Configuring a VMware Horizon View Federated Pod

A VMware Horizon View Federated Pod is configured using a command-line utility on Horizon View Connection Servers.

Getting ready

The Horizon View Federated Pod configuration process will require command-line access to at least one Connection Server in each pod that will be a member of the federated pod.

These commands can be executed remotely if you configure your Connection Servers to allow remote command access using tools such as Microsoft PsExec (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb897553.aspx). If security policies or other concerns prevent this capability, you will need to run the commands directly within the console on the target View Connection Servers.

How to do it...

In this section, we will walk through the steps required to enable the View Federated Pod components, and then create a multisite Federated Pod. For this exercise, we will use the following resources:

• VIEWCS01.vjason.local: This is the Connection Server located in the RTP data center
• VIEWCS03.vjason.local: This is the Connection Server located in the Santa Clara data center
• Svc-view: This is the Microsoft Active Directory (AD) account that has administrative privileges to both pods used in this exercise
• Vjason: This is a single label name of the AD domain used in this exercise

For each command shown in this section, we will see both the command syntax as well as the resulting output when the command is executed in our own Horizon View environment. Refer to the following steps:

1. The first step in creating a new Federated Pod is to initialize the components that are required using the following command. We will execute this command on our Connection Server, which is VIEWCS01.vjason.local:
   • lmvutil.cmd --initialize --authAs user --authDomain domain --authPassword password
   
2. The next command joins our second Horizon View pod to the federated pod that we created in step 1 and must be executed on a connection server in that second pod. The --joinServer switch is used to specify a Connection Server located on the pod where the federated pod was created in step 1. We will execute this command on our Connection Server, which is VIEWCS03.vjason.local:
   • lmvutil.cmd –-join –-joinServer serverFQDN –-authAs user –-authDomain domain –-authPassword password -–userName domain\user –-password password
   
3. In this step, we will verify that our standalone Horizon View pods have both been added to our new Federated Pod. By default, pods are assigned the same name as their first member Connection Server, but in the next step, we will change this name to something more meaningful, in this case, the pod geographical location. This command can be executed on any Connection Server located within the Federated Pod:
   • lmvutil.cmd –-authAs user –-authDomain domain –-authPassword password --listPods
   
4. Next, we will rename each of the pods in our federated pod. We will use the pod names obtained in step 3 for the --podName switch and supply new names for the --newPodName switch. The following optional command is run once for each pod in our federated pod and can be executed on any Connection Server located within the federated pod:
   • lmvutil.cmd –-authAs user –-authDomain domain –-authPassword password –-updatePod –-podName "name" –-newPodName "newName"
   
5. In this step, we will create sites that can be used to control which desktops a user accesses. A user is entitled to a global pool that contains desktop pools located in multiple Horizon View pods using sites that we can control from which pod the user can receive a desktop. Creating sites does not by itself restrict the desktop access; these restrictions take place during the entitlement process described later in this chapter. These optional commands are run once for each pod in the federated pod and can be executed on any Connection Server located within the federated pod. The following example shows you both steps of the process, which include the --createSite and --assignPodToSite commands:
   • lmvutil.cmd –-authAs user –-authDomain domain –-authPassword password –-createSite –-siteName "name"
   • lmvutil.cmd –-authAs user –-authDomain domain –-authPassword password –-assignPodToSite -–podName "name" –-siteName "name"
   

With these steps complete, our VMware Horizon View Federated Pod is ready to accept global entitlements, which we will explore in the next section of this chapter. The following screenshot shows you the updated Horizon View Manager Admin console with the new federated pod status section highlighted. In this example, we are viewing the console from the Santa Clara View Manager Admin console, which is why the RTP pod is displayed in the Remote Pods section. Were we using the RTP Horizon View Manager Admin console, the Santa Clara pod would be displayed under Remote Pods.

In addition to viewing the health of each of the Connection Servers that are members of the federated pod, you can also search for Client sessions based on the user, pod, or by which pod the connection is being brokered.

The following screenshot shows you the updated Inventory section in the Search Sessions window of the Horizon View Manager Admin console, where the option to search for sessions based on these additional parameters is found:

How it works...

The lmvutil.cmd command-line utility was first introduced in VMware Horizon View 6 and is used to configure and manage a Federated Pod. Lmvutil is installed as part of the Horizon View installation by default, although the services required to create a federated pod are not enabled until they are actually configured.

Note

The lmvutil.cmd utility is located in the following folder in the drive where the Connection Server software was installed:

• Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\tools\bin

The path shown is the default installation path. If a different path was used, the Server\tools\bin directory structure will still be present in the new path.

The following table outlines the different lmvutil command-line switches that can be used when creating a new Federated Pod. These switches are only a subset of those available; additional ones will be detailed later on in this chapter. It is important to note that these and other lmvutil switches are case-sensitive, and each is preceded by two dashes.

The --authAs, --authDomain, --autoPassword, --help, and --verbose commands are used with all commands related to Federated Pod configuration, entitlement, and management—examples of which are found later on in this chapter.