VMware Horizon 7.8 – Installation Series Part 1
Horizon View Connection Servers
Horizon is the core of the EUC stack and in the next several posts I will be diving into the installation and configuration of each component. These installs will be at a relatively high level and will showcase a home-lab space build on VMware Cloud on AWS.
VMware defines Horizon View Connection servers as, “An enterprise-class desktop management server that securely brokers and connects users to desktops running on vSphere VMs, physical PCs, blade PCs, or RDSH servers.”
To get started log into your VMware account and download the installation media for the Horizon Connection server, “VMware-Horizon-Connection-Server-x86_64-7.8.0-12637483”
As of version 7.8 Horizon Connection server is now supported on the latest Windows 2019 Server OS. If you prefer to remain one or more revisions back make sure to still build out Windows 2016 Servers.
Here are some Windows components you should enable when building the server(s)
- AD-DS
Snap In and Command-Line tools - Telnet
- Group Policy Management
- Desktop-Experience
It is recommended that you have at least 10 GB RAM and 4 CPU in order to support deployments of 50 or more desktops.
Installation Steps:
From an elevated command line or right-click Run-As Administrator launch the installer “VMware-Horizon-Connection-Server-x86_64-7.8.0-12637483”
Accept the License Agreement
Folder and Disk location for the installer files (very rarely is this changed)
Choose the Horizon Connection server type (Standard, Replica, Security Server or Enrollment server) In another post we will talk about Horizon True SSO and when you need an Enrollment server. For a greenfield installation of Horizon your first server ‘Must’ be a Standard server.
Select a ‘strong’ data recovery password. Should you ever have corruption issues with your VMware Horizon environment you will need this password to perform Database restore and repair operations.
Allow the installation process to modify the Windows firewall. This will ensure all the necessary ports on the Windows server are open and in the proper directions. To see a comprehensive list of network ports for all of the VMware Horizon components check out the VMware Digital Workspace TechZone document: Network Ports in VMware Horizon 7
You must select the user or groups who will be the initial administrators for this VMware Horizon installation. You can chose the Local Administrators or an AD domain user or AD group.
If you choose you can allow this VMware Horizon Connection server installation to participate in the VMware User Experience Improvement program. Some data will be provided to collection servers in the background to VMware.
The installation is ready to proceed
The Installation is complete. You can now proceed to login and complete the basic management setup of your new VMware Horizon Connection server
In the next post of the series, we will step through Licensing, adding your vCenter server, administrators, an Events Database and finishing up with creating our first Instant Clone Pool.
Follow this link to see the comprehensive VMware Workspace ONE and VMware Horizon 7 Enterprise Edition On-premises Reference Architecture
For a list of what’s new in Horizon 7 version 7.8 see a short video produced by the VMware End-User Computing channel on You-Tube: VMware Horizon 7 version 7.8 and CART 5.0 What’s New Technical Overview
