Creating a Horizon desktop pool is commonly the final step in the process of deploying virtual desktops. In most cases, when you are ready to deploy your first desktop pool, you have done at least the following:

• Created the necessary infrastructure services needed for your virtual desktop deployment, such as DHCP, DNS, Active Directory (AD), and so on
• Deployed or identified the vCenter server you will use with Horizon
• Deployed at least one ESXi server to host your virtual desktops
• Deployed and configured at least one Horizon Connection Server
• If linked clones will be used, you will have deployed Horizon Composer either on the Horizon vCenter server (if using an older version of vSphere that supports a Windows-based vCenter server) or on a dedicated server
• Created a virtual desktop master image, as discussed in Chapter 10, Creating a Master Virtual Desktop Image

Each of these items will be required to deploy your first desktop pool. Prior to placing your Horizon environment into production, it is important to verify that you have deployed sufficient resources to meet your scalability and availability needs.