VMware Horizon 7 – Cloud Pod Architecture

Navigation

This post applies to all VMware Horizon 7 versions including 7.13 (ESB) and 7.10.3 (ESB).

• Change Log
• Planning
• Initialize First Pod
• Additional Pods – Join Federation
• Global Entitlements
• Monitoring
• Home Sites

Change Log

• 2019 Jul 7 – Home Sites – updated override instructions for Horizon Console 7.9
• 2019 Mar 23 – added Horizon Console screenshots to entire article
• 2018 Jan 28 – in Planning section, added TCP 135 to firewall rules list (source = Ray Heffer VMware Horizon 7.4 Network Ports for Cloud Pod Architecture)

Planning

Cloud Pod Architecture lets you publish a single icon that load balances connections across multiple pools in multiple pods in multiple sites (datacenters).

• Global Entitlements – Entitlements are the same thing as published icons. When you create an entitlement (local or global), you are publishing an icon from a pool.
  • For local entitlement, the icon is only published from one pool.
  • For global entitlement, the icon can be published from multiple pools. The pools can be in one pod or from multiple pods.
  • Don’t configure both global and local entitlements for the same pool.
  • A single pool can only belong to one global entitlement.
  • For applications, only one application per global entitlement.
• Pod Federation – Global entitlements can’t be created until a Pod Federation is created. This federation could be one pod or multiple pods.
  • The pods can be separated into sites. Each site can contain multiple pods.
• Global Load Balancing – Use NetScaler GSLB or F5 GTM to connect Horizon Clients to a globally available Horizon Connection Server. The connected Horizon Connection Server then uses Global Entitlements to select a site/pod/pool.
  • When a user launches a Global Entitlement, the Connection Server selects a pod based on the Global Entitlement Scoping, which can be All Sites, Within site, or Within Pod. This is from the perspective of the Connection Server the user is currently connected to. Horizon will prefer the local pod if possible.
  • Users or groups can be assigned to Home Sites. Global Entitlements can be configured to prefer Home Sites over the normal site/pod selection criteria.
• Dedicated Assignment – For Dedicated Assignment pools, global entitlement only helps with the initial connection. Once the user is assigned to a desktop then that desktop is always selected. Users are not automatically provided with a desktop from another site if the site containing their dedicated desktop has gone down. The desktop request will fail because the dedicated desktop isn’t available. The administrator could configure a separate Global Entitlement for the users to provide a floating desktop until such time the original site recovers. That floating entitlement should be arranged to deliver desktops from other sites as required.
• Firewall Ports – The Horizon Connection Servers participating in Cloud Pod Architecture communicate with each other over TCP 135, TCP 22389, TCP 22636, and TCP 8472. Make sure these ports are open. More info at Ray Heffer VMware Horizon 7.4 Network Ports for Cloud Pod Architecture.
  
• RBAC – View Administrator includes a new administrator privilege: Manage Global Sessions. The regular Administrators role has access to multiple pods. The new Local Administrators role can only manage the local pod.

Cloud Pod Limits in Horizon 7.11 and newer:

• Max users = 250,000
• Max Pods = 50
• Max Sessions per Pod = 12,000
• Max Sites = 15
• Max Connection Servers per Pod = 7
• Max Horizon Connection Server Instances = 350

Cloud Pod Limits in Horizon 7.8 and newer:

• Max users = 250,000
• Max Pods = 50
• Max Sessions per Pod = 10,000
• Max Sites = 15
• Max Connection Servers per Pod = 7
• Max Horizon Connection Server Instances = 350

Cloud Pod Limits in Horizon 7.6:

• Max users = 200,000
• Max Pods = 25
• Max Sessions per Pod = 10,000
• Max Sites = 10
• Max Connection Servers per Pod = 7
• Max Horizon Connection Server Instances = 175

Traffic flow (Rob Beekmans – VMware Horizon View Cloud Pod – unwanted routing?):

• Use F5 GTM or NetScaler GSLB to connect users to a Horizon Connection Server in any pod. If active/active, use proximity load balancing to control which pod is initially accessed.
• The Horizon Connection Server looks up the Global Entitlements to determine the destination pod for the Pool.
• User’s PCoIP session goes through the initially connected Horizon Connection Server and across the DCI (Datacenter Interconnect) circuit to the remote pod. There’s no way to re-route Blast/PCoIP through a Horizon Connection Server in the remote pod. In fact, the Horizon Connection Servers in the remote pod are never accessed. You need sufficient DCI bandwidth to handle this Blast/PCoIP traffic.

For more information on multi-datacenter design for Horizon 7, see VMware Horizon 7 Enterprise Edition Multi-Site Reference Architecture, which is an 88-page document that includes the following:

• Identity Manager
• App Volumes
• Horizon 7 Cloud Pod Architecture
• User Environment Manager
• SQL AlwaysOn Availability Groups
• Nnetworking
• Storage (e.g vSAN)
• Active Directory
• Distributed File System
• Global Load Balancing

Initialize First Pod

As of Horizon 7.8, Cloud Pod can be configured in Horizon Console (https://myConnectionServer/newadmin).

1. In Horizon Console, expand Settings and click Cloud Pod Architecture. Or in View Administrator, on the left, expand View Configuration, and click Cloud Pod Architecture.
   
   
2. On the right, click Initialize the Cloud Pod Architecture feature.
3. Click OK to initialize.
   
   
4. A status page is displayed.
   
   
5. If prompted, click OK to reload the client.
   
   • Then on the left, expand View Configuration, and click Cloud Pod Architecture.
     
6. On the right, feel free to rename the federation by clicking the Edit button.
   
   
   1. Enter a new name.
      
      
7. On the left, expand Settings (or View Configuration), and click Sites.
   
   
8. On the right, in the top half, highlight the first site, and then click the Edit button to rename the Default First Site to be more descriptive.
   
   
   1. Enter a Site name.
      
      
9. Click the Site to highlight it to reveal the Pods on the bottom half of the window.
10. Highlight the pod and click Edit to make the name more descriptive.
    
    
    1. Enter a Pod name.
       
       
11. See VMware 2080522 Restoring View Connection Server instances in a Cloud Pod Architecture pod federation.

Additional Pods – Join Federation

1. Connect to View Administrator or Horizon Console in the second pod.
2. On the left, expand Settings (or View Configuration), and click Cloud Pod Architecture.
3. On the right, click Join the pod federation.
   
   
4. Enter the name of an existing Horizon Connection Server that is already joined to the federation.
5. Enter credentials, and click OK.
   
   
6. The Join status is displayed.
   
7. If prompted, click OK to reload the client.
   
8. On the left, expand Settings (or View Configuration, and click Sites.
   
   
9. If this pod is in a different site, then in the top half of the window click Add to create a new site.
   
   
10. Give the site a name, and click OK.
    
    
11. Highlight the first site.
12. On the bottom, highlight the new pod, and click Edit.
    
    
13. Rename the pod and put it in the 2nd site. Click OK.
    
    
14. In Horizon 7.7 and newer, the top of Horizon Administrator shows you which Pod you are administering. You might have to refresh the page to see the correct Pod name after it was renamed.
    
    

Global Entitlements

Pools and Entitlements are two different things. You can create a pool without entitling anybody to the pool.

Local Entitlements and Global Entitlements are two different things. Global Entitlements are created separately, and then you assign pools from multiple pods to the Global Entitlement.

Do not create both Global Entitlements and Local Entitlements for the same pool otherwise users might see two icons. Create the local pool, but don’t entitle it. Instead, create a Global Entitlement and add the local pool to it.

1. In Horizon Console (or View Administrator), on the left, expand Inventory (or Catalog), and click Global Entitlements.
   
   
2. On the right, click Add.
   
   
3. In the Type page, select Desktop Entitlement or Application Entitlement, and click Next.
   
   
4. In the Name and Policies page, give the entitlement (icon) a name. For Application Entitlements, it’s one entitlement per application so include the application name.
   
5. Horizon 7.2 and newer lets you configure tag restrictions (Connection Server restrictions) from this wizard.
   
6. Horizon 7.3 and newer lets you select a Category Folder where the published icon will be placed on the client’s Start Menu. This feature requires Horizon Client 4.6 and newer.
7. Horizon 7.5 and newer let you put the published icon on the endpoint’s desktop too. See Create Shortcuts for a Desktop Pool at VMware Docs.
   
   
   1. Configure Category Folder.
      
      
8. Scroll down to the Policies section and configure the following:
   1. The Use home site checkbox tells the global entitlement to respect user home sites.
      
   2. Change the Default display protocol to VMware Blast.
      
      • In Horizon 7.3.1 and newer, if you set the Default display protocol to PCoIP, then HTML5 Blast won’t work unless Allow users to choose protocol is set to Yes. See VMware Communities Upgraded from 7.0.1 to 7.3.1, getting “You cannot access your applications or desktops”… error.
   3. In newer versions of Horizon, you can allow users to reset/restart their machines.
      
   4. Check the box next to HTML Access.
      
   5. Horizon 7.2 adds a Pre-launch checkbox. If you need the Pre-launch feature, then enable the Pre-launch checkbox on at least one application, and entitle the application to the users that need the Pre-launch feature.
      
   6. Horizon 7.3 adds a checkbox named Client Restrictions. When this is enabled, you can add Client Computer Accounts to an AD Group and entitle the published icon to that computer AD group. The published icon can then only be accessed from the client computers in the AD group.
      
      Notes:
      • Windows clients only. If the this feature is enabled, then all non-Windows clients are blocked.
      • Horizon Client 4.6 and newer. All other versions are blocked.
      • In Horizon 7.8 and newer, the Active Directory security group can contain client computers that belong to any AD Organizational Units (OUs) or default Computer container. For older versions of Horizon, the computers must be in the Computer container.
      • See Implementing Client Restrictions for Desktop and Application Pools at VMware Docs.
   7. Horizon 7.7 and newer have a selection for Multi-Session Mode. Pre-launch must be disabled to enable this setting.
      
   8. Make other selections.
9. Click Next when done.
   
10. In the Users and Groups page, add users that can see the icon associated with the Global Entitlement. Click Next.
    
    
11. In the Ready to Complete page, click Finish.
    
    
12. Double-click the new global entitlement or click the link for the name of the Global Entitlement.
    
    
13. Switch to the Local Pools tab.
    
14. On the Local Pools tab, click Add.
    
    
15. Select the local pools you want to add and click Add. Remember, only add one app per Global Entitlement. Also, you can only add pools from the local pod. To add pools from a different pod, you must point your Horizon Administrator or Horizon Console to the other pod and edit the Global Entitlement from there.
    
    
16. Go to another pod and view the Global Entitlements.
17. On the right, double-click the Global Entitlement or click the hyperlink for the name of the Global Entitlement.
    
    
18. On the Local Pools tab, click Add to add pools from this pod.
    
    
19. Horizon Console 7.11 and newer can configure backup global entitlements. A backup global entitlement delivers remote desktops or published applications when the primary global entitlement fails to start a session because of problems such as insufficient pool capacity or unavailable pods.
    1. Create a Backup Global Entitlement containing the backup pools. You don’t have to assign anybody to the Backup Global Entitlement.
    2. Edit the production Global Entitlement.
       
    3. Under Backup Global Entitlement, click Browse.
       
    4. Change the selection to Backup Global Entitlement, select the Backup Global Entitlement and click Submit.
       
20. Horizon Console 7.11 and newer at Inventory > Desktops can show if a Local Pool is a member of a Global Entitlement.
    

Monitoring

1. Once Global Entitlements are enabled, a new Search Sessions node is added, which allows you to search for sessions across federated pods. The Search Sessions node is available in Horizon Console 7.9.
   
   
2. The Dashboard in Horizon Administrator shows the health of remote pods. The Dashboard has not yet been added to Horizon Console.
   

Home Sites

The Home Sites feature causes Global Entitlements to prefer pools in the user’s Home Site before looking for pools in remote sites.

Horizon 7 lets you configure Home Sites for users from within Horizon Administrator. Horizon 7.8 lets you configure Home Sites for users from within Horizon Console.

1. Configure your Cloud Pod Architecture with multiple Sites and at least one Pod per Site.
2. In Horizon Console or Horizon Administrator, on the left, click Users and Groups.
   
   
3. On the right, switch to the Home Site tab (or Home Site Assignment tab).
   
4. Click Add.
   
   
5. Find a user or group for this home site, and click Next.
   
   
6. Select the site to assign the users to and click Finish.
   
   
7. Home Sites can be assigned to both users and groups. User assignments override group assignments.
   
   
8. Edit your Global Entitlement and ensure that Use Home Site is checked. You can optionally require that each user has a Home Site.
   
9. Each Global Entitlement can have its own Home Site configuration that overrides the global Home Site configuration.
   • In Horizon Console, click the hyperlink for the Global Entitlement’s name, switch to the tab named Home Site Override, and then click Add.
     
     
   • In Horizon Administrator, double-click a Global Entitlement, switch to the Home Site Override tab, and click Add.
     
10. Since you could have a combination of default Home Site for user, default Home Site for group, and Global Entitlement-specific Home Sites, it’s helpful to know which Home Site is effective for each user and Entitlement.
    • In Horizon Console, in the Users and Groups node, switch to the Home Site Resolution tab. Find a user, and it will show you the Home Site Resolution.
      
    • In Horizon Administrator, on the Users and Groups page, on the Home Site tab, if you switch to the Resolution sub-tab, you can find a user name, click Look Up and see which Home Site is assigned to the user for each entitlement.
      

Related Pages

• Back to VMware Horizon 7