We dedicate a lot of time discussing why VMware Horizon is good and why the one who is in tough times with outdated or legacy environments must-see. In fact, we recently covered some of these topics, but today we are aiming towards a very different approach. Instead of writing about Horizon via VMware’s marketing lens, we’ve chosen to reach out to the real-world people who work on the Horizon project every day to find out what they think about Horizon’s most useful features – and hear from our customers.
So, let’s go over the top 10 things that are great for VMware Horizon Certification
Tightly integrated components:
Desktop virtualization platforms that are bundled with purchased products often behave this way, leading to management issues and multiple support calls. At Horizon, VMware has taken great care to integrate multiple components into a cohesive platform to support the overall EUC vision. The best one of these are the Application Volume and Dynamic Environment Manager, and one can see how the path is continued with the addition of the ONE UEM Virtual Desktop Management Workspace.
Simplification of administration throughout the board:
As you read, you’ll notice the common denominator of simplified administration, but it’s also worth mentioning a benefit in itself. Horizon and its supporting components are designed to make your life easier and your environment less complex. Universal Broker eliminates the need for inter-site communication and GSLB; Dynamic Environment Manager does not require any server infrastructure – it only relies on CIFS shares and GPO configurable agents. And volumes of applications can be provisioned without fundamentally changing the way desktops are created and delivered.
Simply put, Horizon is designed to serve all your use cases without all the hassle.
Advanced user configuration management:
VMware Dynamic Environment Manager (DEM) is critical to the success of the Horizon environment in large part because it is, as someone said, the Swiss army knife of managing Windows settings. Without a DEM, you’d have to assemble a variety of other tools and scripts to accomplish everything a DEM can do. If you find yourself in this situation, think about this:
With DEM, which is a VMware Horizon part, you can install environments of users and application settings that can be deployed to physical or virtual machines users without using GPOs. DEM takes the hassles out of legacy account management by eliminating the need for roaming profiles — boosting login times and enhancing stability — and it works with the FSLogix technology developed into Windows, meaning you will get the best.
User Self Service:
Speaking of simplified administration, DEM has an important feature called User Self-Service, which allows users to restore their environment to a previous state without having to call the help desk. Fewer helpdesk calls mean more bandwidth for other things…or more sleep at night.
Application volume:
Perhaps the single most useful functionality of Horizon is the sheer number of apps. Application Volume is one of many features that take advantage of the unique integration with VMware SDDC and is key to simplified application management. With Application Volumes, you can package an application once and deploy it to any platform, on-premises or in the cloud, physical or virtual. This approach makes it easy for you to divide image and application management by reducing the number (and size) of primary images and separating apps for easy updates and rollbacks.
Well you do not need to change how you manage your art work or any other app to use it! Application Volumes execute effortlessly with rest technologies and even support VMware ThinApp and Microsoft MSIX package mappings through the same interface you would use to map Application Volumes to AppStacks. In addition, the Application Volume is crucial for next advantages.
Consumer Record Volume:
Custom write volumes are an application volume feature that administrators can use to allow users to install and configure their applications to follow users as well as desktop sessions. A user volume is basically a dedicated virtual VMDK or VHD drive for each user. This virtual drive mounts at login and enables users to track self-installed applications and data between VDI sessions – even on non-persistent desktops.
VMware SDDC Deep integration:
We discussed it recently, also including it here because it’s something everyone feels is a huge benefit. VMware Horizon works best on VMware’s software-defined data center infrastructure, providing several unique benefits, including:
Ability to deploy application volumes with VMDK files that effectively separate images from applications without sacrificing more complex management approaches.
Inherent security across platforms, from vSphere to VMware NSX and SASE to carbon black on the virtual desktop itself.
Hybrid capabilities that let you run your right on-premises environment on the public cloud.
Horizon Control Plane:
It’s tough to believe this item is at the top of the list, but it’s proof of just how amazing stuff is on Horizon! Horizon Control Plane is a cloud service from VMware that lets you manage your Horizon environment anywhere, in the cloud or on-premises. The multi-tenant management area is managed by VMware and is evolving to offer an individual glass pane to manage entire environments. Here are some of the most prominent features:
Universal Broker lives in the control plane and serves as one URL for users to access all assigned desktops and applications. Administrators can allocate resources on a one-time basis, not per environment (or sub-environment), and no longer need to maintain a multi-local network or GSLB.
Image management services are control plane functions that make a centralized art work catalog that simplifies image tracking and selection. Automatic image publishing boosts duplication to all vCenters and connected modules across diversified environments, on-premises and to VMware Cloud certified providers of cloud.
Cloud Monitoring Service (CMS) offers monitoring real-time and alerts the entire Horizon environment from an individual interface. The data gathered includes statistics of customer connection, explosion log information, and resource usage. CMS also consists of a tool related to helpdesk with core troubleshooting capabilities and remote customer support.
Integrate ControlUp:
Last year, VMware partnered with ControlUp to develop a new monitoring capability which is known as VMware Advanced Monitoring for Horizon. This add-on for Horizon gives customers access to Comprehensive ControlUp’s comprehensive real-time product of monitoring and a robust framework of automation that proactively or reactively avoids problems with desktop virtualization, including desktop applications, blast protocol, Unified Access Gateway and so on.
Workplaces everywhere and our overall vision for EUC:
If you’re unfamiliar with VMware Anywhere Workspace, this is a suite of technologies that VMware has put together to meet the needs of an increasingly distributed workforce. The aim of Anywhere Workspace is to provide an employee experience that is consistent, secure, and easy to use, no matter where the user is or what device they are utilizing. Horizon is a big part of that, as is VMware Workspace, as you can imagine.
The aforementioned tight integration allows customers to use the ONE Access Workspace to provide end-users with a consistent experience, enabling their Horizon desktop and applications to be accessed through the same interface as all of their other applications. Workspace One Intelligence offers operational intelligence that you can utilize to make your environment more secure and ensure compliance with the tools in Workspace One UEM.
Here are 10 reasons why VMware Horizon is great! We’ve only just scratched the surface, but there’s more content available for each of these topics.
Take the VMware NSX-T Data Center Integrate, Configure, administer course, with this knowledge, that focuses on core functionalities and capabilities of NSX-T Data Center. This course is highly recommended if you are aiming for VCP-NV certification.
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