced virtualization techniques and strategies to deliver centralized desktop and application services

Key Features

  • Leverage advanced desktop virtualization techniques and strategies to transform your organization
  • Build better virtualized services for your users with VMware Horizon 7.8
  • Develop and deploy end-to-end virtualized solutions

Book Description

Desktop virtualization can be tough, but VMware Horizon 7.8 changes all that. With a rich and adaptive UX, improved security,and a range of useful features for storage and networking optimization, there's plenty to love.

But to properly fall in love with it, you need to know how to use it, and that means venturing deeper into the software and taking advantage of its extensive range of features, many of which are underused and underpromoted. This guide will take you through everything you need to know to not only successfully virtualize your desktop infrastructure, but also to maintain and optimize it to keep all your users happy.

We'll show you how to assess and analyze your infrastructure, and how to use that analysis to design a solution that meets your organizational and user needs. Once you've done that, you'll find out how to build your virtualized environment, before deploying your virtualized solution. But more than that,we'll also make sure you know everything you need to know about the full range of features on offer, including the mobile cloud, so that you can use them to take full control of your virtualized infrastructure.

What you will learn

  • Successfully configure Horizon 7.8 for the needs of your users
  • Deliver virtual desktops, session-based desktops, and hosted applications
  • Become familiar with how to develop, and deploy, a complete, end-to-end solution
  • Discover how to optimize desktop OS images for virtual desktops
  • Build, optimize, and tune desktop operating systems to deliver a superior end user experience
  • Explore the Horizon 7.8 infrastructure so that you can take full advantage of it

Who this book is for

This book is ideal for system admins, and solution architects interested in gaining hands-on experience with virtualization. It will take you to an advanced level, but at a pace that ensures you are always solving real-world problems. Some experience in desktop management using Windows and Microsoft Office (and familiarity with Active Directory, SQL, Windows Remote Desktop Session Hosting, and VMware vSphere technology) is necessary.

Publisher resources

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Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright and Credits
    1. Mastering VMware Horizon 7.8 Third Edition
  3. About Packt
    1. Why subscribe?
    2. Packt.com
  4. Contributors
    1. About the authors
    2. About the reviewers
    3. Packt is searching for authors like you
  5. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
      1. Download the color images
      2. Conventions used
    4. Get in touch
      1. Reviews
  6. Section 1: Installation and Configuration
  7. Introducing VDI and VMware Horizon 7
    1. What is VDI?
      1. VDI high-level architecture – how does it work?
      2. VDI versus server-based computing (SBC) – what are the differences?
    2. The benefits of deploying Horizon
    3. The history of VMware and VDI
    4. VMware Horizon 7
      1. VMware Horizon 7 timeline
    5. VMware Horizon 7 product editions
      1. Horizon for Linux
      2. Horizon Standard Edition
      3. Horizon Advanced Edition
      4. Horizon Enterprise Edition
      5. Horizon Apps Standard
      6. Horizon Apps Advanced
      7. Horizon editions overview and comparison
      8. Horizon user licensing models
    6. Summary
  8. Understanding Horizon 7 Architecture and Components
    1. Introducing the key Horizon components
    2. High-level architectural overview
      1. The Horizon View Connection Server
        1. How does the connection server work?
        2. Minimum requirements for the connection server
          1. Hardware requirements
          2. Supported OS
      2. The Horizon View security server
        1. How does the security server work?
      3. The Horizon View replica server
        1. How does the replica server work?
      4. The Horizon View enrolment server and True SSO
      5. VMware Unified Access Gateway
    3. Persistent or non-persistent desktops?
    4. Horizon View Composer and linked clones
      1. What is cloning?
      2. What is a full clone?
      3. What are linked clones?
      4. How do linked clones work?
      5. Creating linked clones
        1. Linked clone disk
        2. Persistent disk or user data disk
        3. Disposable disk
        4. Internal disk
      6. Understanding how the linked clone process works
        1. Creating and provisioning a new virtual desktop
        2. Customizing the desktop
      7. Linked clone features and functionality
        1. Recomposing a linked clone
        2. Refreshing a linked clone
        3. Rebalancing operations with View Composer
    5. Instant Clones
      1. Instant clone build process
      2. Instant clone benefits
    6. View Persona Management
      1. Why do we need to manage user profiles differently in VDI?
      2. The benefits of View Persona Management
    7. VMware UEM
      1. UEM or Persona Management?
    8. Printing from a virtual desktop machine
    9. Managing USB devices
      1. Filtering supported USB devices
      2. Managing multi-function USB devices
    10. ThinApp application virtualization
      1. How does application virtualization work?
    11. Antivirus software for virtual desktops
    12. Protocols – Delivering the virtual desktop experience
      1. PCoIP
        1. PCoIP host rendering
        2. Multi-codec support with PCoIP
        3. Controlling the image quality
        4. Dynamic networking capabilities
        5. PCoIP offloading with the Teradici PCoIP Hardware Accelerator
        6. Teradici host card for physical PCs
        7. How the PCoIP connection process works
      2. Blast Extreme
        1. How the Blast Extreme connection process works
      3. Alternative display protocols
        1. RDP
        2. ICA protocol
      4. Which protocol should you use – Blast Extreme, PCoIP, or RDP?
    13. Horizon View Hardware-accelerated graphics
      1. vSGA
        1. vSGA-supported graphics cards
        2. How many virtual desktops are supported by vSGA?
      2. vDGA
        1. How many virtual desktops are supported with vDGA?
        2. vDGA-supported graphics cards
      3. vGPU
        1. How many virtual desktops are supported with vGPU?
    14. Unified communications support
      1. How do unified communications work now?
      2. Support for Microsoft Skype
    15. Real-Time Audio-Video (RTAV)
      1. The issue
      2. How does RTAV fix this issue?
    16. URL Content Redirection
    17. Horizon clients
    18. Summary
  9. Design and Deployment Considerations
    1. Phase I – Project definition
      1. Step 1 – Identifying business drivers – understanding your needs and requirements
      2. Step 2 – Building the business case
      3. Step 3 – Assessment
        1. User experience and desktop analysis tools
        2. Understanding what do your users really do
        3. Applications
        4. Performance
        5. End user experience
        6. Floor walks, interviews, and department champions
        7. What are department champions?
      4. Step 4 – Defining the success criteria
    2. Phase II – Proving the technology
      1. Proof of concept (POC)
      2. Proof of technology (POT)
      3. Pilot
        1. Step 1 – Pilot design
        2. Step 2 – Deploying the pilot
        3. Step 3 – Testing the pilot
        4. Step 4 – Reviewing the pilot
    3. Phase III – Designing a production environment
    4. Technology choices
      1. Use case example – Scenario 1
        1. Solution recommendation
      2. Use case example – Scenario 2
        1. Solution recommendation
      3. Use case example – Scenario 3
        1. Solution recommendation
      4. Use case example – Scenario 4
        1. Solution recommendation
      5. Conclusions
      6. Preparing for production
    5. Horizon View pod and block architecture
    6. Cloud Pod Architecture
    7. vSphere design for Horizon View
      1. Configuration maximums
      2. ESXi host servers
        1. CPU and memory requirements for ESXi
          1. Overcommitting CPU and memory resources
          2. CPU and memory sizing
        2. Networking
        3. Graphics
        4. Storage
          1. Storage capacity
          2. Storage performance
    8. Horizon View design specifics
      1. The Horizon View Connection Server
      2. The Horizon View Replica Server
      3. The Horizon View Security Server
      4. The Horizon View Enrolment Server
      5. The Horizon View Composer
      6. vCenter Servers
      7. VMware Access Point
      8. Configuration maximums
      9. Networking
        1. Load balancing
      10. Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) design considerations
    9. Supporting infrastructure design
      1. Database requirements
      2. File servers
      3. IP addressing
      4. Antivirus
      5. Active Directory Group Policy
        1. Functionality
        2. Lockdown
        3. Performance and management
      6. Key Management Server (KMS)
    10. Printing
    11. Thin clients and other endpoint devices
    12. Desktop design considerations
      1. Pool design
      2. Sizing the virtual desktop machines
      3. Sizing the host server's CPU requirements to run virtual desktops
        1. Light user
        2. Medium user
        3. Heavy user
      4. Sizing the host server's memory requirements to run virtual desktops
      5. Linked Clone, Instant Clone, or Full Clone
      6. Persistent versus non-persistent
      7. Building a composite desktop
        1. Base layer
        2. Applications
        3. User profiles and user environment management
    13. Disaster recovery and backup
      1. Backup and recovery options
      2. Disaster recovery options
    14. Example solution scenario
      1. End user requirements
        1. Application developers
        2. Office workers
        3. Contractors
        4. Engineering
        5. Sales
      2. Desktop pool design
      3. Sizing the desktop blocks
      4. Sizing the storage requirements
      5. Sizing the management blocks
      6. Network sizing and requirements
    15. Summary
  10. Installing and Configuring Horizon 7 - Part 1
    1. Welcome to the lab environment
      1. What you need for the example lab
    2. Preparing AD
      1. AD user accounts
      2. vCenter user accounts
      3. View Composer user account
      4. View desktop Organizational Units (OUs)
      5. IP addressing and DNS requirements
    3. Installing Horizon View Composer Server
      1. Configuring SQL Server for a View Composer database
      2. View Composer installation
    4. Installing the Horizon View Connection Server
    5. Initial configuration of the Horizon View Connection Server
      1. Adding a license to the Connection Server
      2. Adding vCenter Server to View Administrator
      3. Configuring the View events database
    6. Summary
  11. Installing and Configuring Horizon 7 - Part 2
    1. Installing a Horizon View Replica Server
    2. Installing a Security Server
      1. Preparing View Administrator for the Security Server install
      2. Security Server software installation
    3. Installing an Enrollment Server
    4. Configuring Cloud Pod Architecture
      1. Initializing the Cloud Pod
      2. Connecting the second pod to the Cloud Pod
      3. Entitling users to the Cloud Pod
    5. Configuring View for GPU-enabled virtual desktops
      1. Configuring the ESXi host servers
    6. Summary
  12. Section 2: Building and Delivering the Virtual Desktop Experience
  13. Securing Horizon View with SSL Certificates
    1. Horizon View and SSL certificates
      1. What is a CA?
      2. Why do I need SSL certificates for Horizon View?
    2. Installing SSL certificates for Horizon View
      1. Installing a root CA
        1. Root CA post-deployment configuration tasks
      2. Installing an SSL certificate on the View Connection Server
      3. Post-certificate enrollment configuration tasks
    3. Horizon View True SSO
      1. Preparing AD for True SSO
      2. Creating a certificate template for TrueSSO
      3. Issuing the TrueSSO certificate template
      4. Certificate deployment
      5. Configuring True SSO on the Connection Server
    4. Summary
  14. Building and Optimizing the Virtual Desktop OS
    1. Best practices for building virtual desktop images
    2. Technical requirements
    3. Creating a Windows 7 virtual desktop machine
      1. Creating the virtual desktop machine container
      2. Updating the virtual desktop machine BIOS
      3. Operating system installation options
        1. Installing the guest operating system
        2. Installing VMware Tools
        3. Installing applications for the parent image
      4. Installing the Horizon Agent
      5. Optimizing the guest operating system
      6. Post-optimization tasks
    4. Creating a Windows 10 virtual desktop machine
      1. Creating the virtual desktop machine container
      2. Completing the Windows 10 build
    5. Creating a GPU-enabled virtual desktop machine
      1. Creating the virtual desktop machine container
      2. Installing the operating system for GPU-enabled desktops
      3. Completing the GPU-enabled desktop build
    6. Creating a Linux virtual desktop machine
      1. Completing the Linux virtual desktop build
      2. Installing the Horizon Agent
      3. Optimizing the guest operating system
    7. Preparing virtual desktops for delivery
      1. Pool design – a quick overview
      2. Creating a snapshot for linked clones
      3. Creating a snapshot for instant clones
      4. Creating a template for full clones
    8. Summary
  15. Configuring and Managing Desktop Pools - Part 1
    1. Types of desktop pools
    2. Automated desktop pools
      1. Creating dedicated, Linked Clone desktop pools
        1. Using the Horizon View Administrator Console
          1. General settings
          2. Remote Settings
          3. Remote Desktop Protocol settings
          4. Adobe Flash Settings
          5. Desktop Pool Sizing
          6. vCenter Settings
          7. Advanced Storage Options
        2. Horizon Console method
      2. Creating dedicated, Full Clone desktop pools
    3. Summary
  16. Configuring and Managing Desktop Pools - Part 2
    1. Creating floating, Linked Clone desktop pools
    2. Creating floating, Full Clone desktop pools
    3. Creating floating, Instant Clone desktop pools
      1. Configuring the Instant Clone domain administrator
      2. Creating the Instant Clone desktop pool
    4. Creating a manual desktop pool
    5. Adding end user entitlements
      1. Adding user entitlement using the Horizon View Administrator Classic console
      2. Adding user entitlement using the new Horizon console
    6. Managing Linked Clone desktop pools
      1. Recomposing a Linked Clone desktop pool
      2. Refreshing a Linked Clone desktop pool
      3. Rebalancing a Linked Clone desktop pool
      4. Managing persistent disks
        1. Detaching a persistent disk
        2. Attaching a persistent disk
    7. Reviewing the infrastructure post-deployment
    8. Summary
  17. Fine-Tuning the End User Experience
    1. Configuring and preparing AD
      1. Importing and applying Horizon View ADMX templates
      2. Creating an organizational unit (OU)
      3. Creating Group Policy Objects (GPO) for Horizon View
      4. Enabling the loopback policy
    2. Configuring Horizon View policy settings
      1. PCoIP Client Session Variables
      2. PCoIP Session Variables
      3. VMware Blast
      4. VMware Horizon Client Configuration
        1. Scripting definitions
        2. Security Settings
        3. View USB Configuration
          1. Settings not configurable by Agent
      5. VMware Horizon URL Redirection
      6. Horizon View Agent Configuration
        1. Agent Configuration
        2. Agent Security
        3. Collaboration
        4. Persona Management
          1. Desktop UI
          2. Folder Redirection
          3. Logging
          4. Roaming and Synchronization
          5. Troubleshooting
        5. Scanner Redirection
        6. Serial COM
          1. PortSettings
        7. Smartcard Redirection
          1. Local Reader Access
        8. True SSO Configuration
        9. Unity Touch and Hosted Apps
        10. View Agent Direct-Connection Configuration
        11. View RTAV Configuration
          1. View RTAV Webcam Settings
        12. View USB Configuration
          1. Client Downloadable only Settings
        13. VMware Client IP Transparency
        14. VMware Device Bridge
        15. VMware Flash MMR
        16. VMware HTML5 Features
          1. VMware Geolocation Redirection
          2. VMware HTML5 Multimedia Redirection
        17. VMware Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business
      7. VMware View Common Configuration
        1. Log Configuration
        2. Performance Alarms
        3. Security Configuration
      8. VMware View Server Configuration
    3. PCoIP tuning tool
      1. Activate Profile
      2. Manage Profiles
      3. Clear Profile Settings
      4. Show Session Stats
      5. Show Session Health
      6. Teradici support tools for PCoIP
    4. Monitoring the end user experience
    5. Summary
  18. Section 3: Advanced Features, Troubleshooting, and Upgrading an Environment
  19. Delivering Published Apps with Horizon 7
    1. Architectural overview
      1. Application connection sequence
    2. RDSH sizing guidelines
    3. Installing and configuring View-hosted apps
      1. Configuring the RDS server role
      2. Testing with the standard remote applications
      3. Installing additional applications
    4. Installing the Horizon Agent for RDSH
    5. Configuring published apps in the View Administrator
      1. Creating an application pool for published apps
      2. Entitling users to application pools
    6. Load-balancing published apps in Horizon View
    7. Summary
  20. Horizon Client Options
    1. VMware Horizon Clients
      1. Horizon Client for Windows
      2. Horizon Client for Android
      3. Horizon Client for iOS
      4. Horizon Client for Linux
      5. Horizon Client for macOS
      6. Horizon Client for Chrome OS
    2. Hardware clients
      1. Thin clients
      2. Zero Clients
      3. Repurposed PCs (software-defined thin clients)
    3. Accessing the desktop using a browser
    4. Summary
  21. Upgrading to a New Version of Horizon
    1. Upgrading compatibility
    2. Upgrading Horizon Composer
      1. Before you begin the upgrade
      2. Completing the View Composer upgrade
      3. Verifying the upgrade
    3. Upgrading the Horizon View Connection Server
      1. Before you begin the upgrade
      2. Completing the Connection Server upgrade
      3. Alternative View Connection Server upgrade method
    4. Upgrading the View Security Server
      1. Before you begin the upgrade
      2. Completing the View Security Server upgrade
    5. Upgrading group policy templates
    6. Upgrading the VMware Horizon Agent
    7. Upgrading the Horizon Client
    8. Summary
  22. JMP and VMware Horizon 7 Deployment Considerations
    1. How does JMP work?
    2. VMware Workspace ONE
    3. VMware App Volumes
      1. How does App Volumes work? Step 1 – app capture
      2. How does App Volumes work? Step 2 – app delivery
    4. Installing and configuring JMP
      1. Prerequisites
        1. VMware JMP component requirements
        2. VMware JMP hardware requirements
        3. VMware JMP software requirements
      2. Installing the JMP Server
        1. Syncing the time with Horizon Connection Server
      3. Adding JMP Server and its components to Horizon
      4. JMP assignments
    5. Summary
  23. Troubleshooting
    1. General troubleshooting tips
      1. Look at the bigger picture
      2. Is the issue affecting more than one user?
      3. Performance issues
        1. When a user reports performance issues
      4. Non-VDI related issues
      5. Bandwidth, connectivity, and networking
      6. Compute resources
      7. Disk
    2. Troubleshooting Horizon View issues
      1. Horizon View general infrastructure issues
      2. View infrastructure component issues
        1. Fixing View Composer issues with the ViewDBChk tool
    3. vRealize Operations for Horizon
    4. Liquidware Stratusphere UX
    5. Getting further help
    6. Summary
  24. What is New in Horizon 7
    1. Operating system and infrastructure updates
    2. Horizon management updates
      1. Horizon console updates
      2. View Administrator updates
      3. Help Desk Tool updates
    3. Scalability
    4. Enhancements to the end user experience
    5. Linux virtual desktop machine updates
    6. Platform updates
    7. Horizon Console updates
    8. Scalability
    9. RDSH improvements
    10. Horizon with VMware Cloud on AWS
    11. Horizon Agent updates
      1. Windows Agent
      2. Linux Agent
    12. Horizon Client
    13. Summary
  25. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

Product information

  • Title: Mastering VMware Horizon 7.8 - Third Edition
  • Author(s): Peter von Oven, Barry Coombs
  • Release date: March 2019
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781789802375