This documentation page is the opening page for the Using VMware Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen documentation. This page provides a brief introduction to VMware Horizon® Cloud Service™ - next-gen and then provides links to the various pages that will help you understand what to read next to begin using the service.

You typically use this content after you are already subscribed to the service and you are ready to begin using it.

If you are still in the decision-making phase, you might consider getting started by requesting a 60-day Horizon Universal Subscription trial and reviewing Tech Zone's Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen Architecture.

Brief Introduction

Horizon Cloud is a modern cloud-first Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) deployment with thin-edge infrastructure.

With Horizon Cloud, you have a global view of your desktops and applications spanning your cloud-connected Horizon deployments.

Benefits Overview

VMware Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen provides a variety of benefits that improve the Horizon Cloud experience over its predecessor.

Note: In the current release, some of the predecessor’s features are not yet available in VMware Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen. Those features are being added with iterative releases. You can regularly check the Release Notes page's What's New sections to see each release's new features.

Some of these benefits are:

Lower cost
A Horizon Edge with thin-edge infrastructure and pod-less deployments provide for lower operational costs, faster time to value, and reduced maintenance by eliminating the Horizon infrastructure components.
Improved visibility and troubleshooting
Using the same model across all platforms improves visibility and troubleshooting capabilities with proactive alerting and advanced reporting through integration with Workspace ONE Intelligence.
Seamless cross-environment experience
Providing common administrator and end-user experiences across environments streamlines administration and increases end-user productivity.
Advanced automation
The API-driven platform supports advanced automation and integration with third-party apps and services for day-1 and day-2 processes.
Unprecedented scalability
A Horizon Edge with thin-edge architecture and cloud-native architecture increases scalability across all platforms.

Overview of Key Architectural Characteristics

This section briefly describes the key architectural characteristics that distinguish this next generation of Horizon Cloud from the preceding generation. For in-depth details of the architecture, see the Horizon Cloud Service next-gen Architecture chapter of the Horizon Reference Architecture at VMware Digital Workspace Tech Zone.

A key benefit of this next-generation service over its predecessor is that many of the infrastructure components that were previously deployed into your organization's environment now reside as services in the cloud control plane.

This architecture provides for a pod-less deployment that is easier to operate and manage.


Architectural design of VMware Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen, including the VMware Horizon control plane, two Horizon sites, and your organization.

The core infrastructure elements that VMware uses to provide the service to you are:

  • Horizon Control Plane
  • Horizon Edge Gateway instance
  • Unified Access Gateway instances and a load balancer for those instances

For more details of the architecture, read Tech Zone's Horizon Cloud Service next-gen Architecture chapter.

When You Read About a Feature Here That You Don't See in Your Live Environment

The Horizon Universal Console displays elements for features based on your subscription. See the VMware Horizon Subscription Comparison Matrix for Horizon subscription licensing information. You will not see elements in the Horizon Universal Console for features that your subscription does not support.

How to Get Started

The first step to using Horizon Cloud - next-gen is to onboard to the service.

Onboarding requires you to fulfill some specific requirements:

  1. First review the checklist that corresponds to your desired deployment type and fulfill the requirements.
  2. Then complete some environment preparation steps. The steps are linked from the following overview pages. Read the page that corresponds to your desired deployment type:
  3. Then start the steps described in the page Next-gen Deployment and Onboarding.

Intended Audience

These documentation pages in Using VMware Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen are for anyone who wants to deliver virtual desktops and apps at scale to end users within their organization and efficiently manage those virtual desktops and apps using the next-generation Horizon cloud control plane and Horizon Universal Console.

To explore the documentation for the Horizon family of related solutions, see VMware Horizon Documentation - Horizon 8, Horizon Cloud Service, and Horizon Clients. From that page, use the left navigation tree to discover and read guides about various areas of the Horizon family.

Horizon Cloud Community

Use the VMware Horizon Cloud Service Community to ask questions, explore answers given for questions asked by other users, and access links to useful information.

Contacting VMware Support

Contact VMware Support when you need help with your Horizon Cloud environment.

  • You can submit a support request to VMware Support online using your VMware Customer Connect account or by phone.
  • KB 2144012 Customer Support Guidelines provides details for getting support depending on the issue encountered.
  • In the console, clicking The console's Help icon. provides a way to request support.

VMware Technical Publications Glossary

VMware Technical Publications provides a glossary of terms that might be unfamiliar to you. For definitions of terms as they are used in VMware technical documentation, visit http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.