Omnissa Horizon Connection Server Maximums and Configuration

You can install Horizon Connection Server either on a physical server or in a virtual machine.

Horizon Connection Server Configuration Example

This example uses a virtual machine with the specifications listed in Horizon Connection Server Virtual Machine Example. The ESXi host for this virtual machine can be part of a High Availability cluster to guard against physical server failures.

Horizon Connection Server Cluster Design Considerations

You can deploy multiple replicated Horizon Connection Server instances in a group to support load balancing and high availability. Groups of replicated instances support clustering within a LAN-connected single-data-center environment.

Important: To use a group of replicated Horizon Connection Server instances across a WAN, MAN (metropolitan area network), or other non-LAN, in scenarios where a Horizon 8 deployment needs to span data centers, you must use the Cloud Pod Architecture feature. For more information, see the Cloud Pod Architecture in Horizon 8 document.

Maximum Connections for Horizon Connection Server

Omnissa Configuration Maximums provides information about the tested limits regarding the number of simultaneous connections that a Horizon 8 deployment can accommodate.

PCoIP Secure Gateway connections are required if you use Omnissa Unified Access Gateway appliances for PCoIP connections from outside the corporate network. Blast Secure Gateway connections are required if you use Unified Access Gateway appliances for Horizon Blast Extreme or Omnissa Horizon Web Client connections from outside the corporate network. Tunneled connections are required if you use Unified Access Gateway appliances for RDP connections from outside the corporate network and for USB and multimedia redirection (MMR) acceleration with a PCoIP or Blast Secure Gateway connection.

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.

Although the Unified Access Gateway appliance can support a maximum of 2,000 simultaneous connections, you might decide to use 2 or 4. The required amount of memory and CPU usage might dictate that you add more Unified Access Gateway appliances per Horizon Connection Server instance to spread the load.

Although five Horizon Connection Server instances (suitably configured) can handle 20,000 connections, you might want to consider using six or seven Horizon Connection Servers for availability planning purposes, and to accommodate connections coming from both inside and outside of the corporate network.

For example, if you have 20,000 users, with 16,000 of them inside the corporate network, you need five Horizon Connection Server instances inside the corporate network. That way, if one of the instances became unavailable, the four remaining instances can handle the load. Similarly, for the 4,000 connections coming from outside the corporate network, you can use two Horizon Connection Server instances so if one becomes unavailable, you still have one instance left that can handle the load.

These numbers assume that external connections are presented through a gateway. In this example, each of the Horizon Connection Server instances handling external connections is paired with three Unified Access Gateway appliances, load balanced across both Horizon Connection Server instances, so that if one becomes unavailable, the two remaining appliances can handle the load.

In all cases, users need to reconnect if they are using a Horizon Connection Server or gateway that became unavailable.

Hardware Requirements for Unified Access Gateway with Horizon 8

Omnissa recommends to use 2 vCPUs and 4 GB RAM for Unified Access Gateway appliances to support maximum number of connections when used with Horizon 8.