Horizon 7

Using a Mouse with my iPad Pro

~ vDelboy ~ 8 Comments

Earlier this Month VMware released the latest update to the Horizon Client for the iPad. Version 4.2 can be downloaded here

This brought a number of great updates but my favorite is the ability to use a Mouse with my iPad, yes that’s right when connected to a Horizon desktop or application I can now use a Bluetooth connected mouse.

The mouse that is supported is the SwiftPoint GT mouse, this is a great mouse and fantastic from people that travel with an iPad Pro


This mouse is extremely small but works really well, I have been using the iPad for travel for a few months now and it has been working well but when connected to a virtual desktop there is definitely something missing and that’s the mouse. I have tried to use the Apple Pencil and that works OK but it’s not as good as a mouse. The SwiftPoint GT fixes that problem and now I feel that when traveling with my iPad I have everything I need to do my job as if I was at my desk.

If you would like more details on the SwiftPoint GT mouse you can find it here.

Configuring VMware Identity Manager and VMware Horizon 7 Cloud Pod Architecture

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With the release of VMware Horizon® 7 and VMware Identity Manager™ 2.6, it is now possible to configure VMware Identity Manager to work with Horizon Cloud Pod Architecture when deploying your desktop and application pools over multiple data centers or locations.

Using VMware Identity Manager in front of your VMware Horizon deployments that are using Cloud Pod Architecture makes it much easier for users to get access to their desktops and applications. The user has just one place to connect to, and they will be able to see all of their available desktops and applications. Identity Manager will direct the user to the application hosted in the best datacenter for their location. This can also include SaaS applications as well as the applications that are available through VMware Horizon 7.

For the full blog please see my blog on VMware.com

http://blogs.vmware.com/consulting/2016/07/configuring-vmware-identity-manager.html

VMware Horizon 7 New Features

~ vDelboy ~ 5 Comments

With the release of VMware Horizon 7 I thought I would try and highlight some of the new features that have now been added with this released.

Blast Extreme Protocol

With the update to Blast Extreme, VMware has upgraded the Blast Extreme protocol to the same level as PCoIP and RDP. Now not only will you be able to use the Blast Extreme protocol when connecting via HTML5, but now when you connect to a Virtual desktop or RDSH App using your Horizon client on any device you will be able to connect using the Blast Extreme protocol.

Just as with PCoIP and RDP, Horizon Administrators will be able to configure the Blast Extreme protocol as the default protocol for both desktop and application pools.

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Blast Extreme will not only be available for standard desktop and application pools but also Global pools when configured with Cloud Pod Architecture

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As time permits I will write another blog with more details around the new Blast Extreme protocol so watch this space

VMware Instant Clone Technology

VMware Instant Clones is the long awaited technology that is built on the VMware Fork technology that was previewed at VMworld and VMware has been working on for some time. VMware Instant Clones is helping to create the Just in Time desktop and it allows for a new virtual desktop to be created in seconds and thousands of virtual desktops to be created in a very short time. This is one of the best features of the Horizon 7 release and I believe that Horizon Administrators are going to love creating desktop pools using this new Instant Clone Technology.

For information on configuring the new Horizon Instant Clone technology see my blog here

Cloud Pod Architecture

The two main updates to Cloud Pod Architecture are Scale and Home Site improvements.

I have written two new blogs to cover these new updates you can find them below

Cloud Pod Architecture New Features

Update to How CPA Home Sites Work with Horizon 7

Smart Policies

The new Smart Policies are a way to have more granular control of what users can do when they connect to their virtual desktop or applications. With the first release of Smart Policies you will be able to manage these capabilities based on the following conditions

  • Horizon Conditions
    • View Client Info (IP & Name)
    • Endpoint location (Internal/External)
    • Tags
    • Desktop Pool name
  • Horizon Capabilities
    • Clipboard
    • Client Drive
    • USB
    • Printing
    • PCoIP bandwidth profiles

For more information on these Capabilities see my more detailed blog Here

It should be noted to use Smart Policies you will need Horizon 7 and User Environment Manager 9. You would also need the latest View Agent and Clients installed to take advantage of these new features. The other thing to note is that these policies only work with the PCoIP and BLAST Extreme protocols and not RDP.

Desktop Pool Deletion

The Desktop Pool Deletion feature is often a request from customers to make it possible to stop Administrators from deleting a desktop pool that currently has active desktops with in the pool. With Horizon 6.x and earlier it was possible that an administrator could accidentally delete the wrong desktop pool and all the VM’s with in that pool. This feature when enabled would stop that from happening.

To enable this feature follow the instructions in my blog Here

 

These are just some of the new features that have been released with Horizon 7. For a full list of the new features check out the release notes here.

I also posted this blog on VMware.com here

 

Horizon 7 Desktop Pool Deletion Feature

~ vDelboy ~ 3 Comments

One of the great new features in VMware Horizon 7 is the ability to stop desktop administrators from accidentally deleting a desktop pool that is currently full of active desktops. Once this feature is enabled the administrator will have to delete all of the desktops before deleting the desktop pool.

In this blog I will document how to configure the Desktop Pool Deletion feature. Before you configure this setting you should be aware that this is a global setting and as such once enabled it will be enabled for all desktop and application pools.

Follow these steps to enable the Desktop Pool Deletion feature

  1. Upgrade all Connections Servers to Horizon 6.2
    1. Note that signed Certificates are required
  2. Start the ADSI Edit utility on the View Connection Server host.2015-09-07_10-17-37
  3. In the Connection Settings dialog box, select or connect to DC=vdi,DC=vmware,DC=int
  4. In the Computer pane, select or type localhost:3892015-09-07_10-26-55
  5. Double click on the object CN=Common, OU=Global, OU=Properties2015-09-07_10-29-59
  6. Edit the pae-NameValuePair attribute
  7. Add the value cs-disableNonEmptyPoolDelete=1
  8. Click Add and OK
  9. Now when you try and delete a pool you will see the following message3

 

VMware Horizon Smart Policies

~ vDelboy ~ 3 Comments

With the release of VMware Horizon 7 and User Environment Manager 9 VMware has introduced Smart Policy’s to help administrators manage their Virtual environments better and improve what users can get access to and from where.

Smart Policys can be set on the following conditions

  • View Client Info (IP & Name)
  • Endpoint location (Internal/External)
  • Horizon Tags
  • Desktop Pool name

Below is a list of the smart policy that can be set and how they can be used by the Horizon administrators.

Clipboard

  • Enable
  • Disable
  • Allow Copy from Client to Agent
  • Allow Copy from Agent to Client

Client Drive

  • Disable
  • Allow All
  • Read Only

USB

  • Enable
  • Disable

Printing

  • Enable
  • Disable

PCoIP bandwidth profiles

  • High-Speed (20 Mbps)
  • LAN (10Mbps or Higher)
  • Dedicated WAN (5Mbps default)
  • Broadband WAN (2Mbps)
  • Low-Speed (1Mbps)
  • Extremely low-speed connections (up to 500Kbps)

The following table shows when to use the best bandwidth profile and for what use cases

Description BW(Mbps) typical network typical user
1 Best User Experience(workstation) 20 LAN M&E CAD/CAM
2 Best User Experience(VDI) 10 LAN – MAN Knowledge worker, video
3 Default Setting 5 WAN Task worker, light video
4 Optimal User Experience 2 WAN Office Apps
5 Prioritize Bandwidth 1 WAN Basic Apps only
6 Minimum Bandwidth 0.5 WAN Low Data Entry

The following table shows how the PCoIP profile is tuned based on the profile selected

GPO 1 2 3 4 5 6
Max Session BW (kbps) 9000 9000 9000 5000 2000 1000
Min Session BW (kbps) 100 100 100 100 100 100
Enable BTL 1 2 0 0 0 0
Max Initial Image Quality 100 90 80 70 70 70
Minimum Image Quality 50 50 40 40 30 30
Max FPS 60 30 30 20 15 5
Max Audio Bandwidth (kbps) 1600 1600 500 500 200 90
Image Quality performance. 50 50 50 50 25 0

 

To take advantage of these new Smart Policy you will need to use Horizon 7 and User Environment Manager 9 and have the latest Horizon Agents and Clients installed. It should also be noted that these policy only work with the PCoIP and BLAST Extreme protocols and not RDP.

For information on more new feature released with Horizon 7 see the following blog

VMware Horizon 7 New Features

VMware Horizon 7 Home Sites

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When VMware released Horizon 6 last year they added the ability to configure Cloud Pod Architecture from with in the management console. The one thing that was missing from the management console was the ability to configure user’s homes sites. I am happy to say that with the release of Horizon 7 you can now configure and manage a user’s home site from with in the management console, making this task much easier.

The following is how you can configure a user’s home site.

  1. From within the console select Users and Groups and then select Home Sites

Picture1

  1. Click Add
  2. Search for a user and click Next

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  1. Choose the users Home Site and click Finish

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You can also easily change a user’s home site. Simply select the user and click Edit

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From there you can change the user’s home site.

Cloud Pod Architecture New Features

~ vDelboy ~ 3 Comments

With the release of VMware Horizon 7 there have been a few changes to Cloud Pod Architecture and all for the good.

The first change is a change to how Home Sites are handled, for more information on this please see my blog here.

The other change is around the sizing of Cloud Pod Architecture, below you will see the changes in numbers between VMware Horizon 6 and VMware Horizon 7

Horizon 6 Horizon 7
Total Number of Sessions 20,000 50,000
Total Number of Sites 2 5
Total Number of Pods 4 25

As you can see there is a significant increase in the number of supported sessions as well as the number of Sites and Pods supported. This will greatly help in growing the large Horizon deployments around the world.

Update to How CPA Home Sites Work with Horizon 7

~ vDelboy ~ 7 Comments

Several months ago I wrote a blog on how Home Sites work with VMware Horizon 6 Cloud Pod Architecture (CPA), you can find the blog here.

With the release of VMware Horizon 7 the way CPA handles Home Sites has been updated so the users with a Home Site will always receive a Desktop or App even if their Home Site is down.

Lets first review what would happen if a users Home Site was down. As you can see in the diagram below the Connection Brokers would return an issue that their Home Site was not available and the user would not be connected to a desktop.

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Just as with Horizon 6 with Horizon 7 when the users Home Site is available then the user will always receive the desktop from the Home Site as the diagram below shows.

 

Here is where we see a change. Now with Horizon 7 if a users Home Site is off-line then the user will still receive a desktop this time from one of the other sites within the Global Pool. As shown below.

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Once the Home Site comes back on-line the next time the user logs back in they will automatically be given a desktop from the Home Site once again.