Chapter 3. Implementing Horizon Composer

VMware Horizon Composer is a feature of Horizon that enables the rapid provisioning of linked clone virtual desktops. A pool of linked clone desktops shares the same master image and writes any changes to a dedicated virtual hard disk, also known as a delta disk. This drastically reduces the amount of per-virtual desktop storage required compared to full clone virtual desktops, as each of those requires its own copy of the master image. In addition, linked clone desktops can be provisioned much more quickly than full clone desktops, which is beneficial in and of itself and also enables new ways of managing desktops throughout their lifecycle.

This chapter will discuss benefits, installation, configuration, backup, and recovery of the Horizon Composer component of VMware Horizon.

In this chapter, we will learn:

• An overview of the capabilities and benefits of Horizon Composer
• The hardware requirements of Horizon Composer
• Horizon Composer pre-installation tasks and other requirements
• How to deploy Horizon Composer
• How to configure Horizon Composer
• How to back up components of Horizon Composer and what components to backup
• How to restore Horizon Composer from backups

Tip

Horizon Composer requires Microsoft Key Management Services (KMS) in order to activate linked clone desktops. Multiple Active Key (MAK) licenses are not natively supported by Horizon Composer, and if used, the frequent need to reactivate Windows will quickly exhaust the key activation limit. If KMS is not available, VMware KB article 1026556 (http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1026556) provides details about a registry key that can be set in the master virtual desktop image to skip the Windows activation process during the customization of the linked clone desktop.