This documentation page is the opening page for the Using 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 Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen and you are ready to begin using the service.
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.
For privacy information, see the VMware Horizon Cloud Service – next-gen privacy datasheet. The datasheet is available on the VMware Products and Services page at VMware Privacy Program.
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 deployments.
Benefits Overview
Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen provides a variety of benefits that improve the Horizon Cloud experience over its predecessor.
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 the Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen service from its Horizon Cloud Service - first-gen predecessor. For details about the architecture, see the Horizon Cloud Service next-gen Architecture section of 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.
The following diagram illustrates the relationship between the control plane and an initial Horizon Edge deployed into Microsoft Azure Cloud (Horizon Edge-1). In the deployment wizard, the administrator chose to have two Unified Access Gateway instances.
The core infrastructure elements that VMware uses to provide the service to you are:
- Horizon Control Plane.
- Horizon Edge Gateway instance. For Microsoft Azure Cloud as the provider, the deployer deploys an Azure load balancer with this 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 Service - next-gen is to onboard to the service.
Onboarding requires you to fulfill some specific requirements:
- First review the checklist that corresponds to your desired deployment type and fulfill the requirements.
- 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:
- Then start the steps described in the page Next-gen Deployment and Onboarding.
Intended Audience
This Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen product documentation is 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 Service - next-gen 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
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.
