VMware Horizon View Deployment

VMware Horizon View provides end users with access to their machines and applications through a unified workspace across multiple devices, locations, and connections. The Horizon View Connection Server authenticates and then directs incoming user requests to the appropriate View desktop.

The Barracuda Load Balancer ADC increases the performance, scalability, and reliability of VMware Horizon View. It distributes traffic among the Horizon View Connection Servers in your deployment for better load distribution and monitors the health of each server.

You must have:

• Barracuda Load Balancer ADC version 5.4 and above.
  

• Personal Computer over Internet Protocol (PCoIP).

• VMware ^® Horizon View™ version 7.x.

• Installed your Barracuda Load Balancer ADC(s), connected to the web interface, and activated your subscription(s). 

• If you want VMware Horizon View Servers with high availability, deploy the Barracuda Load Balancer ADCs in a clustered environment. For more information, see High Availability.

• A signed certificate to deploy the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC in a VMware Horizon View environment. Barracuda Networks recommends that you have a signed certificate authority (CA) certificate. If you already have a signed CA certificate, you can continue with configuring the VMware Horizon View service on the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC. If you want to create a self-signed certificate, see Create a Self-Signed Certificate for instructions.
  

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If you have not already installed the signed certificate on your Horizon View Connection servers, follow these steps to install the signed certificate on every server:

1. Install the certificate on the Horizon View Connection Server.

2. Set Friendly Name to vdm for the installed certificate.

3. On the Horizon View Connection server, right-click My Computer and select Manage > Service and Applications > Services.

4. Select VMware Horizon View Connection Server Service, and click Restart to restart the service. Wait a few minutes for the Horizon View Connection server to start listening.
   

5. On the Horizon View Connection Server, in the command window, type netstat -anp TCP and check the output to verify that the Horizon View Connection server is listening on port 443 for the Horizon View Connection service.
   

   
   

Reference: http://pubs.vmware.com/view-51/topic/com.vmware.view.installation.doc/GUID-80CC770D-327E-4A21-B382-786621B23C44.html in the VMware View 5.1 Documentation Center.

Install a copy of the signed certificate on the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC.

1. Create a copy of the signed certificate.

2. Log into the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC.

3. Go to the BASIC > Certificates page, and upload the certificate.

Configure the monitor group, the service group, and configure the services according to the type of traffic required by your VMware Horizon View servers.

1. Go to the Traffic > Monitor Groups page and configure a new monitor group:

   1. Group Name: Specify the service group name.

   2. Monitor Name: Specify the name for the service monitor group.

   3. Testing Method: Specify the testing methods (you can specify more that one testing method for the monitor group). See the online help for documentation on how to configure these testing methods. See also the example shown in this article.

2. Go to the BASIC > Services page, click Add Service and specify the group name in the Group field in the Service Configuration section.

3. For each service, enter the appropriate values in the corresponding fields of the Service Configuration section:

   ^† (For versions greater than 5.4) If you are configuring VDI over PCoIP, the HTTPS Service, TCP Proxy Service (on Port 4172), UDP Proxy Service (on Port 4172), and Blast Service (on port 8443) must all be under the same Service-Group. You must enable Source-IP Persistence at this Service-Group level.

4. Under the Load Balancing section for the above services, configure the following:

   • For Persistence Type, select Source IP.

   • For Persistence Time, enter 1200.

   • For Persistence Netmask, enter 255.255.255.255.

5. Service Group Persistence ensures that a client's connection to a server is maintained even if the client switches to a difference service, so long as that service is included in the Service Group and the same server is configured for both services. After the Persistence Time has expired, the client can be switched to a different server the next time it attempts to switch to a different service.

   1. To enable Source IP Persistence for the Service Group, go to the BASIC > Services page and select the Service Group in the left pane.

   2. On the Service Groups page, set the Persistence drop down menu to Source IP. Specify a Persistence Netmask and a Persistence Time in seconds.

6. Go to the BASIC > Services page and scroll to the Server Monitor section. In the Testing Method drop down menu, scroll to the end of the list to view the Monitor Groups. Select the new monitor group from this list.

7. For VDI_HTTPS service, under Other section, set the Enable VDI to Yes.

8. Click Create.

9. Click Add Server to add a back-end servers. In the server settings:

   1. Enter the IP address of the Horizon View Connection server. For example: 192.168.17.197

   2. Enter the corresponding ports for the servers, port 443 for VDI_HTTPS, port 4172 for VDI_PCoIP and VDI_PCoIP_TCPProxy and port 8443 for VDI_Blast services.

   3. In the SSL section for VDI_HTTPS and VDI_Blast services, set Server uses S SL to Yes.

   4. If the certificate for the service is a self-signed or a test certificate, set Validate Certificate to Off. If the service is using a CA-signed certificate, select On .
      

10. Click Create.

11. (in firmware release 5.4 and earlier) Go to Advanced > System Configuration page, under Advanced Settings section, set Show Advanced Settings to Yes and then go to Advanced section, set Enable Persistence for VDI to Yes.

The following example illustrates how to enable service group monitoring to ensure source IP persistence for the service group. It includes four services configured on the ADC, sharing the same two servers.

1. Create a service group for the following services.

2. Go to the BASIC > Services page for each service and specify the group name as GM_Service in the Group field in the Service Configuration section.

3. Go to Traffic > Monitor Groups page and configure a new monitor group for the service group:

   1. Group Name: Specify the service group name as GM_Service.

   2. Monitor Name: Specify the name for the service monitor group as GM_Example.

   3. Testing Method: Specify Simple HTTPS, TCP Port Check, and UDP Port Check as the testing methods as shown below:

4. Go to the BASIC > Services page and scroll to the Server Monitor section. In the Testing Method drop down menu, scroll to the end of the list to view the Monitor Groups. Select the GM_Example monitor group.

5. To enable Source IP Service Group Persistence, go to the BASIC > Services page and select the GM_Service service group in the left pane.

   1. Set the Persistence drop down menu to Source IP.

   2. Specify the Persistence Netmask as 255.255.255.255

   3. Specify the Persistence Time as 1200. Click Save Changes.