Understanding Image Management Service (IMS) for VMware Horizon Cloud Service on Microsoft Azure

Challenges of Image Management

1. Typical organizations may have five to 15 unique image payloads as source material for provisioned VMs.
2. Given large deployments, organizations may have to manage significant number of copies (five to 20 or more) per unique image, resulting in 25-100+ image objects in the environment.
3. Often these images need to be updated once or twice a week to keep up with security and application updates, this means 10-30 updates per week in the best case.
4. Orchestrating the workflow to produce, validate and publish images and then to replicate and acclimate them to all the different Horizon destinations is a tedious, manual and lengthy process requiring active monitoring and troubleshooting that is prone to error.
5. Organizations may be spending hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars just shuffling content and managing updates of provisioned workloads.
6. There is no content management system that holistically captures and presents the catalog of images fueling the virtual environment and helps you keep track of your change history.

Image Management Service (IMS) Overview

1. Build a single reusable image catalog rather than manage fleets of duplicate objects. 
2. Focus on Windows settings and line of business application changes.
3. Automate and accelerate the process of image publishing and replication to all your connected sites and Pods.
4. Retain historical trail of which image versions came from which previous versions in case you need to troubleshoot image functions. 
5. Update fleets of pools with a single operation of moving a marker (tag) from an existing image version to the target version.
6. Limitation Note: Due to image format, Horizon Cloud Azure images are limited to use within Horizon Cloud on Azure Pods, and Horizon images are limited to use within Horizon Pods.

IMS (Image Management Service) Publish Process

1. Deploy Image from Marketplace

Log in to HCS Universal Console > Inventory > Images-Multi-Pod > New  > Fill the required details

Marker 

• A marker tag is a unique label that is used to identify a use case that a particular image version is suitable for. Markers are unique, but image versions can have one or more markers assigned to them.
• VM assignments refer to the marker tags in order to identify which image to clone and provision virtual machines from. By using these markers, you can orchestrate the updating or rolling back of images as needed for individual user groups or different assignments if necessary. Change history is recorded in an image version tree.
  

2. Customize Image

Connect with MS Azure Portal > Connect with VM deployed by Image Deployment Process using RDP / Bastion > Do Necessary Customization as per use-case

3. Publish Image

Log in to HCS Universal Console > Inventory > Images-Multi-Pod > Open Image > Select Version > Click on Publish > Wait for  approx 20 minutes.

4. Create Desktop Assignments Using Multi-Pod Image and it's marker

Wait for few minutes and once desktops are deployed in all the Pod, end users can start consuming these desktops.

Note:- These desktops are listed as single desktop when you will check these in desktop properties but these desktops are available as different desktops in Azure Portal

Conclusion

All these capabilities are designed to remove the manual labor out of managing images.

Challenges of Image Management

Understanding the Floating VDI Power Management Modes in VMware Horizon Cloud on Azure

In VDI Environment, there are two types of Desktops Assignment

• Floating = In this case every time user connects with the desktop pool, user can get any available desktop from the desktop pool. Which means desktop is not Persistent

• Dedicated = In this case every time user connects with the desktop pool, user will get the same desktop from the desktop pool. Which means desktop is Persistent.

There is no Power Management Mode available for Dedicated desktops, it is only available for floating desktops.

In this post, i will discuss about if you have created Floating VDI Desktop in Horizon Cloud on Azure then what are the power management modes available and how these are helping organizations to minimize the cost of running Desktops in the Cloud.

Power Management Modes

There are three power management modes available in Horizon Cloud on Azure

Low Threshold = This is used to Power off the VDI Desktop in VDI Deskop Assignment

High Threshold = This is used to Power on the VDI Desktop in VDI Deskop Assignment

Example Scenario

VDI Assignment Setting

• Min Desktops = 1
• Max Desktops = 10
  
• Power Management Mode = Optimized Performance

Formula to Calculate Load

Active sessions / unassigned powered on desktops) x 100 = utilization%

When Desktop is Powered On in VDI Assignment?

As my assignment capacity is Max. 10 Desktops, all 10 VM's will be created upfront but as the min desktops is 1 due to this out of 10 only 1 will be powered on

When Another Desktop is Powered On in VDI Assignment?

As Powered on desktop is assigned to one of user now based on formula i have discussed my pool utilization is 100%

1/1*100 = 100%

As the result of this one more vm will be powered on as shown in this example vm2 is powered on

Now if two desktops are assigned to two users, again both the powered on vms are consumed as the utilization is again 100% (2/2*100) then two more vm's wlll be powered on to keep the utilization as per the threshold

2/4*100 = 50% Utilization

When Desktop is Powered off

Lets assume 6 VM's were powered on over the time period and out of this only 1 is in assigned to the user. Now the current utilization is below the low threshold

1/6*100 = 16.67% Utilization

Now 4 VMs will be powered off

Once all the users are logged out, then only number of minimum desktops specified in the Pool will be in the powered on state, rest all will be powered off. In our scenario Min Desktops is equal to 1.

Understanding RDSH Farm Power Management Modes in VMware Horizon Cloud on Azure

These days due to Pandemic, whole world is struggling to support remote workforce. In this case there is Cloud based VDI solution available from VMware which is VMware Horizon Cloud on Azure, in this you can Bring your own Azure Infrastructure and use it for running the workloads for remote workers with the help of Horizon Cloud on Azure. You need Few Subscriptions needed for this setup:

1. Azure Subscription (BYO Subscription)

2. Horizon Cloud on Azure Subscription (Get it from VMware)

3. Windows Licenses (Check Microsoft Website)

In this post, i will discuss about if you have created RDSH Farm in Horizon Cloud on Azure then what are the power management modes available and how these are helping organizations to minimize the cost of running Desktops in the Cloud.

Workflow of Publishing Apps and Desktops in VMware Horizon Cloud on Azure

RDSH Farm is basically the collection of RDS Servers with similar configuration

Power Management Modes

There are three power management modes available in Horizon Cloud on Azure

Low Threshold = This is used to Power off the RDS Server in RDS Farm

High Threshold = This is used to Power on the RDS Server in RDS Farm

Example Scenario

RDS Farm Setting

• Min VMs = 1
• Max VMs = 2
• Session per VM = 20
• Power Management Mode = Optimized Performance

Serveral Users to whom RDS Farm is Assigned

Now as soon as this farm is created it will create 2 RDS VM's upfront, out of these two VMs one will be powered on as Min VMs is one. If Min VMs is Zero, no RDS VM will be powered on

Formula to Calculate Load

Active Sessions on RDS Server / Max Sessions Per VM * 100

When New Server Is Powered On?

In this example i have RDS Server with 12 Sessions and RDS 2 is Powered Off

12/20*100 =  i have 60% load on RDS1, which is beyond optimized performance high threshold. Now RDS 2 will be Powered on and all new sessions will start on RDS 2.

If Both the servers usage is above the high threshold, New session is placed in round robin manner. Server which has less number of active connections will be selected, like in this example RDS2 will be selected.

When Existing Server Is Powered Off?

Now both the Servers usage is below high threshold as number of active sessions are reduced, lease loaded server will be quiesced and no new session will be placed on that server like in this example lease loaded server is RDS 2.

As soon as all the users will logout from RDS 2, RDS 2 will be powered off

This example is based on Optimized Performance mode. You can set any mode out of three modes, the only difference is different thresholds. Now you can notice the benefit of Power Management Modes is servers will be Powered off and Powered on automatically to help you in minimize the cost of running Desktops in cloud.

Source - VMware Whitepaper

VMware Horizon Integration with VMware Workspace ONE

The Unified Catalog capability of Workspace ONE includes integration with VMware Horizon. This enables access to Horizon-based published applications, published desktops, and virtual desktops within the same catalog as device native and SaaS applications. This provides a simple and seamless user experience regardless of the device type or resource needed by the user.

Configuration Steps

Note : Assuming vIDM, UAG and Other Horizon Components are already deployed.

1.  Open Horizon Admin UI > View Configuration > Servers > Connection Server > Edit > Authentication tab > Add SAML Authenticators > Provide vIDM Server name in Metadata URL > Ok

2. Click on OK

3. Click on OK

4. Click on OK

5. Now login to vIDM UI > Catalog > Select Virtual Apps > Add Virtual Apps > Select the Virtual App Source Horizon View On Premises

6. Provide Horizon Connection Server Details and Save this Configuration

7. Click on Refresh and Wait for Completion Status to be updated as Completed

8. After this login to vIDM Console with user account to whom Desktops and Apps are Entitled. Now Open Desktop or App as per your requirement and Desktop and App will be launched.

Unauthenticated access for Published Applications in VMware Horizon

Scenario

Enable Users to access RDSH application without using authentication

Use Case

Popular in healthcare environments or where the application is in Kiosk mode or application has its own security and user management

Benefits

Remove unnecessary double authentication

Simplify User Experience

Requirements

Horizon Connection Server 7.1 or above

Horizon Client Version 4.4 or above

Configuration Workflow

Configuration Steps

Step 1:  Add Users in Horizon for Unauthenticated Access

1. In this example my Active Directory Users Name is User 1

2. Now Connect with Horizon Admin UI and Add Users to Enable Unauthenticated access

Users and Groups > Unauthenticated Access > Add > Search for User 1 > Select User 1 > Click on Next

3. Configure User Alias and Description as Needed > Finish

4.  User is added now

Step 2: Enable Default User for Unauthenticated Access at Connection Server

1. View Configuration > Servers > Connection Server > Select Connection Server > Edit > Authentication Tab > Enable Unauthenticated Access > Select Default User out of multiple unauthenticated users > ok

Step 3: Entitle the Published Applications to Unauthenticated Users

1. Catalog > Select Application Pool > Add Entitlement > Add

2. Select Unauthenticated Access Check Box > Search User  > Find > Select User > Ok

3. Click on OK

Step 4: Enable Unauthenticated Access in Horizon Client

1. Launch Horizon Client > Click on Help Icon > Select Log in anonymously using Unauthenticated Access

2. Double Click on Connection Server > It will start authenticating automatically without prompting for username and password

3. As per Entitlement configuration, entitled apps will be listed in Horizon Client > Double Click on Application to launch it

4. Now application is launched