Upgrade Omnissa Horizon Connection Servers in a Replicated Group

This procedure describes upgrading Horizon Connection Server instances. For example, this procedure applies to Horizon Connection Servers that are configured for connections to clients that are inside the corporate firewall.

You do not need to reboot the Horizon Connection Server after the upgrade completes.

Note: This procedure describes an in-place upgrade. To migrate to a different machine, see Upgrade to the Latest Version of Horizon Connection Server on a Different Machine.

Prerequisites

• Determine when to perform this procedure. Choose an available desktop maintenance window. The amount of time the upgrade takes depends on the number of Horizon Connection Server instances in the group. Budget 15 minutes to half an hour for each instance.

• Familiarize yourself with the security-related requirements of Omnissa Horizon 8, and verify that these requirements are met. See Upgrade Requirements for Horizon Connection Server. You might need to obtain and install a CA-signed SSL server certificate that includes certificate revocation information, verify that Windows Firewall with Advanced Security is set to on, and configure any back-end firewalls to support IPsec.

• Verify that the server on which vCenter Server is installed has a CA (certificate authority)-signed SSL server certificate installed and configured. After you upgrade Horizon Connection Server, if vCenter Server does not use a CA-signed certificate, the default self-signed certificate is shown as invalid in Omnissa Horizon Console, and a message indicates that vCenter Server is unavailable.

• Complete the tasks listed in Preparing Horizon Connection Server for an Upgrade.

• Verify that you have a license that is valid for the new version.

• Verify that you have a domain user account with administrative privileges on the hosts that you use to run the installer and perform the upgrade.

• If you are unfamiliar with the vdmexport.exe utility, print the instructions for using it from the Horizon 8 Administration document. You will use this utility to back up the Horizon LDAP database as part of the upgrade procedure.

You do not need to make any changes to the configuration of existing load balancers.

Procedure

1. If you are using a load balancer to manage a group of Horizon Connection Server instances, disable the server that hosts the Horizon Connection Server instance that you are about to upgrade.

   1. Log in to Horizon Console.

   2. Go to Settings > Servers and click the Horizon Connection Servers tab.

   3. Select the Horizon Connection Server instance in the list and click the Disable button above the table.

   4. To confirm disabling the server, click OK.

2. On the host of the Horizon Connection Server instance, download and run the installer for the new version of Horizon Connection Server.

   The installer filename is Omnissa-Horizon-Connection-Server-x86_64-y.y.y-xxxxxx.exe, where xxxxxx is the build number and y.y.y is the version number. You do not need to stop any services before performing the upgrade. The installer stops and restarts services as necessary. In fact, the OmnissaVDMDS service must be running to upgrade the Horizon LDAP database.

   The installer determines that an older version is already installed and performs an upgrade. The installer displays fewer installation options than during a fresh installation.

   The Horizon LDAP database is also upgraded. Note: LDAP partitions are not renamed in an upgrade.

   Note: Before performing the upgrade, the installer determines whether the server can communicate with the other servers in the replicated group and whether the server can fetch LDAP updates from the other servers in the group. If the status check fails, the upgrade does not proceed.

3. Verify that the Horizon Connection Server service restarts after the installer wizard closes.

4. Log in to Horizon and enable the Horizon Connection Server instance that you just upgraded.

   1. Go to Settings > Servers and click the Horizon Connection Servers tab.

   2. Select the Horizon Connection Server instance in the list and click the Enable button above the table.

   3. In the Version column, verify that the new version is displayed.

5. If you are using perpetual or term license, navigate to Settings > Product Licensing and Usage, click Edit License, enter the license key, and click OK.

6. If you are using a load balancer for managing this Horizon Connection Server instance, enable the server that you just upgraded.

7. Verify that you can log in to a remote desktop.

8. To upgrade each Horizon Connection Server instance in the group, repeat the previous steps.

   Important: If you do not upgrade all Horizon Connection Server instances in a replicated group, the health indicators in the Horizon Console dashboard might show that one or more instances are in an error state. This situation arises because different versions supply different kinds of data. The solution is to upgrade all instances in the replicated group.

9. Use the vdmexport.exe utility to back up the newly upgraded Horizon LDAP database.

   If you have multiple instances of Horizon Connection Server in a replicated group, you need only export the data from one instance.

10. Log in to and examine the Horizon Console to verify that the vCenter Server icon is green.

    If the icon is red, and an Invalid Certificate Detected dialog box appears, click Verify and accept the thumbprint of the untrusted certificate, or install a valid CA-signed SSL certificate.

11. Verify that the dashboard icons for the Horizon Connection Server instances are also green.

    If any instances have red icons, click the instance to determine the replication status. Replication might be impaired for any of the following reasons:

    • A firewall might be blocking communication.
    • The service that provides directory services for Horizon might be stopped on a Horizon Connection Server instance. For Horizon version 2503 and later, this service is named OmnissaVDMDS. For versions 2412 and earlier, look for the service name containing VDMDS.
    • DSA (Directory Service Agent) options configured on the Horizon LDAP instance might be blocking the replications. For example, as described in KB 1021805, if replication was previously disabled using repadmin.exe options (like -DISABLE_INBOUND_REPL), that would block the replications.
    • A network problem has occurred.

What to do next

To use a default or self-signed certificate from vCenter Server, see Accept the Thumbprint of a Default TLS Certificate.

If the upgrade fails on one or more of the Horizon Connection Server instances, see Create a Replicated Group After Reverting Horizon Connection Server to a Snapshot.

Important: If you plan to use enhanced message security mode for JMS messages, make sure that firewalls allow Horizon Connection Server instances to receive incoming JMS traffic on port 4002 from desktops. Also open port 4101 to accept connections from other Horizon Connection Server instances.

If you ever reinstall Horizon Connection Server on a server that has a data collector set configured to monitor performance data, stop the data collector set and start it again.

If you upgraded to Horizon version 2503 from a previous version, we recommend that you plan and perform updating the partition names to the new ones. For details, see KB article 6000797.