After you add one or more images, you can create a Pool.

Prerequisites

  • Domain registration is completed.
  • Microsoft Entra ID Connect is completed.
  • Horizon Edge is created successfully and Edge Gateway and UAG is in Ready state.
  • VDI/Multi-session Image published successfully.

  • When deleting a Microsoft Entra ID joined Pool or a VM, the service principal should have permissions to delete the device entry from Microsoft Entra ID.

    The permissions are of the following:

    Scope: https://graph.microsoft.com/

    Permission : Device.ReadWrite.All

    Read and write devices

    Admin Consent : Yes

    The permission can be given by navigating to the following location :

    Subscription -> Azure Active Directory -> App Registrations -> Select the App that permission needs to be given -> API Permission -> Select Microsoft GRAPH -> Select Device.ReadWriteAll

Procedure

  1. On the Home page, click on the Pools tile, to navigate to the Pools page.
  2. Click Add > Microsoft Azure to navigate to the Add Pool page.
  3. On the Add Pool page, add a unique name for the pool in the Pool name field and optionally, add Description.
  4. Select a pool from Dedicated single-session for Persistent VDI desktop experience that is mapped to a single user, Floating single-session for Non-persistent VDI desktop experience that multiple users can use at different times that resets after each user session, and Multi-session for session-based published desktops and applications
  5. In the Desktops section, for the Destination sub-section, select values for the Site, Horizon Edge, Provider options.
  6. Also in the Destination sub-section, if you want to use Azure availability zones, activate the Use Azure availability zones option.
    Azure availability zones are a high availability feature available with Microsoft Azure. When you select Use Azure availability zones, the VMs for a pool are distributed across all the availability zones to prevent downtime of all of the VMs in the pool if a failure occurs in a given Azure availability zone.
    Note: For information about limitations of Azure availability zone support, see the following Microsoft documentation.
  7. In the Image sub-section, select a Generation type option and an Image option for this pool.
    Note:
    • Images with Microsoft Azure generation 1 and 2 VMs are supported.
    • If you select V1, only images with a Microsoft Azure generation 1 VM and models that support generation 1 can be selected.
    • Your selection for the Generation type acts as a filter to determine which images are listed in the Image drop-down menu and which models are listed in the Model drop-down menu.
  8. Select the Marker of the image selected.
    You need to add one or more markers to later edit the pools of an image version. Add the markers if they were not previously added to the image version. For more information, see Add Version to an Existing Microsoft Azure Compute Gallery Image.
    Note: If a marker associated with an older agent version is selected, a warning message is displayed. As a best practice, select a marker with the latest agent version.
  9. Slide the toggle next to Do you have a valid license for this Windows OS to confirm that you have eligible Windows licenses with Software Assurance or Windows Server subscription to apply this Azure Hybrid Benefit and select the checkbox.
  10. In the VM details subsection, select values for the Filter Model, Model, Disk type, Disk size, and Encrypt Disks options for your pool.
    Note: For the Model setting, see Microsoft Azure VM Types and Sizes for Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen (89090) to learn about the compatibility of different Microsoft Azure VM types and sizes with VMware Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen.
    • You can use the Filter Model settings to reduce the number of Microsoft Azure VM model options listed when you configure the Model setting. The reduced list includes a subset of models based on your specific requirements.

      You can filter the Microsoft Azure VM model list by Tag, Series, GPU Type, and Disk Type. Click + to add other filters, potentially refining the list further with each filter.

      Tag equals
      • VMware Recommended are the Microsoft Azure VM models that work particularly well for pools.
      • High Performance are Microsoft Azure VM models that offer premium disk support.
      Series equals Use the drop-down menu to view a list of the different Microsoft Azure VM series.

      Select a series that best suits your needs.
      GPU Type equals You can use the GPU Type filter to select a GPU-enabled Microsoft Azure VM model.
      • NONE filters GPU-enabled models from the list.
      • AMD includes only AMD GPU-enabled models on the list.
      • NVIDIA includes only Nvidia GPU-enabled models on the list.
      Disk Type equals You can use the Disk Type filter to select Premium, which provides premium disk support.
    • Select a Microsoft Azure VM Model type to use for the pool, or accept the default.
      1. To accept a default model, either accept the default listed or use the drop-down menu to select another default model.
      2. To select a different model, click the X, then click the drop-down menu, and select a model.

        If you did not use the Filter Model setting, the list of models is very long. If you used the Filter Model setting, the list is likely more manageable.

    • You can select a Disk type value based on the VM model selected, and the Microsoft Azure subscription and region.
    • You can change the Disk size value from 127 to 4095 GB. The default Disk size value is 127.
    • If you want to encrypt disks for all VMs in this pool, slide the toggle to Encrypt Disks .
  11. In the Machine Identity (Domain) subsection, select a Machine Identity for your pool from Azure Active Directory or a local Active Directory. Optionally, you can add a value for the Computer OU field. The Computer OU is deactivated if you select Azure Active Directory as the Machine Identity.
    You must configure RBAC in Azure Active Direcory if it is used as Machine Identity so that only the users or user groups that have Virtual Machine Administrator Login or Virtual Machine User Login role can log into their entitlements.
    Note: All Windows 11 and Windows 10 devices are supported, except Home editions Windows Server 2019 and newer Virtual Machines running in Azure (Server core is not supported).
    When you configure RBAC at the resource group level, to help identify the resource groups associated with the Azure Active directory joined pools, the following tags to the resource group are available:
    • pool-name: indicates the pool name entered when creating the pool
    • add-joined: if set with true, it indicates the VMs from the pool are Microsoft Entra ID joined machines
  12. In the Provisioning sub-section, select if you want to Provision VMs, On Demand or All at once.
  13. In the Properties sub-section, add a VM Name Prefix for the VMs.
  14. Add a Desktop admin username, and Desktop admin password for the local admin account used to access the image's operating system, and to use during the image conversion process.
  15. You can slide the toggle next to Use outbound proxy if you want to route outbound requests to the Internet through a proxy server. Click Next.
  16. In the Networks sub-section, select the virtual networks and tenant (desktop) subnets.
    By default, virtual desktops use IPv4 addresses. If you want the virtual machine to use IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, activate the Enable dual-stack support option and select subnets that are configured as dual stack.
    Note: When you enable the dual-stack option, only subnets that are configured as dual stack are listed.
  17. In the VMware Dynamic Environment Manager sub-section, you can optionally select a VMware Dynamic Environment Manager configuration for this pool.
  18. Click ADD TO POOL GROUP to add this pool to a new or existing pool group, or click FINISH to navigate to the Pools page.
    The Pool Groups type will be automatically selected based on the type of Pool. For more information on ADD TO POOL GROUP, see Create a Single-Session Pool Group or Create a Multi-Session Pool Group.
    On the Pools page, you can select a pool to EDIT or DELETE it. You can also select a pool and add it to a pool group by clicking ADD TO POOL GROUP if a pool doesn’t have an associated pool group.

What to do next

Create a pool group.