Actions You Can Perform on Published Images from Horizon Cloud Pods in Microsoft Azure

After you publish an image, you can manage that image using the Horizon Universal Console. A published image is an image that has successfully completed the Horizon Cloud sealing process and Horizon Cloud can use it to provision the RDSH VMs in an RDSH farm (in the case of RDSH-capable images) or provision VDI desktop VMs. Other terms sometimes used to describe such images are sealed images and assignable images. When an image is sealed, the console displays the Published status for that image.

Tip: As described in Tour of the Cloud-Based Horizon Universal Console for Administrative Tasks in Horizon Cloud, the cloud-based console is dynamic and reflects the workflows and settings that are appropriate for the up-to-the-moment situation in your Horizon Cloud tenant environment. Access to features varies depending on factors such as whether your cloud-connected pods are running the latest level of the pod's software, whether features are based on specific options set in the tenant record in the cloud plane, and so on. The console dynamically reflects the elements related to such features when your pod fleet or tenant account configuration includes use of such features. That means that you might see labels in the console that are slightly different from the ones described here. Also, when you are expecting to see a feature in the console and do not see it, you have to contact your VMware account representative to verify whether your tenant account configuration entitles its usage.

Because the console is so dynamic, you might see different labels in the console for your specific environment.

Procedure

Click Inventory and navigate to the image-related page that has the image that you want to act on.
Click the check box corresponding to that image.

To perform an action on an image, select the image's check box and click one of the action buttons.

Button	Description
Rename	Note: This page contains an action named Rename in a deactivated state, because that action is not supported currently for images from a pod deployed in Microsoft Azure.
Duplicate	The duplicate workflow is typically used when updating a farm's or VDI desktop assignment's underlying golden image, for example, to install or update applications in the image VM. Duplicating an existing image creates an image with the same configuration and a new name. For detailed steps of changing images used for farms and VDI desktop assignments, see Change Images Used for Farms in Horizon Cloud and Change Images Used for VDI Desktop Assignments. When you click Duplicate, you must enter a name for the new duplicated VM. After you enter a new name and click Save, the system clones the sealed image's VM to make a new base VM, and lists the new VM on the Imported VMs page. When you see that the Imported VMs page reports the new VM's agent is active, you can log in to it and make changes. When you are finished making your changes, you publish the duplicate to make it an assignable (sealed) image. Note: As the system begins the cloning process, the original sealed image goes into Transition status for the first part of the process. After some time, the original sealed image returns to its original state. You can monitor the progress of the duplicate image on the Imported VMs page or using the Activity page.
Update Agent	Update the image's agent-related software components to a newer version. Clicking this button opens the Agent Update wizard. A blue dot appears next to the name of an image when agent updates are available for it. When you hover over that blue dot, a popup indicates all of the agent updates that are available for that image. For details, see one of the following topics: Update Agent Software for RDSH Images in Horizon Cloud Horizon Cloud Pods - Update Agent Software for Images Used by Floating VDI Desktop Assignments Important: For dedicated VDI desktop assignments, you usually update the agents from the Assignments page instead of by updating the agents in the image. See Update Agent Software for Dedicated VDI Desktop Assignments.

Button

Description

Rename

Note: This page contains an action named Rename in a deactivated state, because that action is not supported currently for images from a pod deployed in Microsoft Azure.

Duplicate

The duplicate workflow is typically used when updating a farm's or VDI desktop assignment's underlying golden image, for example, to install or update applications in the image VM. Duplicating an existing image creates an image with the same configuration and a new name.

For detailed steps of changing images used for farms and VDI desktop assignments, see Change Images Used for Farms in Horizon Cloud and Change Images Used for VDI Desktop Assignments.

When you click Duplicate, you must enter a name for the new duplicated VM. After you enter a new name and click Save, the system clones the sealed image's VM to make a new base VM, and lists the new VM on the Imported VMs page. When you see that the Imported VMs page reports the new VM's agent is active, you can log in to it and make changes. When you are finished making your changes, you publish the duplicate to make it an assignable (sealed) image.

Note: As the system begins the cloning process, the original sealed image goes into Transition status for the first part of the process. After some time, the original sealed image returns to its original state. You can monitor the progress of the duplicate image on the Imported VMs page or using the Activity page.

Update Agent

Update the image's agent-related software components to a newer version. Clicking this button opens the Agent Update wizard.

A blue dot appears next to the name of an image when agent updates are available for it. When you hover over that blue dot, a popup indicates all of the agent updates that are available for that image.

For details, see one of the following topics:

Important: For dedicated VDI desktop assignments, you usually update the agents from the Assignments page instead of by updating the agents in the image. See Update Agent Software for Dedicated VDI Desktop Assignments.

To perform one of the other available actions, click More and select the option you want.

Note: Even though the Download Bootstrap and Refresh Password actions are visible when an image is selected, those actions are not applicable to any one image.

Drop-Down Option	Description
Delete	Permanently deletes the selected image. Note: An image cannot be deleted if the system detects the image is in use, such as by a farm.
Publish	For images used in farms or VDI desktop assignments, this action republishes a duplicated image to make it assignable again. This action is not available if the image already is an assignable (sealed) image. An assignable image is one that has Published status.
Convert to Desktop	Use this action only on images that have failed the publishing workflow and did not reach the Published status. This action converts the published image to an unsealed VM. The unsealed VM is listed on the Imported VMs page at that point. Caution: Use this action sparingly. Repeated use of this action on the same image can result in unexpected results and failure to seal the image when attempting to republish the image. As an example, if you create a new image, then run Publish on it and it reaches Published status, then you run Convert to Desktop on that image, then run Publish again, the Sysprep process that happens in the publishing workflow can fail. If you again convert the image back to an unsealed image, from that point on, the image might always fail the publishing workflow. At that point, it is prudent to start fresh and make a new base image.
Assign Image	Even though the console displays this action, this action is not used for images in a Microsoft Azure environment. As a result, the action is inaccessible.
Bulk Assign Image	This option is available for use only for an environment configured for single-pod brokering. When your environment is configured to use Universal Broker for the pods in Microsoft Azure, this action is in a deactivated state, because this action is not supported currently for that configuration. Assigns the image to multiple assignments or farms that are based on the immediate parent image (the image from which the selected image was duplicated or updated). In the Bulk Assign Image dialog box, select the assignments and farms in the list and click Update. Note: In an environment configured for single-pod brokering, this option is only available for images created using the Duplicate operation and images updated to newer agent versions using the Update Agent operation.

(Optional) View details about the image by clicking the image's name.
The screen displays the image's details page and buttons for those actions you can perform on the image from its details page.
For example, this screen is the information for an RDS-enabled assignable server image named lawin2016. This image belongs to a pod named lakjun30 and is referenced by two RDSH farms.