vmware horizon instant clone best practices

The scripts cannot perform actions that require those privileges. This is only applicable for automated pool. - Capture configuration data for applications, and Windows Settings outside of Office applications. However, local printer redirection is not the right solution for corporate network printers. Configure a Golden Image Virtual Machine After creating a virtual machine that you plan to use as a golden image, configure the Windows environment. For more information, see, Troubleshoot issues with shared computer activation for Office 365 ProPlus, VMware Workspace ONE and Horizon Reference Architecture, Configure Office Container to redirect Office user data, Quick-Start Tutorial for VMware Dynamic Environment Manager, For more information about App Volumes, see, . This value must be between 0-100. Configure load balancing settings in a Farm on the Load Balancing Settings tab. We have many more paths than are shown here. In addition, we provide some tips and tricks to improve the provisioning rates. This document is not meant to be a complete best practice guide on Horizon or on vSAN. As you set up and configure your Horizon Apps deployment, you need to consider. You can add a Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) device to instant clone desktop pools. NOTE: This asset was originally written with guidance based on Horizon 7.12. If users need to be able to copy text from the session, you can use a Smart Policy, as described in Configure Horizon Smart Policies for User Environment Settings in the VMware Dynamic Environment Manager Administration Guide. For user profiles, a tool like Horizon uses the configured threshold to calculate the Disk Load Index factor. Moving to the cloud? This guide is for anyone installing or administering Horizon. Updated requirements, tips, procedures, and additional resources. Figure 12: RDSH Instant Clone + FSLogix Profile Container + DEM + App Volumes, Figure 13: Computer attached AppStack assigned to an Organizational Unit. See, Setting RDS Host Load Balancing with a Script. A source path specifies where the Office 365 ProPlus installation media is located. Office 365 ProPlus Configuration XML Editor, Configuration options for the Office Deployment Tool, Office 2016 Administrative Template files (ADMX/ADML) and Office, Workspace ONE Access integration with Office 365, , , Download Office 365 ProPlus to a file share on your local network using the Office Deployment Tool and the, setup.exe \\FileServer\OfficeShare\setup.exe /download \\FileServer\OfficeShare\Configuration.xml, Install Office 365 ProPlus on the VDI desktop or RDS server (install to the golden virtual machine if using Instant Clone Technology or View Composer) using the Office 2016 Deployment Tool along with the, \\FileServer\OfficeShare\setup.exe /configure, \\FileServer\OfficeShare\Configuration.xml. Exclude low-risk files and folders from real-time scans on RDS hosts. Users can use network share or VMware App Volumes to store persistent user data. FSLogix is a set of solutions that enhance, enable, and simplify non-persistent Windows computing environments. If you are using Sysprep customization, and have smart provisioning enabled or have parent VMs disabled (Mode B), make sure that all hosts in the cluster are running ESXi 7.0 Update 3f or later. Threshold of the average time of write of data to the disk in milliseconds. Important: Seek guidance from your security team or antivirus vendor if you are unsure what is unnecessary. Cached Exchange Mode saves a local copy of your mailbox data on your computer. From the context menu in OneDrive, there is an option to set the files as Always keep on this device where the device referenced is the instant clone desktop, however, the state of the files return to online upon resetting the instant clone desktops. Note: Use SCA for multiple users sharing the same machine, whether physical or virtual. It is mandatory to configure distributed virtual switches in the vSphere environment for dedicated instant clones. Potential contamination is removed so that the farm runs optimally. Note: If you want to use a card that is not currently listed, create a ticket with VMware Global Support Services. See the, If you are using vSAN, ensure that all hardware, including disk controllers, are compatible. This can be accomplished by either creating a new personalization template and add\Microsoft\Cryptoand\Microsoft\Protectunder [IncludeFolderTrees] or by creating a configuration file for the built-inPersonal Certificates - AppData NOT redirected. Activating Windows on Instant Clones To make sure that Windows 10 and Windows Server clones are properly activated when the clones are created, you must use Microsoft volume activation on the golden image virtual machine. This will allow users to "drain" out of the RDS server and when the last user logs off, it will run the maintenance operations. For multiple users assigned individual computers, such as dedicated Horizon desktops, you can use the standard Microsoft install media with a product key to install Office 365 ProPlus, as you would with traditional endpoint desktops. Manage apps in a local virtualization sandbox. Patching Office 365 in nonpersistent systems The following list the best practices for updating and maintaining Office 365 ProPlus in nonpersistent VDI or RDS system. VMware has built a set of tools and resources to support you and your team as you build out an adoption strategy. For users who do not require personalized virtual desktops and who handle a standard set of tasks, VMware Horizon Apps is the ideal solution. When the instant clone desktop is reset, as a result of logging off, all downloaded content is removed and OneDrive reports the state of the files as online the next instant clone session. VMware Instant Clone Technology for Just-In-Time Desktop Delivery in For information about preparing machines that are used as Remote Desktop Services (RDS) hosts, see the Setting Up Published Desktops and Applications in Horizon 7 guide. Entitlement is done the same and the published apps look the same to the user as RDSH hosted applications do. It even helps in steady state performance of desktops that use the same applications. Activity Paths are guided and curated learning paths through modules and activities that help you cover the most content in the shortest amount of time. For more information, see vSphere HA and DRS Affinity Rules in the vSphere Availability Guide. VMware has tested the sync clients File On-Demand feature along with Horizon Instant Clone Technology using Windows 10 Fall Creators update. In addition, the Office Activation data is encrypted via DPAPI and must be decrypted to be used across non-persistent sessions. Figure 11: Computer attached AppStack assigned to an Organizational Unit. The type of data determines the best method of balancing the load. From the baseline that you previously established, you can estimate the CPU resources required per type of user. Publishing occurs only when you create a new farm or update an existing farm to incorporate changes. Most Office 365 ProPlus plugins are 32-bit and function best using the corresponding 32-bit version of the Office programs. There are two different approaches to deploy: Approach #1: Install Sensor in the Golden Image This approach is recommended in environments entirely comprised of full-clone VMs. This section describes areas of consideration when using the Outlook product within Office 365 ProPlus, in a VMware Horizon environment. Critical Horizon features and components, such as the Blast Extreme display protocol, instant-clone provisioning, VMware App Volumes application delivery, and VMware Dynamic Environment Manager , are integrated with published applications and desktops to provide a seamless user experience and an easy-to-manage, scalable solution. This white paper provides best practice recommendations when running VMware Horizon on VMae SAN fo a ial dekop infrastructure (VDI) environment. Operate apps and infrastructure consistently, with unified governance and visibility into performance and costs across clouds. By default, Sysprep generalize disables the built-in administrator account. Note that when using the FSLogix Office Container you do not need to use the DEM templates for Microsoft Office. After it is deployed, Office 365 ProPlus is configured and optimized for RDS environments similarly to a traditional Office deployment. This guide provides tips to help IT administrators use VMware Horizon to deliver Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus applications to end users. This licensing token does not enable this user to access other computers within the Horizon system. Learn how to manage frontline device deployments. Sysprep is a Microsoft tool to deploy the configured operation system installation from a base image. Office Container will generally be implemented with another profile solution. You make these configurations by modifying the XML file that the ODT accesses during setup. - Settings can be applied to an application automatically. Office Container enables and enhances the Microsoft Office experience in non-persistent environments. See the faces behind the names of our Tech Zone content. Client systems that do not have local printer drivers, such as PCoIP zero clients and mobile clients, are not supported. The uses is a development team that need to be able to install applications them self. This information is shared to a VHD(x) file on a network file share. When using network print servers, we recommend using Dynamic Environment Manager to set up printer mappings and to deliver a follow-me printing solution. VMware Horizon supports Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH), a role in RDS. This setup streamlines the login process because the printer is mapped only when the user needs it. ClonePrep is a VMware customization process run during instant clone deployment to personalize each desktop clone created from the parent image. What is the best practice to deliver persistent VDI's via VMware Horizon. Publish application that do not run on a server OS, Same deployment and configuration process as a normal desktop, Publish UWP apps as well as any Win32 application, One-to-One user to machine assignment, which prevents a user from impacting performance for another user as can happen in RDSH, VM Hosted Applications Feature Walkthrough. You can find more details in the License your RDS deployment with client access licenses (CALs). Finalize Windows with the OS Optimization Tool. Outlook accesses this cached copy instead of the cloud, resulting in faster response times. An example is pre-populating server names in an application or choosing a default language. Using the example configuration file provided below, the Office installation media is downloaded to a local network file share. By contrast, when the default Online Mode is enabled, Outlook accesses Office 365 on an ongoing basis and does not cache anything locally. Instead of buying and installing a new version of the suite whenever you need to upgrade, the products are updated automatically so users always work with the most current versions. Critical Horizon features and components, such as the Blast Extreme display protocol, instant-clone provisioning, VMware App Volumes application delivery, and VMware Dynamic Environment Manager, are integrated with published applications and desktops to provide a seamless user experience and an easy-to-manage, scalable solution. If you upgrade vCenter to 6.7, then you must upgrade your ESXi hosts to 6.7 at the same time. This guide is to help you use VMware Horizon to deliver Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus to your end users. See our favorite tools, scripts, and flings from various sites. The Files On-Demand feature can be enabled in the OneDrive for Business Sync Client settings configuration or using the OneDrive ADMX group policy template. In our example, the amount is 24 GB: After calculating the CPU and memory requirements, perform a load test with a tool like VMware View Planner before doing a day-to-day operations pilot. This is used in conjunction with an App Volumes UIA only Writable Volume. After enabling SCA and installing Office 365 ProPlus on a shared computer, the following sequence of events takes place for each user: Note: Each licensing token is unique to that specific user, for that specific shared computer. To turn off hardware graphics acceleration for Internet Explorer, navigate to Internet Options > Advanced > Accelerated graphics and select Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering. I want to use either instant clones, or full machine VM, what is the VMware best practice for delivering Persistent VDI's in Horizon. Turn off heuristic scanning on RDS hosts that are rebuilt frequently. The provisioning of instant clones is faster than View Composer linked clones. : If you are using an automated farm, you perform this procedure on the golden VM for the automated farm. Explore how VMware can help solve an IT team's most pressing digital workspace challenges. Disable Windows Hibernation in the Golden Image FSLogix is one of many third-party solutions that workwith VMware Horizon. Other benefits include a limited need to back up the virtual machines and easier, less expensive disaster recovery and business. For security reasons, certain Windows operating system privileges are removed from the VMware Horizon Instant Clone Agent process that runs ClonePrep customization scripts. Here is a little bit about the FSlogix and DEM combination: Integrating FSLogix Profile Containers with the VMware Horizon Just-in-Time Management Platform (JMP All horizon best practices can be found on Techzone.vmware.com: Horizon | Resource | VMware. With Files On-Demand, you can access all your files in the cloud without having to download all of them and use storage space on your system. When you install Horizon Agent on the golden image, verify that the VMware Horizon Instant Clone Agent option for instant clones is selected. Figure 17: VM Hosted Applications + FSLogix Office Container + DEM + App Volumes, Figure 18: Roam Office Activation Encryption Keys with DEM. The results were found to be acceptable for use with Windows 10-based VDI pools. Instant clones deploy RDS hosts more rapidly, scale more easily, and perform maintenance up to 85 percent more quickly than was previously possible. Using Click-to-Run technology, installations can be performed on demand, and remotely from the Internet. to 7.8 and later but did not upgrade Connection Server to 7.8 and later, you cannot use custom scripts for load balancing. The current load of an RDS host can be viewed in the dashboard of the Horizon Administrator under System Health. For design guidance of Horizon see theVMware Workspace ONE and Horizon Reference Architecture. Create the configuration.xml files that are used to download and configure Office 365 ProPlus. By default, this setting is not considered for load balancing. Other programs, such as Outlook, require connectivity to communicate with Exchange provided by Office 365 services. This prevents temporary product keys from being installed during the image creation process. Important: This recommendation assumes that the golden image has already been scanned and is known to be virus free. vSphere Storage and Networking Best Practices, Core Services Infrastructure Best Practices, Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration Best Practices, Dynamic Environment Manager Policy Configuration Best Practices, https://techzone.vmware.com/resource/antivirus-considerations-vmware-horizon-environment, Verify that all hardware is compatible with the version of the VMware products that you plan to use. The connection requires Internet connectivity to obtain the license, as well as to renew it, which occurs every few days. The following locations need to be roamed across non-persistent sessions:\Microsoft\Cryptoand\Microsoft\Protect. If you do do dedicated IC then it must be on distributed switches in I feel fixed mode. The best practice is to assign computer attached AppStacks to the Organizational Unit in Active Directory which contains the desktops. The service is turned off by default. Threshold of the average number of both read and write requests that were queued for the selected disk during the sample interval. There are two options for customizing instant clone virtual machines during the creation process: VMware ClonePrep or Microsoft Sysprep. After the pool is created, go through the standard Application Pool creation process, except choose Desktop Pool and select the name of the Pool you just created. In this scenario, it would be recommended to turn on drain mode. Figure 6: Dynamic Environment Manager + App Volumes, Figure 7: UIA plus Profile Writable Volume. As users log into these cloned desktops, additional memory is consumed. You can then either select applications to publish manually or automatically. Master VM must be version hardware version 11 or newer In Horizon Administrator, add Instant Clone Domain Accounts In Horizon Administrator, enable View Storage Accelerator on your vCenter connection. App Volumes App Packages are used to manage and dynamically distribute applications. See how you can maximize productivity while maintaining security and privacy. Can I make a full machine pool persistent? Horizon is a complete solution that delivers, manages, and protects virtual desktops, RDSH-published desktops, and applications across devices and locations. VMware Horizon 7.7 on VMware vSAN 6.7 using VMware Cloud Foundation Our Communities feature the top Digital Workspace Experts across the world and 3rd-party content. Besides validating your calculations, you can determine whether to use a 1:1 or 2:1 virtual-to-physical CPU ratio, based on performance or mitigations. The overall memory requirement is also reduced at clone creation time. Integrating FSLogix Profile Containers with VMware Horizon Like any VMware deployment, Horizon relies on hardware that is compatible with the appropriate versions of VMware vSphere and VMware vSAN and configured according to VMware best practices. (90152) Install Horizon Agent and check Instant Clone feature for installation. The scripts must reside on the golden image. Dedicated IC will give them a desktop with the Computer Name, MAC and IP address, but if this isn't needed then just do a floating pool of instant clones with DEM or FSlogix and bake all the apps inside it. Manual pool can have multiple OS: Protocol Type This will be used to roam all the Office 365 activation data as well as local user data including data like the OneDrive Cache or the Outlook OST file. Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant (SaRA) for Office 365. Provisioning does not require power operations, and the clones are forked from a running parent VM to further expedite the process. Because RDS hosts can be deleted and recreated regularly, assign the AppStack to the AD group object that contains the computer objects for the RDS hosts. Customize your Workspace ONE and Horizon adoption communications using our templates as a starting point. They are designed to have something for people of every experience level. This section provides a high-level overview of the process of installing Office 365 ProPlus in a Horizon VDI and RDS environment. Dynamic Environment Manager ensures that each users settings and customizations follow that user from one location to the next, regardless of the endpoint used to access the users resources. Empower Frontline Workers Solution Architecture. In combination with VMware Horizon Just-in-Time Delivery and Instant-Clone Technology, desktop deployment is faster and simpler than ever, delivering pristine, personalized desktops in seconds. This will save the setting to the profile archive and will be imported on each system with DEM and then the Office Activation data can be decrypted. Optimize Windows with the OS Optimization Tool. Because the shared computer must contact the Office Licensing Service on the Internet to obtain or renew a licensing token, reliable connectivity between the shared computer and the Internet is necessary. In this scenario, the FSLogix Profile Container is combined with DEM and App Volumes to provide persistence of the user experience and the Office 365 data across non-persistent desktops. Access technical, third-party tips, tricks, and how-tos. Use our product forums to engage with the community. Here you can create an account, or login with your existing Customer Connect / Partner Connect / Customer Connect ID. Use a pilot to validate ESXi host requirements. Explore the latest VMware tools designed to get your end-user computing environment running smoothly and efficiently. Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure Activity Path. To turn off hardware graphics acceleration and other CPU-intensive display options for Adobe Reader: For more information, see the Adobe documentation about General Application Settings in the Windows Registry. The installation process can take several minutes to finish and a progress window is not displayed. Create the golden RDS host or Hosted Applications VM, install Windows, and go to audit mode. Horizon uses the configured threshold to calculate the Disk Load Index factor. Use the 32-bit version of Office 365 ProPlus unless the larger memory space is required (for example, large Excel spreadsheets). You can set the value to any positive integer. FSLogix is configured either via registry or GPO as to which components of Office 365 will be persisted. Instant Clone Technology in Horizon 7 is amazingly fast. To run Sysprep on some older versions of Windows 10, you must remove Appx Packages installed for all users. By default, ClonePrep terminates a script if the execution takes longer than 20 seconds. VMware vSphere offers three different types of clones including full clone, linked clone, and instant clone. Calculate memory requirements based on users workloads. - Settings can be applied to an application automatically - an example is pre-populating server names in an application or choosing a default language. Conclusion. In this case. One of the following versions of the Office Deployment Tool, which is available on the Microsoft Download Center: You can download the Office 365 ProPlus software to your local network using the. After the publishing process is complete, provisioning the servers takes 1 or 2 seconds per server. Everything (Office activation data, Office user data, general user data) is in the profile and redirected to the FSLogix Profile Container VHD(x) file. Use the script in conjunction with a reasonable maximum number of connections per host, which is set on the host or farm. Note: This KB is applicable for VMware Horizon 7 version 7.8 and above. Consider setting up redundant servers (at least two) to provide the appropriate redundancy for this service. So when the desktop is destroyed and recreated it'll save their settings and such. In addition to using the instant clone API from vCenter Server, Horizon 7 also creates several types of internal VMs (Internal Template, ReplicaVM, and ParentVM) to manage these clones in a more scalable way. Apply updates manually to the base image. Dynamic Environment Manager provides privilege elevation and other customized user environment settings. Horizon uses the configured memory threshold to calculate the Memory Load Index factor. In this paper, we evaluate clone performance with a variety of workloads and discuss the provisioning rates of the different clone types.

David And Priscilla Waller Church, Articles V