Automating with the Horizon vCO plugin for VMware Horizon Part 1 - Installation

Using the Horizon vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) plugin allows you to automate provisioning tasks, allow end user self-service tasks, configure entitlements and more in VMware Horizon 6 thereby reducing the need for internal email correspondence and exception handling. For a full list of functionality, you'll want to see the Administrator's Guide. The official guide is certainly a good read and can be found here.

This post assumes you already have vCenter Orchestrator installed.

Installing the plugin

1. Download the VMware vCenter Orchestrator plug-in for Horizon 1.1 from here


2. Launch the vCenter Orchestrator Configuration page, usually https://localhost:8283


3. Click Plug-ins on the left and choose Install new plug-in


4. Browse and select the .vmoapp you downloaded in Step 1


5. Once uploaded, it will initiate the plugin installation - accept the EULA
   


6. When it completes, you should see it listed in the Enabled plug-ins installation status with a note "Will perform installation at next server startup."
   


7. Now we need to restart first the Orchestrator service, and second the Configuration service
   


8. Re-launch the Configuration page and you should now see the Enabled status as "Installation OK"
   


9. To verify the plugin data, login to the Orchestrator Client Application and verify you see the Horizon Library with the provided default Workflows
   

This is Part 1 in a series on using vCO with Horizon so please subscribe or check back often to stay up to date!