Horizon Pods - Configure RDSH Desktops and Applications for a Universal Broker Environment

This article explains how to add your session desktop pools and remote application pools from cloud-managed Horizon pods to a Universal Broker environment. These pools, also known as RDSH pools, consist of resources provisioned by Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) hosts within a single Horizon pod. End users can open sessions by connecting to the Universal Broker FQDN, and Universal Broker serves as the connection broker for these sessions.

An RDSH pool consists of desktops or applications provisioned by Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) hosts within a single Horizon pod. When you add RDSH pools to your Universal Broker environment, the pools become read-only assignments in Horizon Universal Console. For more information, see Horizon Pods - Working with RDSH Assignments in Horizon Universal Console.

Prerequisites

Verify that you have completed the following prerequisite steps.

• Enable and configure Universal Broker as the connection broker for your Horizon pods. See Start the Universal Broker Enablement Using the Horizon Universal Console and Configure Universal Broker Settings.
• For the Horizon pod that is the source of the RDSH desktop or application pool:
  • Ensure that all the Connection Server instances within the pod are running VMware Horizon 8 version 2103 (8.2) or later.
  • Ensure that the pod is paired with a Horizon Cloud Connector appliance of version 1.10 or later. Support for RDSH desktops or application pools debuted with version 1.10. However, using the most recent version of Horizon Cloud Connector is strongly recommended to have the most recent security and bug fixes and improvements.
  • Change the pod to managed state. See Use the Horizon Universal Console to Change a Cloud-Connected Horizon Pod to Managed State.

Procedure

1. Open Horizon Console (the administrator console for Horizon pods) for the pod containing the RDSH desktop or application pool that you want to configure.
   For details on how to use Horizon Console, see the VMware Horizon Documentation.
2. In Horizon Console, open the wizard for configuring an RDSH desktop or application pool.
3. In the configuration wizard, enable the Cloud Brokered option for the pool.
   Universal Broker only recognizes RDSH desktop and application pools marked as Cloud Brokered.
   • For an RDSH desktop pool, the Cloud Brokered option appears in the section of the wizard that allows you to configure the pool settings.
   • For an application pool, the Cloud Brokered option appears in the section of the wizard that allows you to add applications.
4. To save your changes to the pool, follow the prompts in the configuration wizard.
   Allow up to 10 minutes for the pool's configuration information to synchronize with the Universal Broker service.
5. In Horizon Universal Console, navigate to the assignments page for RDSH desktops and applications from pods in a VMware SDDC. Verify that the pool that you configured as Cloud Brokered appears as a listed assignment on the page.

Results

Entitled users can now access the pool's desktops or applications by connecting to the Universal Broker FQDN.

The pool's configuration information is automatically synchronized to the Universal Broker service at the following times.

• When the pool is created in Horizon Console.
• When the pool's configuration is modified in Horizon Console.
• When the pool is deleted in Horizon Console.

For more information, see Horizon Pods - Working with RDSH Assignments in Horizon Universal Console.