vROPs for Horizon - Regain Compatibility and Insight into your VDI

If your business happens to utilize VMware Horizon for VDI, and vRealize Operations (vROPs) for infrastructure monitoring, insight, and capacity planning, you may also be a business that uses the vROPs for Horizon Adapter (V4H) to bring that level of insight into your virtual desktop infrastructure. That being the case, you likely noticed that good stretch of time where vROPs 6.7 broke compatibility with the existing vROPs Horizon Adapter (V4H) 6.5.1 forcing you to delay upgrades, or lose your vROPs insights into the Horizon environment until it was fixed.

So what's needed to bring everything to compliance and compatibility to get insight back into Horizon with vROPs? Ultimately, you need the 6.6 adapter and a patched vROPs instance. The V4H Adapter 6.6 now supports vROPs 6.7 and 7.0. And the process for patching and licensing the vROPs instance is outlined below.

Step 1:  Upgrade your V4H license

Head to the VMware Portal and find your vRealize Operations 6 Manager for Horizon license. Go through the process via the portal to upgrade it to vRealize Operations Manager for Horizon

Reference: How to upgrade license keys in My VMware

Step 2:  Patch vROPs

Follow the steps outlined in KB 60301 to apply the appropriate patch to your vROPs instance

NOTE: vRealize Operations Manager 6.6.1 GA, 6.7 GA, and 7.0 GA, do not include the Security Patch.

How can you tell if you already have this patch? 
If you're on version 7.0 and you see the patch below, you're still on GA and need to apply the security fix. Once it's been applied, you should see  build 7.0.0.11287812. Verify your working build per the KB linked above.

Step 3:  Install the new license 

Implementing the new key in your vROPs manager will bring compliance and compatibility once again. Here's the official documentation for applying licenses.

For the latest on vROPs and Horizon compatibility, always check the Interop Guide, and take a peek at KB 59651 as well.

Happy patching!

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Mapping VMware Updates and Tools to Build Numbers

VMware has always branded its software as GA, Update 1, Express Patch 4, etc etc. This makes it easy to discuss features and fixes among employees and customers alike. The challenge, as many of you know, is knowing the exact build numbers that correlate to these upgrades and patches. Those specific build numbers are often requested by TAMs, Support, and Engineering in order to ensure accurate recommendations when upgrade planning or troubleshooting.

Another challenge is knowing where in the stack of released versions you line up. If you're on vSphere 6.5.0b Patch 1, is that before or after Express Patch 1b? When did Update 1 come out again?

Luckily, VMware has made it easy for you to track down these build numbers, and know where you are in the greater timeline of releases. VMware Knowledge Base Article 1014508 is a hub of build numbers for most VMware products. Be sure to bookmark this page!

Table from KB1014508

You may notice a key component missing from this table, and that would be VMware Tools, VMware's guest operating system management and performance solution. VMware Tools can throw in some complexity since there are versions that come bundled with ESXi hosts, and there are separate build numbers for how ESXi sees it, vs how the Guest OS sees it. This can be overly complicated in mapping out. Here's the second page to bookmark:

https://packages.vmware.com/tools/versions 

Notice the 4 columns of information. As the page states, the columns represent the Tools Client registered build, the source ESXi build bundle, the GOS identified build, and the ESXi server build number. All in a public setting that easy to consume and report on.

Thanks for reading!

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Virtualizing Applications - which solution is best for you?

Whether you've been tasked with a VDI deployment to include not only desktop virtualization, but application virtualization, or you're simply trying to dust off your Horizon deployment and add some sweet flair, knowing where to invest your time and energy for app virtualization can leave you scratching your head. Hopefully this post can help you take that first step in the right direction.

Why write this post?

When you first begin looking at serving applications to your end users in a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), you'll find at least 3 big players mentioned over and over: ThinApp, View Hosted Apps (RDSH), and App Volumes (this post is of course geared toward a VMware Horizon environment). I'm going to give a breakdown of each solution as I see them. This is very much an "opinion" post with lots of facts and quotes from official documentation thrown in to inevitably persuade you to look back and think that this was a useful read. Tricky.

ThinApp

Back in 2008, VMware acquired Thinstall and rebranded it as ThinApp.

What does it do
ThinApp takes application installers (e.g., a .msi file) and bundles them into a self-contained executable that requires no additional configuration to run, essentially decoupling it from the underlying OS. This allows you to package an application that can in turn be pushed to VDI Desktops. The result is a ready-to-go application that requires no end-user install.

How are the apps deployedThinApps can be pushed to the end users' system over the network, provisioned via Horizon Administrator, via vIDM (Workspace One), streamed over the network from CIFS share, via an app stack using App Volumes, or even transferred via a good 'ol flash drive

What's it best used for
Legacy applications. Think IE6. You don't want to be installing that on anyone's system nowadays. But maybe that's the only browser option supported for whatever reason. Another example is a home-grown application that doesn't get updated regularly. You can package it and its dependencies together so users aren't complaining about having to login to that old XP system just to run the company's proprietary software.

One real life example I can think of is the mixture of Salesforce, Avaya, and FireFox. We had a soft phone extension for Salesforce and Mozilla FireFox 3.5 was the only supported browser to use it. ThinApp would allow us to package FireFox 3.5 while allowing the latest and greatest FireFox version to be installed on the same system.

What's the latest versionThinApp 5.2.1, released March 2016 (Release Notes Here)

Additional readshttps://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMware-ThinApp-DS-EN.pdf
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/thinapp_pubs.html
https://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/thinapp

View Hosted Apps (RDSH)

In 2014, VMware released Horizon 6 which utilized Remote Desktop Services Hosts (RDSH).

What Does it doView Hosted Apps (or RDSH apps) consist of a Microsoft Server 2008+ server that has the Horizon View Agent installed, as well as the desired applications. The great thing about this configuration is that a single install of the application can server multiple end-users when configured as an application pool in Horizon View Administrator.

How are the apps deployedThe View Hosted Apps are entitled and provisioned through Horizon Administrator. An example of typical use would look like this: the View Admin entitles user sloopJonB to Application Pool X. The next time sloopJonB launches his Horizon View Client and is presented with his entitled desktops pools, he is also presented with individual applications. When launching the application, he doesn't see the entire OS loading with the app on the desktop, but instead sees just the application being presented.

What's it best used forOther than being able to run Windows Apps on your iPhone, View Hosted Apps in my mind is the 'poor man's' app virtualization solution. This point could be argued as it's not currently included in the Horizon 7 Standard edition, however, I see this as app virtualization-lite. There are some great administrative capabilities to using RDS Hosts as your app servers, but the downsides could outweigh the benefits for some (SOME) customers. These include, but are not limited to, the need to build out multiple RDS hosts for scaling, managing those multiple servers with their OS patching, individual application upgrading and maintenance across multiple servers, Microsoft Licensing, and performance.

What's the latest versionHorizon 7.0.1, released June 2016 (Release Notes Here)

Additional readshttp://hrzn.ws/29PWxQ5
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/view_pubs.html
http://hrzn.ws/29PVW0M
http://hrzn.ws/29VZLnO

App Volumes

In 2014, VMware acquired CloudVolumes and rebranded it as VMware App Volumes.

What does it doApp Volumes changes the playing field for managing and provisioning virtualized apps. It can dramatically reduce storage usage and image management, all while allowing admins to provision or upgrade apps faster than ever before. This is the solution for the IT Admin who is looking to really drive app virtualization for the next generation. If you're serious about decoupling your applications from standard images and confinements in an attempt to adopt a robust app delivery model that's highly flexible,  App Volumes should be taken very, very seriously.

How are the apps deployed"Applications are stored in read-only virtual disks that, with the click of a button, instantly attach to individual or groups of virtual desktops, published application servers, or users. To the end-user, applications perform like natively installed applications. The platform that App Volumes is built on also supports user profile and policy management, application isolation, and advanced monitoring capabilities."- from the App Volumes FAQ

These "read-only  virtual disks", or AppStacks, can also host ThinApps on them, and all be served up through RDSH Application Pools.

What's it best used forFor rapid application delivery and management, and OS-agnostic application configuration, App Volumes will be your go-to. I've seen it in action where I logged into a Horizon Desktop with nothing but standard windows applications installed on the system. Then once a script was hit to attach my AppStack, I had 40 additional applications ready to use in a matter of seconds. Unlike strictly using RDS Hosts for hosted applications, there is no Image maintenance, OS patching, or VM rebuilding involved just to remain up to date - just maintenance of the AppStack and the applications therein.

How about its performance you ask? You'll want to keep in mind App Volumes is heavily read-intensive, so your storage will need to be up to the task. As noted in the App Volumes Deployment Guide, "Proper planning for storage can affect many aspects of an App Volumes implementation, including cost and performance" so you'll want to carefully architect your implementation.

What's the latest version
App Volumes 2.11, released June 2016 (Release Notes Here)

Additional Reads
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vmware-app-volumes-reference-architecture.pdf
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/appvolumes/vmware-appvolumes-faq.pdf
http://pubs.vmware.com/appvolumes-211/index.jsp

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Workspace Portal Administrative Consoles

Workspace Portal has had a few facelifts over the years. Some remember the Horizon Workspace 1.x days of the multi-vm vApp where 5 different VMs were responsible for 5 different services. One difficulty resulting from this architecture was different VMs, with different URLs, that had different settings. This vApp then went down to 4 VMs with Workspace Portal 2.0, and now all necessary services are handled in a single-vm vApp with Workspace Portal 2.1, simplifying deployment and configuration.

The configuration, however, done through Workspace's administrative links can still be a bit daunting to the new administrator.

Workspace Portal has 3 primary locations used to customize and configure the appliance. These 3 locations, or "Quick Links" can be accessed from https://:8443



Set it and forget it.

The first link is the Appliance Configurator. I like to think of this link as the "Set it and forget it" link. When you configure the settings from this page, you won't need to access the page very often anymore - things like your FQDN and your database connection. Clicking on this link, you'll notice it prompts for your Admin password you initially setup upon first connecting to Workspace, which brings us to the Configurator Admin page

NOTE: you can also access this page directly by navigating to https://:8443/cfg/setup



The most important settings configured from this page are the Database, SSL Cert, and FQDN. The optional settings are for setting up a syslog server, changing admin/ssh account passwords, and generating support log bundles. If you're ever opening up a support request with VMware Support, be sure to include a log bundle collected from this location.

Connecting services to Workspace Portal.

Next we'll look at the Connector Services Admin link. Think of this as where we'll "connect" Workspace to other services in your environment, whether it's your existing Active Directory users and groups, Horizon View desktops and hosted apps, SaaS applications, and the authentication methods for said services.

NOTE: you can also access thsi page directly by navigating to https://:8443/hc/admin/about



Finally you have the Workspace Admin Portal. Think of this as where you refine the end-results of your working instance. From here, you can access a tab called Settings which has some misceallaneous settings - things from obtaining SAML Metadata for your SaaS service providers, to tweaking your Authentication Methods for your synced internal and external users.

Related Documentation:
Introduction to Workspace for Administrators

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How to customize the "Download Workspace for Windows" URL in Workspace Portal

If you've found yourself directing users to download the Workspace for Windows Client by telling them to login to Workspace, click their name, and choose "Download" only to find it takes them to www.vmware.com.. you're not the only one!

Users should be able to download the Windows Client directly by clicking "Download"

There's even a pretty button for it!

Luckily this is pretty simple to address.

To change the Workspace Client Download URL:

1. Login to the Workspace appliance as root, and type the following
   
   vi /usr/local/horizon/conf/client-download.properties


2. You should see a single line that reads winSyncClientUrl=http://www.vmware.com
   
   


3. Simply change the value of winSyncClientUrl to the desired URL. You could set this to the actual VMware Download page for Workspace Products (https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=HZNP210&productId=419&rPId=6533) or you can set it to an internal link to the .exe itself on your web server. I have mine set to my cloud share for direct access to the .exe:
   
   


4. Restart the workspace service
   
   service horizon-workspace restart
   
   


5. Reload your Workspace User page and you now have a working download link for the client! Good luck!

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How to remove your License from VMware Horizon View

Licensing Horizon View is quite simple. Grab your key, enter it into the GUI and you're off. What you  might have noticed, however, is that once you've submitted your key, it's as if you've deposited it into a black hole, never to be seen again. Per the licensing section in View Administrator (View Configuration > Product Licensing and Usage) the only information we get is which features are enabled and our expiration.

So what if you need to remove this license without replacing it? Or what if you're getting an error replacing the License and wish you could just wipe it out? The answer is quit simple and outlined below.

In order to clear your license from View:

1. First, take a backup of the ADAM database (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008046) by opening a command prompt on the Connection Server and type: vdmexport > vdmconfig.ldf


2. Connect to ADAM via ADSI Edit (kb.vmware.com/kb/2012377)


3. Expand OU=Properties, OU=Global then right click CN=License and choose Properties.


4. Scroll down to pae-LicenseKey2, choose Edit, and remove all entries.


5. Wait 2 minutes for ADAM to replicate to other brokers (if applicable) then go verify View is unlicensed in View Administrator. If you run into any issues, you can follow the first KB I linked above to restore the ADAM database.

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How to tell who deleted your Horizon View VM

It's happened to all of us - we go to find a particular desktop in the View Inventory only to find it's not there. You didn't delete, so who did?

Luckily we know better than to survey our co-workers - we can confirm from the logs!

On the Connection Server, navigate to C:\ProgramData\VMware\VDM\logs and check out the DEBUG logs.

Typically you will see a line similar to:

2014-09-11T10:45:18.210-07:00 DEBUG (0B1C-0B47) [ws_TomcatService] STDOUT: 2014-08-11 10:45:18 [com.vmware.vdi.desktopcontroller.PendingOperation]-[DEBUG] Pool floating::Stopping & deleting VM /EUC/vm/Floating/Win7-01.

In this example, if you trace the session ID (0B1C-0B47), you'll also find a line earlier in the log such as:

2014-08-11T10:39:23.053-07:00 DEBUG (0B1C-0B38) [ws_TomcatService] STDOUT: 2014-09-11 10:39:23 [com.vmware.vdi.admin.ui.LoginBean]-[INFO] User ryan has successfully authenticated to View Administrator

And voila! User ryan has been busted.

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