There are a number of prerequisites that should be addressed prior to installing Horizon Composer:
- At least one configured Horizon Connection Server with a license key installed
- An Active Directory (AD) user account or security group that will be granted the necessary permissions within Microsoft AD and the vCenter Server
- A dedicated host server for Horizon Composer, running a supported host OS
- A static IP address for the dedicated Horizon Composer host server (required only if you are using a dedicated server)
- Local administrator access on the host server
- A supported Horizon Composer database as referenced in Chapter 1, VMware Horizon Infrastructure Overview
- A 64-bit ODBC connection to the Horizon Composer database configured on the Composer host server
If your organization requires that a firewall or other network controls be placed between your Horizon Composer Server and your Connection Servers, consult the Horizon documentation (https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon-7/index.html) for a comprehensive list of all firewall ports required when implementing a Horizon Composer.
In addition to the items described in Chapter 1, VMware Horizon Infrastructure Overview, the following sections will outline which items should be prepared in advance of the installation.
Starting with the release of vSphere 6.7, VMware no longer provides the option to deploy a Windows-based vCenter Server, which means you can no longer install Horizon Composer directly on the vCenter Server. While Horizon still supports previous version of vSphere that support this option, for the purpose of this chapter we will assume you are deploying a dedicated Horizon Composer server.