A farm is a collection of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS servers) on Microsoft Azure that host applications and desktops. Farms simplify RDS host management because you can use farms to serve multiple user subsets where the sizes of the subset vary, or the desktop or application requirements vary. Farms can provide session-based desktops and remote applications.
Ideally, you provide the resources that users need to do their jobs without delays, and at the same time, avoid the cost of unused resources that are powered on but sitting idle. Horizon Cloud Service provides power management capabilities for the Microsoft Azure servers so hosts are automatically powered hosts on and off and deallocated, as needed. The result is that farms can automatically scale out to the maximum size when necessary, and scale down to minimum size when not needed. This reduces cloud capacity costs, as well as computing costs for deallocated servers.
You set up these options in the Horizon Cloud Service farm profile when you first create the farm, and you can also modify the settings at any time afterward.
Note: For this set of exercises, you need a server image deployed.
When the new image has been published, you can use it to create farms.
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In the navigation bar of Horizon Cloud Service Administration Console, select Inventory.
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Select Farms.
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In the Farms window, click New.
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In the New Farm window, Definition tab, provide the following information, and then scroll down.
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Name: FirstFarm
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Description: Enter an optional description to help identify the farm in the system.
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VM Names: Farm1
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Farm Type: Select Applications
a. Desktops: Provides session-based desktops, b. Applications: Provides access to remote applications
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Location: Select the location in which you created pod in Exercise 1.
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Pod: Select pod-test.
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Scroll down to provide additional general settings.
- Provide the following additional general settings information:
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Specify VM Subnet(s): Toggle off the switch.
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Filter Models: From first drop-down select Tag then from the equals drop-down select VMware recommended
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Model: Select the Azure VM size for the Farm. Some VM sizes are not available in all regions.
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Disk Type: Standard HDD
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Disk Size: 127 GiB
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Image: Select an available RDSH image from the list. Images that do not match the desktop model disk size are not displayed.
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Preferred Protocol: Blast Extreme
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Preferred Client Type: Horizon Client
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Join Domain: Enabled
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Encrypt Disks: Leave it Disabled
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NSX Cloud Management: Leave it Disabled
- Scroll to the Farm Size section.
- In the Farm Size pane, provide the information to enable the farm to automatically scale up or down on demand:
- Min Servers: 1
- Max Servers: 3 Note: The minimum number of server instances is initially powered on. As demand increases, additional servers are powered on until reaching the maximum. As end-user demand shrinks, servers are powered off until reaching the minimum. Each server is completely empty of user sessions before the system powers it off.
- Power Off Protect Time: Accept the default of 30 minutes that a VM is protected from powering off after powering on due to a headroom error.
- Sessions per Server: Accept the default values. Note: This number cannot be updated after the farm is created.
- Do you have a valid license for this Windows OS: Enable it and click on the check box saying I confirm that I have an eligible license for this Windows OS.
- Under Advanced Properties, provide the following information:
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Computer OU:
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Run Once Script: Leave blank
- In the lower right corner, click Next.
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In the Management tab, provide the information for Rolling Maintenance.
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Maintenance Type: Select the maintenance type, either according to:
a. Scheduled: Select a time cadence such as daily or weekly.
b. Session: Specify the number of user sessions at which the farm should begin rolling maintenance.
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Recurrence: Indicate the type of recurrence.
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Recurrence Day: Indicate the day of the week.
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Scheduled Hour: Indicate the hour of the recurrence.
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Concurrent Quiescing Servers: Indicate the number of concurrent quiescing servers.
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VM Action: Select the action that the system should perform on servers that are undergoing maintenance:
a. Restart: Restart the sever VMs.
b. Rebuild: Delete server VMs and then re-provision them from their RDS desktop image.
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Scroll to the Power Management panel.
- In the Power Management panel, provide the information used to optimize the farm for your unique business needs. This is where you determine the thresholds at which new capacity is powered up or down, for automatic shutdown or deallocation of unused servers. Set the thresholds at which the system automatically grows and shrinks the number of powered-on server instances as it responds to demand and use:
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Optimized Performance: Keeps more hosts powered on than are needed to service the current end-user workload. As more users log in, Horizon Cloud Service continues to power on hosts in advance, up to the threshold of the maximum farm size. This option increases capacity costs by having the next server ready before requested, but decreases the chance of a delay when users make the request.
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Optimized Power: Waits as long as possible before powering on the next server instance, and more progressively deallocates unused hosts, leaving fewer available resources for end users. This option decreases capacity costs by using the servers longer before powering new ones, but increases the chance of a delay when users try to log in. You can even set the minimum number to 0, so all servers automatically power down when no users need them. However, the next users who log in experience a delay while the server powers back on, which might take several minutes.
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Balanced: Strikes a 50:50 balance between optimizing for performance (time-to-availability for users), and optimizing for power (minimizing between capacity costs).
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Scroll down to the Timeout Handling section.
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In the Timeout Handling panel, provide the required settings. This is where you configure how you want the system to handle different user session types.
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Empty Session Timeout: Specify how to handle idle user sessions: never timeout idle sessions, or timeout after a specified number of minutes. Note: When a session is disconnected, the session is preserved in memory. When a session is logged out, the session is not preserved in memory, and any unsaved documents are lost.
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When Timeout Occurs: Leave blank.
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Log Off Disconnected Sessions: Specify when the system logs the user out of a disconnected session.
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Max Session Lifetime: Specify the maximum number of minutes the system should allow for a single user session.
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Session Timeout Retrieval: Leave blank.
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Schedule Power Management (Optional): You can define specific schedules for each assignment in each pod to grow or shrink a given assignment or farm based on set-times. Power management schedules takes precedence over automated power management features applied as part of a user assignment or an RDSH farm in a Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure deployment.
- Under Load Balancing Settings provide the following details:
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Login Threshold: Provide a recognizable name for this schedule.
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CPU Usage Threshold: Select the day or days of the week to run the schedule.
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Memory Usage Threshold: Select a time of the day to start the schedule. You might need to scroll to see all options.
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Disk Queue Length Threshold: Select the time of the day to end the schedule.
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Disk Read Latency Threshold: Set the time zone if it differs from the default.
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Disk Write Latency Threshold: Enter the minimum number of servers to include.
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Local Index Threshold: Set the threshold for local index.
- In the lower right corner, click Next.
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In the Summary tab, review all settings to verify they are correct and complete.
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In the lower right corner, click Submit.
Under Status, verify that the green dot is displayed to indicate that the farm has been created properly.
For more information, see VMware Horizon Cloud Service on Microsoft Azure Administration Guide, and search the guide for Create a Farm.
After you finish creating farms from the image, proceed to the next exercise to review RDS host power management.
Horizon Cloud Service provides power management capabilities for the Microsoft Azure servers, automatically powering hosts on and off and deallocating them as needed. You can see the results of setting up the farm that you just created by returning to Microsoft Azure.
You can set up automatic shutdown or deallocation of unused servers.
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Return to the Microsoft Azure portal.
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From the navigation bar, select Virtual machines.
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View the status showing each VM as running or automatically deallocated.
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From the navigation bar, select Resource groups.
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All automatically created Resource Groups can be seen here.
Horizon Cloud Service streamlines administration tasks, such as the automatic creation of resource groups, which contain all farm-related components.
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In Azure portal search for Network security groups and click on it.
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Click on any of the security groups to view the rules.
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Here we can see that Network security group rules are automatically defined.
For more information, see VMware Horizon Cloud Service on Microsoft Azure Administration Guide, and search the guide for Applications in Your Horizon Cloud Inventory.
After you finish reviewing RDS host power management, proceed to the next exercise to add applications from the farm.
Horizon Cloud Service can auto-discover applications installed on the farm, or you can manually specify an application. Select the applications to be published, and assign them to end users or groups.
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In the Horizon Cloud Service Administration Console click on Applications in navigation bar.
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Then navigate to Remote tab and click on New.
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Now click on Auto-Scan from Farm.
- In the New Application window fill the following details asked in the definition page.
- Location: Select a location from the pop-up menu.
- Pod: pod-test.
- Farm: FirstFarm.
- In the lower right corner, click Next.
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In the Applications tab, select the applications to be published.
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In the lower right corner, click Next.
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In the Attributes tab, provide the appropriate attributes.
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In the lower right corner, click Next.
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In the Summary tab, review to verify that the selections are correct and complete.
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In the lower right corner, click Finish.
In the Applications window, the green banner verifies that the new applications were added successfully, and the green dots indicate that each application is active.
For more information, see VMware Horizon Cloud Service on Microsoft Azure Administration Guide and search the guide for Importing New Applications from an RDSH Farm Using Auto-Scan from Farm.
After you finish adding applications from the farm, proceed to the next section to explore assigning desktops and applications to users and groups.
Click on the Next button from lower right corner of the guide to move on the next page.