Deploy Horizon View Connection Server 7.5

Hi all,

Today we will discuss about Horizon View Connection server and Connection server deployment.

Horizon View 7.5 blog series: “Horizon View 7.5

Previous blog post: “Deploy View Composer Server 7.5

Horizon View Connection server or connection broker or some time we call it as view manager, its a central component of VMware Horizon View infrastructure. View connection server server is running on top windows server operating system. Single connection server can handle 2000 sessions at a time (Recommended from VMware). Its primary role is to connect a user to their virtual desktop by means of performing user authentication, and then delivering the appropriate desktop resources based on the user’s profile and user entitlement.

Management capabilities of Horizon View Connection Server

  • Authenticating users
  • Entitling users to specific desktops and pools
  • Assigning applications packaged with VMware ThinApp to specific desktops and pools
  • Managing local and remote desktop sessions
  • Establishing secure connections between users and desktops
  • Enabling single sign-on
  • Setting and applying policies

Recommended supported configuration

We will discuss basic requirements for deploying Horizon View Connection Server.

Supported Operating Systems for View Composer Server

You must install Horizon Connection Server on a supported Windows Server operating system. Below operating systems support Horizon View Connection server.

Note:- Windows Server 2008 R2 with no service pack is no longer supported.

Horizon Connection Server Hardware Requirements

Maximum Connections for Connection Server

Remote Desktop Connections provides information about the tested limits regarding the number of simultaneous connections that a Horizon 7 deployment can accommodate.

Remote Desktop Connections

Firewall Rules for Horizon Connection Server

Certain ports must be opened on the firewall for Connection Server instances and security servers.

When you install Connection Server, the installation program can optionally configure the required Windows Firewall rules for you. These rules open the ports that are used by default. If you change the default ports after installation, you must manually configure Windows Firewall to allow Horizon Client devices to connect to Horizon 7 through the updated ports.

The following table lists the default ports that can be opened automatically during installation. Ports are incoming unless otherwise noted.

Ports Opened During Horizon Connection Server Installation

In my environment I deployed standalone view connection server on top of windows 2012 R2 with 4 CPU and 10 GB RAM.

  • Host Name: CS01
  • IP Address: 192.168.0.112
  • Domain: vgyan.local

Before proceeding View Connection Server installation make sure server under domain and you have assigned static IP.

Open Certificate MMC console and enroll new certificate from CA server. make sure you are changing certificate friendly name to “vdm” from certificate properties tab.

Verify certificate installation results, make sure it’s “Succeeded”. Click Finish.

I downloaded VMware-viewconnectionserver-x86_64-7.5.0-8583568 software from VMware software downloads.

Open VMware-viewconnectionserver-x86_64-7.5.0-8583568  and run as administrator.

Click “Next”

Accept EULA and click “Next”.

Verify installation folder and click “Next”.

From the installation option, Select Horizon 7 Standard Server Option and select Install HTML access.

While selecting IP protocol, make sure all the components of Horizon environment should be in same IP protocol. You can’t use IPv4 and IPv6 combination in Horizon environment. I am going with IPv4.

Click “Next” to continue.

In View Connection Server, we can initiate self backup. Provide data recovery password, this password required while restoring backup data. We will discuss more on connection server backup and restore later.

Click “Next”.

Windows  firewall is requirement for horizon view, spicily for Security server to connection server communication. So do not disable windows firewall. While installing connection server it will configure windows firewall automatically.

Select “Configure windows firewall automatically” and click “Next”.

Specify the Authorized user or user accounts for Horizon 7 administration.

There are two option, we can authorize local administrator group or domain user/ domain group.

I added my self as View admin, Click “Next”.

Join the VMware Customer Experience program, Click “Next”.

Verify and click “Install”.

Once the installation completed, click “Finish”.

Verify all there required services are installed and running as expected.

For accessing Horizon View Connection Server admin panel, open any supported browser, open https:// connection server FQDN or IP/admin. Provide admin user name and password and click “log In”.

Supported Web browsers are IE10, IE11, Firefox & Chrome Latest Version , Microsoft Edge (Windows 10), Safari 6 and later releases..

After successful login verify the installed connection server version and build number.

So we successfully deployed Horizon View Connection Server 7.5.0.

That’s all guys.. will discuss more on Horizon View 7.5 in upcoming post, Horizon View components installation and configuration, various Desktop pool creations, Application publishing etc… stay tuned.. ????

Next blog post will be “Deploy View Replica Server 7.5

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