Tenant System Requirements on Horizon 8

To support the use of Horizon Image Management Service (IMS) features for Horizon 8 deployed on premises, configure the following requirements.

Software Requirements for Horizon 8 On Premise Deployment

Several systems settings must be reviewed and confirmed for IMS functionality to succeed. First, confirm that your Horizon Connection Server is using version 2306 or later with a valid license. Then, review the following information to confirm they are also set up appropriately.

vCenter Server Requirements

Confirm that you are running vCenter Server 6.5 or later in all the deployment sites that you want to manage.

The vCenter Server user must be configured with all the standard privileges required by a Horizon deployment. In addition to these standard privileges, Horizon Image Management Service requires the following privileges:

• Virtual Machines - all privileges in this group.
• vApp - all privileges in this group.
• Resources - be able to assign VMs to the resource pool.

The vCenter Server IP address or hostname listed in the vCenter Server certificate and thumbprint should also be listed in the Horizon Universal Console.

Follow the appropriate method to add vCenter Server instances to a Horizon deployment. If the vCenter Server certificate and thumbprint identifies the server's name (common name/Subject Alternative Names) value of the vCenter Server by IP Address, then the same IP address should be entered in the Horizon Console. If it is identified by hostname, then the same hostname/fqdn should be entered in the Horizon Console.

Next, ensure that the following outbound URLs from the Horizon 8 Edge are present in the allowlist of your firewall or proxy:

• cloud-sg-us-hdc-mqtt.horizon.omnissa.com:443
• cloud-sg-eu-hdc-mqtt.horizon.omnissa.com:443
• cloud-sg-jp-hdc-mqtt.horizon.omnissa.com:443

vCenter VM Templates/Snapshots Requirements

Verify that the latest Windows updates and system patches are installed on the VM templates/snapshots and that the installation process for these items is complete to serve the same as base OS images.

• If any of installations are still in progress when you attempt to publish an image, the publish can fail.
• Encrypted/vTPM based templates/snapshots are not supported for image management.
• Verify that all Windows configurations (such as time zone, region, and keyboard layout) are completed.
• The image format must be saved as either VM templates or VM snapshots.
• Ensure ~20GB or more of free storage is available on the C:\ drive.

Ensure that the following pre-requisites are met for publishing Horizon 8 images across multiple Horizon 8 Edges or vCenters.

• vCenter user must have role "privilege:vApp.Export" and "privilege:vApp.Import".
• Ensure that the hardware version of source VM is supported on the destination vCenter.
• Make sure snapshots are not included in the source VM.
• Disconnect all removable media source virtual machine such as CD-ROM, floppy or has references for USB, ISO device.
• Ensure that the source VM doesn’t have any vTPM attached and that VM disks are not encrypted.
• Verify that the datastore on the destination vCenter has sufficient capacity to deploy new VMs.

Replication Storage Requirements

Replication storage is required for the replication of resources across multiple Horizon Edges. This configuration is used to create storage using the details provided by the chosen storage platform. It is also used to store the files which are uploaded from the source which are then used for further processing, such as downloading onto the destination edges.

Prior to the 2511 release, if you were using IMS for managing Horizon 8 images and replicating to more than one edge simultaneously, Azure Bob Storage was required as the replication storage.

After the 2512 release, Horizon Image Management Service (IMS) also supports Network File System (NFS) as replication storage for multi-edge replication of Horizon 8 images. This enables fully on-premises replication storage and removes cloud dependency for purely on-prem deployments.

Azure Blob Storage Requirements

Ensure that the required resource providers are registered in the Microsoft Azure Subscription (Microsoft.Resources and Microsoft.Storage).

Verify that the Service Principal used for the replication storage configuration has the following permissions:

• "Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourceGroups/*"
• "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/*"

If network access restrictions are applied to the storage account:

• IP addresses of Horizon Control Plane endpoints must be allowlisted.
• You can obtain the list of IP addresses by contacting Omnissa Operations.
• Add IP addresses of your on-premises datacenter Endpoints (for example, NAT gateway or firewall IP ranges) so they can also access the storage account.

Procedure (Azure Blob Storage)

1. From the Horizon Universal Console Home page, navigate to Resources > Capacity > Replication Storage.

2. Add storage platform-specific details for the service principal credentials for Azure.

   • Name - Provide a unique name for the replication storage.
   • Storage Provider - Select Microsoft Azure Blobstore.
   • Subscription ID - Microsoft Azure subscription ID in UUID format.
   • Directory ID - Microsoft Azure AD Directory ID in UUID format.
   • Application ID - Application ID (UUID format) of the service principal created in Microsoft Azure.
   • Application Key - Authentication key for the service principal.
   • Azure Region - The geographic Azure region for replication storage deployment.
   • Azure Cloud Type - Select the appropriate type from the drop down (Azure- Commercial, Azure- US Government, Azure-China)

3. Click Save and it will validate the details and create the replication storage.

   Note: Only one replication storage of type Microsoft Azure Blobstore can be added per organization.

Network File System (NFS) Storage Requirements

1. If needed, use alternate IP addresses to configure and make this common IP visible across all edges where this NFS is used for replication.
2. Attach the NFS to at least one host in the clustern, or preferably to all hosts in the cluster.
3. Ensure this NFS is read/write enabled and has sufficient space, such as 1TB, to accommodate 5-10 images (approximately 100 GB each).
4. An image version can only be replicated to vCenter Servers where the NFS Storage is mounted to at least one ESXi Host.
5. If an image version is imported from a vCenter that does not have the NFS Storage mounted, it cannot be replicated to other vCenters using that NFS Storage.
6. Multiple NFS staging area configurations can exist per organization, but only one can be selected per Image Version during the Publish operation.

Procedure (NFS Storage)

1. From the Horizon Universal Console Home page, navigate to Resources > Capacity > Replication Storage.

2. Add configuration parameters for NFS Storage:

   • Name - Provide a unique name for the replication storage.
   • Storage Provider - Select Network File System (NFS).
   • Server - IP address or FQDN of NFS server. Example: 10.10.100.10
   • Folder - Folder path. Example: /vols/vo10/datastore-001

3. Click Save to validate the details and create the replication storage.

   Note: Multiple replication staging area configurations of type NFS can be configured per organisation, but only one can be used per Image Version during the Publish operation.

Limitations

The supported Horizon deployment model is currently the on-premises deployment type. Horizon Edge deployments in non-on-premises locations are unsupported. Additional limitations include:

1. vCenter Server Authentication: IMS only supports vCenter Server authentication based on username and password credentials.
2. Image Publishing Operations: During image publishing, prevent activities in vCenter Server that could cause guest VM migrations on the image's underlying VMs to avoid failures.
3. Linked-Clone Workspace Assignments: IMS does not support managing images for linked-clone workspace assignments. Deactivate Horizon View Composer on pods used with IMS, as image publishing fails when it's enabled.
4. Horizon Agent Installation: IMS requires full, built-in Windows administrator privileges to create a directory and install Horizon Agent on VMs cloned from managed images.
5. Image Copies: During image publishing, multiple image copies might be created on the same Horizon Edge and vCenter. Do not remove these copies, as they are necessary for proper functioning.
6. Image Placement Preferences: When importing or cloning images, resulting image artifacts in vCenter are created in the same folder, cluster, resource pool, datastore, and network as the original source template or VM snapshot. Custom image placement preferences are not currently available.
7. Edge Proxy Configuration: Only Edge proxy configured on Horizon Edge with password-based authentication (with or without) is supported. Certificate-based proxy is not supported.
8. Encrypted vTPM-Based vSphere VM Templates/Snapshots: Not supported. For more information, refer to KB:85960.
9. Azure Blob Storage Configuration: For storage accounts created with “Public network access: Enabled from all networks,” avoid changing settings. If network access restrictions are applied, allowlist IP addresses of Horizon Control Plane endpoints on the storage account.