App Volumes Applications for Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure - Overview and Prerequisites

Using App Volumes applications functionality, you can manage the entire life cycle of applications, including packaging, updating, and retiring an application. You can also customize application assignments to deliver specific versions of an application to end users.

Overview of VMware App Volumes Functionality in Horizon Cloud

The following table provides an overview of VMware App Volumes functionality in Horizon Cloud.

Functional Area	Description
Deployment	Zero-touch deployment. Auto-provisioning of App Volumes infrastructure components, such as App Volumes Managers, App Volumes databases, and storage. Leverages Microsoft Azure PostgreSQL managed service for database needs. No additional database management required. Automatic provisioning of Microsoft Azure File Shares during pod setup to store and deliver apps.
Management Console	App Volumes console is seamlessly integrated into the Horizon Universal Console. Manage desktops and apps in the same console. App Volumes Agent installation experience seamlessly integrated into the Horizon Cloud image creation workflows.
App Volumes 4 agent	Unified performance-optimized agent used both for on-premises and Microsoft Azure deployments.
Packaging	Supports VHD based packages that are delivered using Microsoft Azure fileshares. App package creation performed natively within Horizon Cloud. No command-line tools necessary. Customers can import MSIX app attach VHDs and deliver this new package format using App Volumes.
Application Lifecycle Management	Supports Simplified Application Management (SAM) capability that is already a part of App Volumes 4 on-prem. Administrators can now manage the entire life cycle of the application, including packaging, updating, and retiring.
Application Assignment	Administrators can customize their application assignments to deliver specific versions of an application to end users. Supports multi-pod application delivery.
Hybrid Cloud Support	On-prem App Volumes customers can now import their application packages from their on-prem deployments into Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure. Reuse on-prem packages. No need to repackage for Microsoft Azure.

Overview of the App Volumes Application Process

Making App Volumes applications available to users is a two-step process:

• Add an App Volumes application in the Horizon Universal Console. There are two ways of doing this:
  • Add an App Volumes application by creating and importing a new app package.

    If an app package has not yet been created, you can create it with the Create option, which uses App Volumes to create the app package and automatically import it. See Horizon Cloud - Add an App Volumes Application by Creating a New App Package.

  • Add an App Volumes application by importing an existing app package.

    If you have an app package that was previously created with App Volumes, you can import it with the Import option. This means you can reuse app packages from on-premises deployments without having to repackage the applications. See Horizon Cloud - Add an App Volumes Application by Importing an Existing App Package.

• Create an App Volumes assignment to assign the App Volumes application to users. See Horizon Cloud - Create an App Volumes Assignment.

Prerequisites for App Volumes Applications

Before you can add App Volumes applications into your inventory, confirm that your environment meets the following prerequisites.

Important: 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 the tenant's regional cloud plane, whether your cloud-connected pods are running the latest level of the pod's software, and whether features are based on specific licensing. The console dynamically reflects the elements related to such features only when your license or tenant account configuration includes use of such features. 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 license and tenant account configuration entitles its usage.

• New Customers:
  • Starting on July 9, 2020, all new customers that purchase the Horizon Universal License subscription will have their tenant accounts enabled by default to use App Volumes for Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure pods.
• Existing Customers:
  • Customers with existing tenant accounts created after March 16, 2020 and before July 9, 2020 can use App Volumes for Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure pods after the version 3.1 (manifest version 2298.0) upgrade has been made available and those customers have upgraded all their pods to that version. To request App Volumes capability after successfully upgrading all pods, contact VMware Support as described in https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2006985.
  • Customers with existing tenant accounts created on or before March 16, 2020 are not able to have App Volumes enabled for their Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure pods at this time. Those accounts must first be migrated to one of the regional Horizon Cloud control plane instances in Microsoft Azure. The VMware Horizon Service Team will notify such customers by email when this migration is available.

• You must have a pod deployed in Microsoft Azure that has manifest version 2298.0 or later, is configured with Unified Access Gateway instances, and you have completed the Active Directory domain registration workflow as described in Getting Started Using Your Horizon Cloud Environment.
• If you have set the Domain Controller Policy Domain controller: LDAP server signing requirements to Require Signing after registering the domain using the Horizon Universal Console, you must do the following:
  1. On the Setings > Active Directory page, click the edit (pencil) icon next to Domain Bind.
  2. Enter the primary bind account password in the Bind Password text box. Do not make any other changes.
  3. Click Domain Bind.
• In the Horizon Universal Console, verify that every pod’s details page shows that the pod has its mounted file shares.
• In addition to meeting the Horizon Cloud DNS, ports, and protocol requirements, you must also open port 445 for TCP protocol traffic. Port 445 is the standard SMB port for accessing an SMB file share on Microsoft Windows. The AppStacks are stored in an SMB file share located in the pod’s resource group in your Microsoft Azure subscription.
• You have completed the Unified Access Gateway’s FQDN-mapping steps, as is required for pods in Microsoft Azure that are configured with Unified Access Gateway instances.
• You have confirmed that the following settings are shown on the pod detail page for your pod. You open the page by navigating to the Capacity page (Settings > Capacity) and clicking the pod:
  • The Fileshares field under Properties has a value of 2 and when you point to the number both fileshares are listed.
  • The Gateway settings at the bottom of the page are filled in, indicating that Unified Access Gateway is configured.
• Your inventory in the console has a published image with App Volumes Agent installed. For the high-level steps of creating an image VM, see Creating Desktop Images for a Horizon Cloud Pod in Microsoft Azure and its subtopics.

Best Practices for Using a Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise Multi-Session Image with App Volumes Applications in Horizon Cloud Pods in Microsoft Azure

The following practices tend to provide a better user and administrator experience. Also see Setting up a Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise Multi-Session Image with App Volumes Applications in Horizon Cloud Pods in Microsoft Azure.

• Install hardware printers, with printer drivers, in the base image. See the Deployments and Onboarding to Horizon Cloud for Microsoft Azure and Horizon Pods guide for related known-issue information, specifically in the known issues topic.
• App Volumes works best in a non-persistent environment. Multi-session Windows 10 VMs are persistent. Therefore, when you configure the rolling-maintenance feature while setting up a Horizon Cloud farm, set the VM Action to Rebuild. The following Rolling Maintenance and Timeout Handling settings are recommended.

  Rolling Maintenance settings:

  • Maintenance Type: Session
  • Number of sessions: Equal to the number of sessions per VM
  • VM Action: Rebuild
  • Concurrent Quiescing VMs: 40% of farm size

  Timeout Handling settings:

  • Log Off Disconnected Sessions: Timeout after 90 minutes
  • Session Timeout Interval: 90 minutes
• When creating a base image, at the end of the process of provisioning an app package, disable any auto-update services for the application. See the Deployments and Onboarding to Horizon Cloud for Microsoft Azure and Horizon Pods guide for related known-issue information, specifically in the known issues topic.
• Inform users that when they install applications or create files that they do not intend to share among all user sessions on the same VM, they can place the file in their own profile location.