Omnissa Horizon Connection Server

This software service acts as a broker for client connections in Omnissa Horizon 8 environments. Horizon Connection Server authenticates users through Windows Active Directory and directs the request to the appropriate virtual machine, physical PC, or Microsoft RDS host.

Horizon Connection Server provides the following management capabilities:

• Authenticating users

• Entitling users to specific desktops and pools

• Managing remote desktop and application sessions

• Establishing secure connections between users and remote desktops and applications

• Enabling single sign-on

• Setting and applying policies

Inside the corporate firewall, you install and configure a group of two or more Horizon Connection Server instances. Their configuration data is stored in an embedded LDAP directory and is replicated among members of the group.

Outside the corporate firewall, you can install an Omnissa Unified Access Gateway appliance in the DMZ. Unified Access Gateway appliances in the DMZ communicate with Horizon Connection Servers inside the corporate firewall. Unified Access Gateway appliances ensure that the only remote desktop and application traffic that can enter the corporate data center is traffic on behalf of a strongly authenticated user. Users can access only the resources that they are authorized to access.

For more information about Unified Access Gateway appliances, see the Unified Access Gateway documentation.

Important: It is possible to create a Horizon 8 setup that does not use Horizon Connection Server. If you install the Horizon Agent Direct-Connection Plug-In (formerly View Agent Direct-Connection Plug-In) in a remote virtual machine desktop, the client can connect directly to the virtual machine. All the remote desktop features, including PCoIP, Omnissa Horizon Web Client, RDP, USB redirection, and session management work in the same way, as if the user had connected through Horizon Connection Server. For more information, see the Horizon Agent Direct-Connection Plugin document.

Note: Horizon Web Client is available with Horizon 8 versions 2412 and later. For Horizon 8 versions 2406 and earlier, Horizon Web Client is called "HTML Access." This documentation page uses the name "Horizon Web Client" to refer to both Horizon Web Client and HTML Access.