Nutanix - Schedule Maintenance for an Automated RDSH Farm

With the maintenance operation, you can schedule recurring or immediate maintenance of all the RDS hosts in an automated farm. During each maintenance cycle, all the RDS hosts are refreshed from the golden image Nutanix template.

You can refresh the RDS hosts using the same golden image Nutanix template, or choose a new golden image Nutanix template to push out an updated image to the RDS hosts.

If possible, schedule maintenance operations during off-peak hours to ensure all that RDS hosts have finished maintenance and are available during peak hours.

Note: When scheduling maintenance and selecting to wait for users to log off, Horizon will automatically disable RDS Hosts (preventing new connections) as required in order to allow sessions to drain and maintenance to occur. The minimum farm size setting is honored, meaning that number of RDS Hosts will remain available for new connections.

Prerequisites

• Prism Central (PC) version 2024.3
• AOS version 7.0
• AHV version 10.0

Procedure

1. In Horizon Console, navigate to Inventory > Farms.

2. Select the pool ID of the farm for which you want to schedule maintenance.

3. Click Maintain > Schedule.

4. In the Schedule Push Image wizard, choose a Golden Image.

5. Click Next.

6. In Advanced Settings, select a Destination Cluster and Guest Customizations.

Option	Action
Domain	Select the domain to join the RDSH VMs.
AD Container	Select the Active Directory container (OU or group) where computer accounts will be created.
Site Name	Select the Active Directory site for these VMs. This option is only available if ClonePrep is selected.
Allow Reuse of Existing Computer Accounts	Disable is the default setting.
Image Publishing Computer Account	Select if needed.
Customization	Select one of the following: ClonePrep - Uses ClonePrep for customization during VM creation. SysPrep – Uses Microsoft Sysprep.

7. Click Next.

8. On the Schedule Update screen, complete the following:

Update Type

Option	Action
Recurring	Schedules periodic maintenance of all the RDS host servers in a farm. Select a date and time from which the maintenance is effective. Select a maintenance period. You can select daily, monthly, or weekly maintenance periods. Select a repeat interval in days for the maintenance operation to recur. If an immediate maintenance is scheduled on a farm, then the immediate maintenance date becomes the effective date for any recurring maintenance. If you cancel the immediate maintenance, then the current date becomes the effective date for recurring maintenance.
Immediate	Schedules immediate maintenance of all the RDS host servers in a farm. Immediate maintenance creates a one-time maintenance schedule for immediate or near future maintenance. Use immediate maintenance to refresh the farm from a new image when you want to apply urgent security patches. Select an immediate maintenance configuration. Select Start Now to start the maintenance operation instantly. Select Start at to start the maintenance operation at a near future date and time. Enter the date and Web browser local time. Note: Recurring maintenance will be put on hold until immediate maintenance is complete.
Publish Secondary Image	The image you used to create a pool is the default image. By default, all maintenance operations use this image to update all machines in the farm. You can optionally publish a secondary image, which you can use to update a subset of the machines in the farm while leaving the rest unchanged. After you have published the secondary image, options are enabled to apply either of the images to selected machines without using the Schedule Recurring Maintenance process. To apply the secondary image, select the machines on the RDS Hosts tab of the Farms page and then select More Commands > Apply Secondary Image. To apply the default image, select the machines on the RDS Hosts tab of the Farms page and then select More Commands > Apply Default Image. If the new image meets your acceptance criteria, you can promote this secondary image to be your default image. Otherwise, you can cancel the secondary image and the default image will get applied to the desktop pool. There is an option on the Summary tab to promote the secondary image. This causes the secondary image to become the new default image on the pool and applies it to all the machines in the pool. To promote the secondary image, select Maintain > Promote Secondary Image. To cancel the secondary image, select Maintain > Cancel on the Summary tab. If the pool is set to refresh on logoff, the desktops that are currently on the secondary image will revert to the default image once the user logs off. If the pool is not set to refresh on logoff, the desktops on the secondary image remain on it unless a recover, delete, or refresh is performed on the desktop.

User Logoff Options

• Wait for users to log off

• Force users to log off

Grace Period Details

• Logoff Time - The default is 5 minutes.

• Logoff Message - Displays the default.

  Note: Grace Period Details can be configured in Global Settings.

9. Click Next.

10. On the The Ready to Complete screen, review all selections and click Submit.