Update! Key Considerations in Choosing a Zero Client Environment for VDI

By Dean Flaming, Sr. Technical Marketing Manager – Technical Enablement, End-User Computing, VMware

On behalf of the many folks who helped make this happen, I am proud to announce the release of the Horizon 6 with View Introduction Hands On Lab! This lab is a guided tour of Horizon 6 with View specifically focusing on the new features.

Additional Info

This Horizon 6 with View lab is designed to demonstrate and introduce you to the new Horizon 6 features, starting with the ease of installation and configuration of View, RDS-hosted application setup and configuration, RDS-hosted desktop setup and configuration, and Cloud Pod Architecture configurations, including some scenarios.

Technical Details of This Lab

We designed and built this fully functional, self-contained lab within our VMware Hands On Labs environment, where not only is every lab isolated from other labs, but also all are delivered via our VMware OneCloud enterprise architecture and accessible from around the world. For those readers who have attended VMworld, you will be familiar with this environment because this is the same environment used to deliver Hands On Labs for the VMware major worldwide events.

Attendees are allotted four hours for lab completion, but we expect many will be able to complete the lab in a shorter time span.

This lab contains eight top-level virtual machines; one ControlCenter where you drive the lab; one vPod router; a virtual OpenFiler appliance; a vCenter Server virtual appliance, and four virtual ESXi hosts which host additional nested virtual machines for use in completing the lab exercises.

ControlCenter– ControlCenter is the virtual machine where you drive the lab and run the lab exercises. This system also runs the following services for the lab environment:

• Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controller


• DNS


• Certificate Authority


• File Sharing

vCenter appliance – The VMware vCenter Server virtual appliance provides the central management and control for the nested vSphere servers.

vCenter Servers – The four VMware vSphere servers work in a clustered configuration and report in to the vCenter Server virtual appliance to run the nested virtual machines needed for this lab to function properly.

OpenFiler appliance – The OpenFiler appliance provides virtual storage to the virtual vSphere servers in order for them to be able to host the nested virtual machines.

vPod Router appliance – The router appliance is a custom-built appliance for our VMware Hands On Labs and other lab environments to route network traffic appropriately, both internal to the vPods as well as externally, when virtually wired for external access.

Nested virtual machines – The virtual machines nested within this vPod architecture are:

• Horizon View Connection Server-1– The first Connection Server to be set up within the lab.


• Horizon View Connection Server-2– The second Connection Server to be set up within the lab.


• RDSH001– The first Remote Desktop Server within the lab. This server already has Microsoft Remote Desktop Services configured.


• RDSH002– The second Remote Desktop Server to be set up within the lab. This server needs Microsoft Remote Desktop Services installed and configured.


• Win7-VDI-1– The first Windows 7 virtual machine to be used as a VDI desktop.


• Win7-VDI-2– The second Windows 7 virtual machine to be used as a VDI desktop.


• Win8-VDI-1– The first Windows 8 virtual machine to be used as a VDI desktop.


• Win8-VDI-2– The second Windows 8 virtual machine to be used as a VDI desktop.


• EndPoint-01– The virtual machine configured to be a simulated endpoint system for accessing the previous VDI desktops and remote applications.

Lab Modules

The lab takes you through three main modules.

View Install and Configure Module– This module is a prerequisite for both of the other two modules. It walks you through the installation and configuration of a connection server, the installation of the agent on a VDI desktop, and the installation and configuration of the client software on the endpoint.

View App Remoting Configuration– The application remoting module walks you through the initial configuration of Remote Desktop Services within a Microsoft Windows server in order to understand exactly what is needed for Horizon 6 with View application remoting. After you have completed the Remote Desktop Services configuration, this module walks you through installation and configuration of the Horizon 6 agent on the RDS hosts and the configuration and validation of RDS application pools and RDS desktop pools.

Cloud Pod Architecture– This module walks you through the installation, configuration, and validation of the global namespace features of View.

Lab Module Navigation

Many of you may not be aware how easy it is to navigate within the Hands On Labs with some of the various tools and functions available for listing lab topics and rearranging the interface.

Arranging the Console – To move the console around on the screen, you can find a control bar on the upper right side of the Web display. This allows you to use a full-screen display, dock the screen to the right or left side of the browser window, refresh the screen in case of latency, or toggle the screen between floating and docked.

Arranging the Lab Manual/Instructions– In addition to moving the console, you can also move, dock, undock, open the Table of Contents to jump to a specific section, or even split-screen the lab manual between your computer screen and your tablet of choice.

Sending Text to Console– You can also send text from your localsystem to the ControlCenter console by use of the Send Text option beneath the Console display. Just click the SEND TEXT button and the “Send text to console” window appears. Type or paste in what you wish to send to the ControlCenter console and click the SEND button.

How to Access This Lab

To access this lab directly, visit the Lab Registration Form to get started!

Wrap-Up

We are excited to bring you this lab—the first lab released in 2014 and the first to be released in conjunction with a VMware product release! Moving forward, this lab will be updated for VMworld to include other modules such as Virtual SAN integration, troubleshooting, and much more!

For more information on VMware Hands On Labs, visit hol.vmware.com and sign up!

via VMware Blogs http://bit.ly/1jXUzcs