VMware Horizon includes the ability to stream individual Windows applications or desktop sessions to clients using Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop Services (RDS), a feature formally known as Terminal Services. Application streaming is particularly useful to those clients that require access only to applications, as the application appears to them as it would if it were installed on their device, even if they are using a tablet-based Horizon client. For those clients, this is typically a much more efficient means of accessing their applications than navigating a traditional desktop GUI on a tablet device. While application streaming is not in itself a new feature, this feature enables individual applications to be accessed directly from the Horizon client.
By installing the Horizon Agent directly onto a supported Windows server with the RDS feature installed, we can entitle applications and desktop sessions to users, just as we would entitle individual desktops. When streaming applications, an additional benefit is that on a per-client basis, for users that use a very small number of applications, or for a small number of applications concurrently, fewer resources will be required to deploy streamed applications compared to deploying individual desktops for each client.
In this chapter, we will review all the steps required to implement, configure, and administer the RDS application and desktop streaming using VMware Horizon. We will cover the following topics:
- Configuring a Microsoft RDSH server for use with Horizon
- Creating a linked clone-based RDS farm in Horizon
- Creating an RDS application pool in Horizon
- Creating an RDS desktop pool in Horizon
- Using the Horizon client to access RDS streamed applications
- Monitoring the status of RDS servers and Horizon client sessions
- Modifying an RDS application pool in Horizon
- Modifying an RDS farm or server in Horizon