Add and Deploy a Horizon Edge for Nutanix

You can add and deploy a Horizon Edge for Horizon Cloud on Nutanix capacity types. You can then configure the Unified Access Gateway (UAG) for the Edge. During this process, you will work in both Omnissa Horizon Cloud and Nutanix Prism Central.

Note: Horizon Cloud on Nutanix is currently available in Limited Availability (LA) mode only.

Prerequisites

• Review and fulfill the requirements in the Requirements Checklist for Deploying a Horizon Cloud on Nutanix Edge and Port and Protocol Requirements for Horizon Cloud on Nutanix Edge topics in the Getting Started with Horizon Cloud product document.

• Review and complete the Horizon Cloud access process described in Horizon Cloud on Nutanix Edge Deployments, including the onboarding process and any networking specifications.

• Complete the steps in the Configure Network Settings and Parent VM Setup for Nutanix Edge Deployments.

• Confirm that you meet the following requirements:

  • The deployed Nutanix version is supported.

  • A Nutanix Prism Central user account with the minimum necessary permissions is available.

  • The Nutanix Prism Central certificate thumbprint is available.

  • A static IP address with configured forward and reverse DNS records is available.

  • All documented URLs are reachable and necessary ports are open.

  • Use the Omnissa Horizon Edge URL Checker tool, which is available at Omnissa Customer Connect, to verify that the you meet the prerequisites for the following networks:

    • Edge Network
    • Desktop Network
    • UAG Network(s)

Machine and User Identity Prerequisites

See Requirements Checklist for Deploying a Horizon Cloud on Nutanix Edge and Identity and Access Management in Horizon Cloud in Getting Started with Horizon Cloud.

Networking, Load Balancer, and VM Prerequisites

See Configure Network Settings and Parent VM Setup for Horizon Cloud on Nutanix Edge Deployments in this Using and Managing Horizon Cloud guide.

Procedure for Creating the Edge Deployment in Horizon Cloud

The Horizon Universal Console in Horizon Cloud makes the Add Horizon Edge UI page available from various entry points. Your starting point in the console for this step typically depends on whether your environment is greenfield or it has existing Horizon Edge deployments.

• No Horizon Edges yet - If there are no Horizon Edges deployed in the environment yet, you usually start the process by clicking Start Deployment. The console then displays the Add Horizon Edge UI stepper page. Alternatively, you can start by clicking Capacity > Horizon Edges > Add > Horizon Cloud > Nutanix. The console then displays the Add Horizon Edge UI stepper page.

• At least one Horizon Edge - If there is at least one Horizon Edge that has already been created and deployed in your Horizon Cloud environment, click Capacity > Horizon Edges > Add > Horizon Cloud > Nutanix from the Horizon Universal Console to open the Add Horizon Edge stepper page.

1. Log in to the Horizon Universal Console. See Log in to Horizon Cloud.

2. From the Horizon Universal Console UI, click Capacity > Horizon Edges in the left pane navigation.

3. From the Horizon Edges tab, click Add and from the drop-down menu, select Horizon Cloud > Nutanix.

Respond to all subsequent UI stepper pages as described below.

Requirements

Review the requirements as shown, confirm that you have met the requirements, and then click Next.

General Information

On the General Information page, enter a Horizon Edge name and description (optional) and then click Next.

Capacity Provider

On the Capacity Provider page, enter the following information and then click Next.

1. Location: Start typing the city where the SDDC is located, then select from the populated list.

2. Prism Central URL: The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address of your Prism Central server, which manages and monitors your Nutanix cluster environment.

3. User Name: Enter the user name of the Prism Central service account.

4. Password: Enter the Password of the Prism Central service account.

5. Thumbprint: Specify the SHA-256 certificate thumbprint/fingerprint from the Prism Central server certificate. As noted in onscreen help, inspect the security certificate for the Prism Central URL and copy the SHA-256 fingerprint.

Site

On the Site page, click Add New and respond to prompts or select an existing site from the drop-down menu and then click Next.

Horizon Edge Gateway

In the Deployment area, enter the following information.

1. FQDN: Enter the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) for the Edge Gateway.

   The FQDN must be resolvable from VDI desktops.

2. Use SSO: Keep this disabled if no SSO configurations exist yet.

   Toggle on if an SSO configuration is already created and you want to associate it with this Edge.

3. SSO Configurations: This field becomes available only when Use SSO is enabled.

   Start typing the name of the desired SSO configuration, then select it from the list.

4. Click Next.

   A message appears, stating Initiation of Horizon Edge Gateway creation in progress. It will take a few minutes to be completed. When the process is completed, move to the next step in the UI page.

Edge Gateway Appliance

On the Edge Gateway Appliance page, click Download to download the available Edge Gateway image for the appliance to deploy on the Nutanix Prism Central virtualization platform. Click Next to continue.

Note the location where you download the Edge Gateway image as you will need the image in the next procedure.

Deploy and Pair Horizon Edge Gateway

On the Deploy and Pair Horizon Edge Gateway page, copy the pairing code as described in the onscreen instructions, and then click Finish.

Save the pairing code as you will need to specify it in the next procedure.

Procedure for Deploying the Horizon Edge Gateway Appliance on Prism Central

Use the following procedure to deploy the Horizon Edge Gateway appliance and connect to Horizon Cloud service from Prism Central.

Upload the Edge Gateway Image to Prism Central

Complete the following steps and then click Save.

1. Log into your Nutanix Prism Central account.

2. In the left navigation pane in Prism Central, select Compute > Images.

3. Click Add Image. For Image Source, specify the Horizon Edge Gateway image file that you downloaded in the previous procedure and then click Next.

4. For Placement Method, select Place image directly on clusters.

   With this method, the image is placed on all selected clusters. This method is ideal for smaller environments

   Alternatively, you can select Place image using Image Placement policies for larger environments. This method requires image placement policies to be set up in Nutanix between categories assigned to clusters and categories assigned to images.

5. As prompted, select the clusters to use for placement and then click Save.

Create the Edge Gateway VM in Prism Central

1. In the left navigation pane in Prism Central, select VMs > Create VM in the Compute section.

2. In the Configuration section, specify the following information and then click Next to continue.

   • Provide a Name and Description for the Edge VM.
   • Specify a Project and Cluster name, for example _internal and cluster-name respectively.
   • Enter the Number of VMs as 1 and the following VM Properties:
   • CPUs: 8 (recommended)
   • Cores Per CPU: 1 (recommended)
   • Memory: 16 GiB (recommended)

3. In the Resources section, specify the following information and then click Next to continue.

   • For the Attach Disk options, specify the following values for this example:

     • Type: Disk
     • Operation: Clone from Image
     • Image: horizon-edge-gw-2603.0.0.qcow2
     • Capacity: 40 GiB
     • Bus Type: SCSI

   • Select Attach to a Subnet.

   • For Boot Configuration, specify UEFI BIOS Mode for this example.

   • For Boot Priority, specify DISK (SCSI) — Disk, CD-ROM, Network for this example.

4. Optionally specify an existing Nutanix storage policy.

   Any storage policy applied later will manage the storage properties for all VM disks. Data placement will remain unaffected.

5. In the Management section, specify the following information for guest customization:

   • Script Type: Cloud-init (Linux)

   • Configuration Method: Custom Script

   • Startup Script: Paste the code block below:

        yaml
     #cloud-config
     write_files:
       - path: /opt/horizon/var/data/env-vars.json
         content: |
           {
             "defaultGateway": "",
             "dns": "",
             "dockerCIDR": "",
             "hostName": "",
             "edgeGwBuildNumber": "258",
             "edgeGwVersion": "2603.1.1",
             "ipAddress": "",
             "netMask": "",
             "pairingCode": "FILL_IN_PAIRING_CODE",
             "podCIDR": "192.168.240.0/21",
             "proxyHost": "",
             "proxyNoProxyFor": "",
             "proxyPassword": "",
             "proxyPort": "0",
             "proxySsl": "False",
             "proxyUsername": "",
             "publicKey": "",
             "rootPassword": "FILL_IN_ROOT_PASSWORD",
             "serviceCIDR": "192.168.236.0/23",
             "isMultiNic": "False",
             "vmname": "Nutanixedge"
           }
       ```    
     
     

6. Replace the placeholders in the cloud-init configuration file as below:

• FILL_IN_PAIRING_CODE - Enter the pairing code obtained from the Horizon Cloud console.
• FILL_IN_ROOT_PASSWORD - Enter a password of your choice for root access.

7. Click Next.

8. In the Review section, examine your specified settings and then click Create VM.

Confirm Deployment in Horizon Cloud

1. In Horizon Cloud, click Capacity > Horizon Edges and select the Edge that you have just created and deployed.

   If the deployment was successful, you will see green checkmarks for the following elements in the Horizon Edge Gateway area of the Edge details page.

   • Agent Monitoring - Enabled
   • Deployment Status - Ready
   • Connectivity Status - Connected

What to do next

After you have created the Horizon Edge for Nutanix on Horizon Cloud, you are ready to create the associated Unified Access Gateway (UAG) as described at Create a UAG Deployment for a Nutanix Edge.