Introduction
Cloud-based services and virtualization are becoming increasingly prevalent. Because of the benefits of scalability and cost-effectiveness, companies frequently deploy virtualized servers that are operated by virtual machines (VMs) in production settings.
This post will discuss the differences between VMware Horizon and the traditional Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Let’s start with VDI and explore its key aspects before moving on to how VMware Horizon differs from VDI. We will also look at the architecture of VMware Horizon, its components, and the many characteristics of VDI on which VMware Horizon relies on.
Table of Contents
- Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
- Why VDI?
- VMware Horizon
- Components of VMware Horizon
- VMware Horizon architecture
- Just in time Management platform
- Displays protocols for remote access
- Conclusion
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure allows organizations to host desktop operating systems (OS) as a VM on servers. Users can remotely access the virtual desktops from different devices and locations. VDI can be deployed in a public or private cloud and provided as IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) or DaaS (Desktop as a Service).
In Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, we can make use of various connection brokers aka connection servers which help us to automate the connections from user PC’s to virtual desktops, connection servers act as a helping hand for organizations running with help desk user environments where every user needs the access to the same desktops. Various TCP/IP based remote protocols like Remote Desktop Protocol and Virtual Network Computing (VNC) which uses a remote framebuffer protocol can be used to connect a remote client to Virtual Desktops.
Why VDI?
Organizations can buy less powerful endpoints and thin clients to connect to VDI as the actual computing that takes place at the endpoint is very less.
Fully functioning virtual desktops eliminate the need to integrate apps within endpoints. So the users can bring their own endpoint devices to the workplace and quickly access a virtual desktop with no additional configuration to the enterprise applications.
As all data lives in the data center, not on the endpoint, there are significant security benefits of VDI. If a user endpoint is stolen or physically damaged, the critical data is still safe as there is no data stored on it.
The organizations expand faster using the VDI. It enables the new employees to access an enterprise virtual desktop workload and its respective apps, within minutes, compared with days or weeks to procure endpoint devices and configure apps.
Organizations can avoid frequent hardware failure of the endpoints and simplify the software update process.
VMware Horizon
VMware Horizon is a product offering from VMware to create a virtual desktop infrastructure and uses the vSphere for hosting virtual desktops. It is designed in such a way it integrates with the other VMware products.
VMware Horizon is a highly customizable VMware solution for Virtual Desktop infrastructure and is a complete packaged solution that provides desktop management, pool management, application virtualization, storage management, and application entitlement.
With VMware Horizon all the guest operating systems supported by VMware ESXi can be used as desktops, depending on the requirements within the organization we can go ahead and create desktops for Windows, RedHat, Ubuntu, etc. VMware vCenter Server is used to manage the resources and the Virtual Desktops, we can also leverage various features and functionalities like High Availability, Distributed Resource Scheduler and Templates available within vCenter Server to efficiently manage the resources and deploy Virtual Desktops.
Components of VMware Horizon
ESXi – It is a hypervisor developed by VMware that abstracts the CPU, storage, memory, and networking resources of the underlying physical host to host the Virtual machines.
vCenter Server – It is the centralized management utility from VMware, used to manage virtual machines hosted on multiple ESXi hosts, and all dependent components from a single centralized console.
View Connection Server – It is the primary component of a View solution, which acts as a gateway and lets the end-users to connect to their virtual desktops.
View Manager – It is an enterprise‐class virtual desktop manager that securely allows only authorized users to connect to centralized virtual desktops. It provides a complete, end‐to‐end solution that improves control and manageability and provides a familiar desktop experience.
View Agent – A component that is installed on the virtual desktops that allow the View Connection Server to establish a connection to the desktop.
Horizon Client – It is a Client available for Windows, MAC, Ubuntu, iOS, and Android, through which the users can access the virtual desktop sessions from different devices such as smartphones, thin and zero clients, Windows, Macs, iOS, and Android devices.
View Composer – It is an optional component that enables the administrators to clone and deploy multiple virtual machines from a single centralized base image, called a parent virtual machine. It uses linked-clone technology to rapidly create desktop images from a parent image. Multiple virtual machines can be patched by updating the parent image. Updating the parent image does not affect user settings, data, or applications, so the user does not notice the changes.
View Administrator – IT provides View administration through a Web browser. It is used to make configuration settings and manage virtual desktops and entitlements of desktops of Windows users and groups. It also provides an interface to monitor log events and is installed with View Connection Server.
VMware Horizon architecture
VMware Horizon architecture consists of various conceptual layers wherein each of these layers should not be designed in isolation rather we need to carefully understand the key dependencies between each of these layers.
The topmost layer is the client access devices that address the physical devices and provides end-user access to their desktops.
The next layer is the access infrastructure layer which includes networking and connectivity components to enable client communication
The profile and session provisioning layer defines the session requirements associated with presenting virtual desktops to end-users
Applications are part of the application provisioning layer which talks about the infrastructure required to deploy, manage and package applications in the VMware Horizon environment.
Just in time Management platform
VMware Horizon delivers virtual desktops and applications for end-users who may not require access to a full desktop using just in time management platform, which eliminates complexity by providing instant app delivery and zero downtime updates.
Just in time Management platform is composed of the following VMware technologies:
- VMware Instant Clone Technology for fast desktop and RDSH provisioning
- VMware App Volume for real-time application delivery
- VMware User Environment Manager for contextual policy management
Just-in-Time Desktops – Leverages Instant Clone Technology coupled with App Volumes to accelerate the delivery of user-customized and fully personalized desktops.
Instant clone uses a powered-on parent desktop which is quiesced and cloned to create child clones, the child clones can be provisioned quickly as they use the memory and disk of the parent virtual machine.
App Volumes is a real-time application delivery and lifecycle management tool which can be used to build dynamic application delivery systems that ensure all applications are centrally managed. App Volumes solution can be scaled out easily and cost-effectively, without compromising the end-user experience.
User Environment Manager – provides personalization and dynamic policy configuration across any virtual, physical, and cloud-based environment. It also helps end-users to gain quick access to a Windows workspace and applications, with a personalized and consistent experience across devices and locations.
VMware Unified Access Gateway provides a secure gateway for users who want to access VMware Horizon desktops and applications from outside the corporate firewall. Unified Access Gateway directs authentication requests to the appropriate server and discards any unauthenticated request.
Displays protocols for remote access
Blast Extreme & PCoIP are some of the important displays protocols provided by the VMware Horizon for remote access virtual desktops
Blast Extreme provides VMware’s new Blast Extreme protocol that provides a rich user experience through the LAN or WAN by using H.264 as the default video codec. These video codec are considered crucial when thinking about the great user experience as it impacts various factors like “latency”, “bandwidth”, “frames per second (FPS)”, and blast extreme can be used with NVIDIA GRID GPU to offload the encode-decode process from CPU to dedicated H.264 engines on NVIDIA GPU
PCoIP is a proprietary UDP based protocol developed by Teradici and provides security by using encryption and transmission. It provides one of the rich feature i.e progressive build operation means the image which is visible to end-user on his system improves progressively
Conclusion
VMware Horizon is a one-stop-shop client solution that helps us to manage operating systems, hardware, applications, and users independently of one another, irrespective of their locations. With VMware Horizon, we can streamline desktop and application management, increase data security through centralization, and achieve greater end-user flexibility and IT control. VMware Horizon does that by encapsulating the operating system, applications, and user data into isolated layers, allowing the admins to change, update, and deploy each layer independently for greater business agility.
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Learn more about VMware Horizon 8 here: What’s New in VMware Horizon 8 Version 2206
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