First-Gen Tenants - Horizon Cloud — Available Environments, Operating System Support, Tight Integration Within the Product Ecosystem, Compatibility Information, and TLS Protocols and Cipher Suites Support

This documentation topic provides information about the environments and operating systems available for use with first-gen Horizon Cloud. This topic also describes the tight integration that Horizon Cloud has with the ecosystem, and a convenient pointer to the Interoperability Matrix.

Important: Use this page solely when you have access to a first-gen tenant environment in the first-gen control plane. As described in KB-92424, the first-gen control plane has reached end of availability (EOA). See that article for details.

Microsoft Azure Cloud Environments

For Microsoft Azure deployments, the service is currently available in the following Microsoft Azure cloud environments.

• Microsoft Azure (Commercial)
• Microsoft Azure in China
• Microsoft Azure Germany (Public)
• Microsoft Azure Government (US Gov Virginia, US Gov Arizona, US Gov Texas)

Supported Microsoft Windows Operating Systems

In the service's Microsoft Azure deployments, the following Microsoft Windows operating system editions and versions in the Azure Marketplace are the ones supported for use in this release, regardless of whether you use the automated or manual method of deploying an image in this release.

• For the supported non-Windows 10 or 11 operating systems, see KB Article 78170.
• For the supported Windows 10 or Windows 11 operating systems, see KB Article 70965.

The service's support for Windows 11 currently has some known considerations, limitations, and issues. For those details, see Support for Windows 11 Guest Operating System - Considerations, Known Limitations, and Known Issues.

Tight Integration Within the Omnissa Ecosystem

You can use Horizon Cloud with the following from Omnissa:

• Omnissa Workspace ONE® Hub Services and the cloud-based Omnissa Access

  With this integration, the desktop and remote application assignments that are brokered using Omnissa Horizon® Universal Broker will synch automatically to the Workspace ONE® Intelligent Hub catalog and be made available through the Hub for your end users to view and launch. In the current release, this integration supports end-user access using these clients: browser-based Hub catalog, Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub for Windows, and Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub for macOS. The minimum version of the Windows and macOS desktop apps required for this support is 21.05.

• Omnissa Workspace ONE® UEM

  You can use Workspace ONE UEM to manage the Microsoft Windows 10 dedicated VDI desktops provisioned by your Horizon Cloud pods. For details, see Workspace ONE UEM Windows Desktop Management.

• Omnissa Workspace ONE® Assist for Horizon

  Workspace ONE Assist for Horizon allows Horizon Cloud administrators to launch remote support sessions directly from the Help Desk Tool located in the Horizon Universal Console. Administrators can assist employees with their virtual desktops, leveraging remote view and control capabilities. For details, see Workspace ONE Assist for Horizon and Horizon Client guide.

  Note: Integrating with Workspace ONE Assist for Horizon involves additional DNS, ports, and protocol requirements for the outbound communication from the involved VDI desktops. For details, see the aforementioned guide.

• Omnissa Horizon® Client™ product family

  To see the specific versions of the Horizon Client product family that are compatible with the desktops and remote applications brokered by the pods in your cloud-connected pod fleet, see Omnissa Product Interoperability Matrix. Depending on the pod type, select either Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure or Horizon, and then Horizon Client in the drop-down menus.

  Generally speaking, the various clients do not necessarily support the same set of features or protocols for every use case. As of this writing, some of these variations are:

  • Horizon Web Client does not support certain features when used in mobile browsers. Also, even though the Horizon Client supports copying and pasting text between a client's local system and a VM out of the box, for Horizon Web Client, you must configure this feature before your end users can use it.
  • Horizon Client for Mac does not provide a menu option to use the RDP protocol.
  • Horizon Clients do not support using the RDP protocol with RDSH applications. To download a matrix of supported features between Horizon Client and Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure, see the KB article Horizon Client Feature Matrix for Horizon Cloud on Azure (80386). Please note that keeping that matrix up to date is on a best-effort basis at this time.

  Note:

  • Changing display settings, such as the display resolution, inside the guest operating system of a VDI session is not officially supported. The best practice is to use the Horizon Client features for customizing the display resolution and display scaling for a remote desktop.

  • Use of zero clients with Horizon Cloud pods in Microsoft Azure is not supported.

  • Use of zero clients with Universal Broker is not supported. When using an operating-system-specific Horizon Client to access remote resources brokered by Universal Broker, the following client versions are supported. You must provide your end users with the connection FQDN for Universal Broker to use in the client. For instructions on how to configure that connection FQDN, see Configure the Universal Broker Settings.

  • Horizon Client 5.4 or later for their operating system.

  • Windows users can run Horizon Client for Windows 5.3 or later.

  End users can also connect to the Universal Broker service through a web browser using Horizon Web Client. Note that in the following cases when using the web-based client, end users will see the standard browser 'unsafe' message when they start a brokered desktop:

  • When the pod's Unified Access Gateway setup's load balancer is configured with a SSL certificate that does not have a common name that precisely matches that load balancer's name or is not signed by a well-known Certificate Authority (CA).
  • When the pod has an external Unified Access Gateway, but no internal Unified Access Gateway setup, and the end user's access is over the internal network.
  • When the pod has no Unified Access Gateway setups at all. (For information about the relationship between a certificate's common name and the hostname of where the certificate is installed, see https://support.dnsimple.com/articles/what-is-common-name/.)

• Omnissa Horizon Connection Server

  A Horizon pod is the pod type that is built on the Horizon Connection Server software. You connect such pods to Horizon Cloud using Horizon Cloud Connector. New deployments of Horizon Cloud Connector are supported using versions N, N-1, N-2, where N is the latest generally available Horizon Cloud Connector version. The version number of the latest generally available version of Horizon Cloud Connector appears at the top of the First-Gen Horizon Cloud Release Notes document.

  For the matrix of Horizon pod software that corresponds with those N, N-1, N-2 versions of Horizon Cloud Connector, see the Product Interoperability Matrix. To get the benefits of advanced features that are only available for cloud-connected Horizon pods, the deployment must use the most recent versions of the Horizon Cloud Connector and Horizon pod software. You can download the latest Horizon Cloud Connector appliance and Universal Broker plugin installer from Customer Connect In Customer Connect Downloads area, locate the Horizon Service row and view its download components. Within that page you’ll see the Horizon Cloud Connector row and can click on its Go to Downloads to obtain the latest versions of both the Horizon Cloud Connector and Universal Broker Plugin installer.

  Note: As of January 2021, Horizon Cloud Connector versions earlier than 1.6.x will be unable to connect to the cloud control plane. In late 2020, all existing tenants with deployments based on earlier versions were notified to update their connectors.

Integration with Broadcom Products

You can use Horizon Cloud with the following Broadcom products.

• NSX-T™ Data Center

  The compatibility between NSX-T Data Center versions and Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure versions is located in the Omnissa Product Interoperability Matrix. The Horizon Cloud documentation reflects the latest configuration steps, according to the versions shown as compatible in the matrix.

  If you have pods still running manifests from Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure versions prior to version 2010 and you have already configured use of NSX-T Data Center 2.4 or 2.5 with such pods, the configuration will continue to work. However, you should update such pods when the Horizon Cloud system indicates in the console that those pods should be updated.

• NSX® Advanced Load Balancer™

  Horizon Cloud supports using NSX Advanced Load Balancer with the gateway configurations of your Horizon Cloud pods in Microsoft Azure. NSX Advanced Load Balancer provides the Avi Vantage load-balancing features from Avi Networks, part of Broadcom. The reference design, sequence of steps, and applicable configuration information is provided in the Avi Networks article titled Load Balancing UAGs in Horizon Cloud on Azure Deployments.

  Note: Some aspects of this integration with your Horizon Cloud pods might require assistance from the Horizon Cloud team to complete the overall configuration. To obtain the latest information before starting this integration, file a service request (SR) to the Horizon Cloud team using your Customer Connect account at Customer Connect.

• Carbon Black

  For information on integrations between Carbon Black Cloud and using the Carbon Black sensor with farms and VDI desktops provisioned by your Horizon Cloud pods, see Carbon Black Interoperability with Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure (KB 81253).

  For the most recent information about compatibility between this product and other Broadcom products, see the Omnissa Product Interoperability Matrix.

About Use of IPv6

Horizon Cloud does not support use of IPv6.

TLS Protocols and Cipher Suites

Horizon Cloud supports the following TLS protocols and cipher suites.

• TLS 1.3 128-bits TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

• TLS 1.3 256-bits TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

• TLS 1.2 128-bits TLS_ECDHE_RSA_AES128_GCM_SHA256

• TLS 1.2 256-bits TLS_ECDHE_RSA_AES256_GCM_SHA384

• Specific to Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure deployments

  • Deployments of Horizon Cloud pods on Microsoft Azure have TLS 1.2 set as the minimum TLS version for both the pod's storage accounts and the Azure PostgreSQL Service that is deployed as part of the service offering. These storage accounts and the Azure PostgreSQL Service are used only with the service components such as the pod manager instances. Therefore, the pod's use of TLS 1.2 should have no impact on your customer-managed artifacts in your Microsoft Azure subscription.

  • By default, the wizard UI for deploying a Horizon Cloud pod's Unified Access Gateway appliances configures these TLS protocols and cipher suites on those appliances:

    • TLS v1.2 TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
    • TLS v1.2 TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 For a description of that deployment wizard UI, see Specify the Horizon Cloud Pod's Gateway Configuration. The ability to use the deployment wizard UI or Horizon Universal Console to configure other TLS protocols and cipher suites on the pod's Unified Access Gateway appliances is currently unavailable.

Browser Experience

The cloud-based administrative console is compatible with recent versions of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. Use of the console in Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 is deprecated and will give a sub-optimal experience. The console is not supported for use in Apple Safari, although you can try using the console in Apple Safari. If you attempt to access the console using a non-modern browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer 11, the console displays an information message to use an up-to-date browser. For the best user experience, use the most recent versions of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.