Day: September 10, 2015

Horizon View Composer Service (4 of 7)

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VMwareHorizonView

The View composer service is responsible for the creation and provisioning of the Virtual Desktops within vCenter.

viewcomposer

Provisioning

  • Create a VM in vCenter with the View Agent installed (the Parent VM),
  • Shutdown the VM and create a Snapshot,
  • In View Manager, create a new Automated linked-clone pool.

What happens next (KB 1021506);

  1. View Manager creates the linked-clone entry in View LDAP and puts the virtual machine into the Provisioning state.
  2. View Manager calls View Composer to create the linked clone
  3. The View Composer Server creates the machine account entry in Active Directory for the new clone and creates a random binary password for the newly created computer account.
  4. If a replica for the base image and snapshot does not yet exist in the target datastore for the linked clone, View Composer creates the replica in the datastore. If a separate datastore is configured to store all replicas, the replica is created in the replica datastore. (In View 4.5 and later, replicas can be stored in a separate datastore.)
  5. View Composer creates the linked clone using the vCenter Server API.
  6. View Composer creates an internal disk on the linked clone. This small disk contains configuration data for QuickPrep or Sysprep. The disk also stores machine password changes that Windows performs every 30 days, according to the policy setting. This disk data ensures that domain connectivity is maintained when a checkpointed desktop is refreshed.

Recompose

A recompose operation lets the administrator preserve the View Composer persistent disk and all user data inside this disk while changing the operating system disk to a new base image and snapshot. With recompose, an administrator can easily distribute operating system patches and new software to users. Recomposing between major operating system versions are not supported (XP >Vista, XP >Windows7, Vista >Windows7).

Because a new operating system  disk is created during a recompose, the clone is also customized again during the recompose operation. When the customization is completed, View Manager takes a new snapshot.

These steps occur during a recompose operation:

  1. View Manager puts the linked clone into the Maintenance state.
  2. View Manager calls the View Composer resync API for the linked clones being recomposed, directing View Composer to use the new base image and snapshot.
  3. If a replica for the base image and snapshot does not yet exist in the target datastore for the linked clone,View Composer creates the replica in the datastore. If a separate datastore is configured to store all replicas, a replica is created in the replica datastore.
  4. View Composer deletes the current operating system disk for the linked clone and creates a new operating system disk, linked to the new replica.
  5. The rest of the recompose cycle is identical to the customization phase of the provisioning and customization cycle.

Horizon View Security Servers (3 of 7)

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VMwareHorizonView

Security servers in the DMZ communicate with the external View Connection Servers on the internal network. Security servers ensure that the only traffic that can enter the internal network is traffic on behalf of a strongly authenticated user. Users can access only the desktop resources that they are authorized to access.

The Security server is not on the domain and it is placed inside the DMZ in a workgroup.

The following ports are opened externally to this server.

  • TCP/80 (Web Access and Authentication port if SSL is not used)
  • TCP/443 (Secure Web Access and Secure Authentication)
  • TCP/4172 ( PCoIP protocol – Display protocol VMware View users)
  • TCP/8443 (HTML 5 Protocol – aka Blast Protocol used for access via a HTML 5 supported browser to access a VDI desktop without the need to install any client software)

The security servers establishes an IPSEC VPN to an connection server on the internal network which it is permanently paired too and has a 1:1 relationship with.