horizon

Setup the View Agent Direct-Connection (VADC) Plug-In

The View Agent Direct-Connection (VADC) Plug-In was designed as an extension to the Horizon Agent, which allows a Horizon Client to directly connect to a VM or physical machine withtout using a Horizon Connection Server. The VADC is nothing new, it is part of the Horizon View eco system for a couple of years now. Meanwhile, the VADC supports the Blast Exteme protocol, which makes it pretty interesting for remote access to lab environment or home office equipment.

Considerations when using Microsoft NLB with VMware Horizon View

A load balancer is an integral component of (nearly) every VMware Horizon View design. Not only to distribute the connections among a number of connection or security servers, but also to provide high availability in case of a connection or security server failure. Without a load balancer, connection attempts will fail, if a connection or security server isn’t available. Craig Kilborn wrote an excellent article about the different possible designs of load balancing.

vCenter Server Appliance as syslog target for Horizon View connection servers

Logging is essential for troubleshooting. VMware Horizon View allows you to configure a SQL database for event logging, and I really recommend to configure the event logging database (I have seen some deployments without). Beside the event logging database, it’s a great idea to configure a secondary log destination. With a event logging database, and logs sent to a syslog, you have two independent log destinations. To configure a syslog destination, login to the Horizon View admin portal and go to “View Configuration > Event Configuration”.

Screen resolution scaling has stopped working after Horizon View agent update

Another inconvenience that I noticed during the update process from VMware Horizon View 6.1.1 to 6.2 was, that the automatic screen resizing stopped working. When I connected to a desktop pool with the VMware Horizon client, I only got the screen resolution of the VM (the resolution that is used when connecting to the VM with the vSphere console)), not 1920x1200 as expected. This issue only occured with PCoIP, not with RDP.