Earlier this week I posted a blog about using Home Sites with in VMware Horizon Cloud Pod Architecture. You can find the blog here. In this blog I want to talk about the effects of using dedicated pools with in Cloud Pod Architecture and how that will affect desktop assignments as this is also something I get asked about on a regular basis.

Just as when creating desktop pools with in Horizon View when you create a Global Pool using Cloud Pod Architecture you have the option to create a Floating or dedicated pool assignment. It should be noted that if the Global Pool is dedicated then on local pools with dedicated assignments can join that Global Pool, this is just the same if the Global Pool has floating assignments then only local pools with floating assignments can be part of that pool.

Now let’s look at how dedicated pools will affect the user in the following scenario’s.

The first time a user logs in to a global pool the user is assigned a desktop. In the picture below on the left as the user first logs in from Site A they are assigned a desktop with in Site A. Even when the user logs in from Site B they still get the same desktop from Site A as you can see from the picture on the right.

Now let’s see what happens if Site A goes off line. As Site A is off line the user no longer has a dedicated desktop and so the connection broker on Site B thinks this is the first time the user has logged in. At this time the user is assigned a new dedicated desktop as you can see from the picture below.

Now what happens when Site A come back on Line. As you can see from the picture below the connection broker has an issue as the user now has 2 desktops assigned to the one user with in a single Global Pool.

Instead of getting a desktop the user will see the following message

In order to fix this issue, an administrator must log in to the Horizon Console and remove the user entitlement from one of the desktops with in the Global Pool.

I hope this helps explain how dedicated desktops will affect users and your designs when using Cloud Pod Architecture.

As VMware Horizon View deployments start to get much larger in numbers more and more people are starting to look at using Cloud Pod Architecture as a way to deploy their environments. Over the last few weeks this has lead to me getting a number of questions around how do Home Sites work.

The first thing you should know about Home Sites is they can not be assigned through the UI of the connection broker and currently must be done using the lmvutil command via a command prompt. For more information on assigning Home Sites you can see the commands here.

OK so what do Home Sites mean to our users. Lets first look at what happens when a user is NOT assigned a Home Site.

In the diagram below on the left the user connect from Site B so is directed to the connection server on Site B as there is capacity for the user in Site B the user is then assigned a desktop.

In the diagram on the right Site B is Off Line so the user is directed to the connection server on Site A and then assigned a desktop from the Global Pool on Site A

Now let’s look at what will happen if the user has a Home Site assigned to them.

As you can see in the diagram below on the left the user has been assigned to a Home Site on Site B. When the user connect the user is directed to the connection server on Site B and then assigned a desktop from the Global Pool on Site B.

Now in the diagram on the right the user is connecting from Site A and although they connect through the connection server on Site A they are still assigned a desktop from Site B (their Home Site)

Now let’s look at what happens when the users Home Site is down or off line.

As you can see from the diagram below if the users Home Site is down or off line the user is NOT assigned a desktop.

As you can see assigning a user a Home Site can have consequences if the Home Site goes down or off line, this is defiantly something you should keep in mind when using Cloud Pod Architecture.