Horizon Cloud Pods - Create a Farm

In Horizon Cloud, you create a farm so that you can provision desktop sessions or remote applications to your end users from hosts that are capable of serving multiple user sessions simultaneously. When created, the farm consists of a pool of RDS-capable hosts. These RDS-capable hosts can be VMs running Microsoft Windows Server operating systems or running Microsoft Windows 10 or 11 Enterprise multi-session operating systems. You create farms using the console's Farms page.

A farm is a collection of Remote Desktop Services hosts (RDSHs). Each of those Remote Desktop Services (RDS) hosts is a VM that is instantiated based on the specific RDSH-capable image which you select to use for the farm. The RDSH-capable image is sometimes also called an RDS-enabled image, an RDSH image, or an RDSH-capable image.

By default, Horizon Cloud farms are configured with rolling maintenance. For an example of how rolling maintenance works for a farm, see Example of Farm Rolling Maintenance.

Note: When you want to provision desktops running a Microsoft Windows 10 or 11 multi-session operating system and have use of App Volumes applications in those desktops, you create a farm of desktop type. Specify the sealed multi-session Microsoft Windows 10 or 11 image in which you installed the App Volumes agent.

Prerequisites

• Verify that you have at least one image listed on the Images page, that image has an RDSH-capable Windows operating system, the Images page shows that image is in Published state, and that image is located in the Horizon Cloud pod in which you want to create the farm. You cannot create a farm in a pod without such an image available in that pod.
• Decide if you want this farm's VMs to be connected to a VM subnet that is different from the pod's primary VM subnet (also known as the tenant subnet). If your pod is running manifest 2298 or later and you have edited the pod to add additional VM subnets, you can specify use of those subnets for this farm. For this use case, you must verify that the VM subnet you want to use is listed on the pod's details page's Networking section in a Ready state so that the subnet will available for you to select in the workflow steps. For details, see Overview of Using Multiple Tenant Subnets with Your Horizon Cloud Pod for Your Farms and VDI Assignments.
• Decide whether this farm will serve session-based desktops or remote applications. In this release, the same farm cannot serve both.
  Note: To have your end users use App Volumes applications with a Microsoft Windows 10 or 11 multi-session operating system, you must entitle those users to both an App Volumes applications assignment and to a session-based desktops assignment. For this scenario, create a desktops farm to provide those session-based desktops based on that farm. When creating that desktops farm, select the published image that you created with the Microsoft Windows 10 or 11 multi-session operating system.
• Decide whether you want the farm's RDSH VMs to have encrypted disks. You must specify disk encryption when creating the farm. You cannot later add disk encryption after the farm is created. For a description of the disk capability, see Using Microsoft Azure Disk Encryption with Your Farms and VDI Desktops in Your Horizon Cloud Environment.
• Decide whether you want the ability to use NSX Cloud features with the farm's RDSH VMs. You must enable NSX Cloud management when creating the farm. You cannot later enable the farm for NSX Cloud management after the farm is created. The published image you choose for this farm must have the NSX agent installed in it. You must have installed the NSX agent prior to publishing the image. See VMware NSX Cloud and Horizon Cloud Pods in Microsoft Azure and its subtopics.
• If the image's operating system contains Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications, decide on the method you want to use to ensure that your end users can use those UWP applications from the farm's RDSH VMs. An example is when the image has the Microsoft Windows 10 or 11 Enterprise multi-session operating system. The method you choose to enable use of those UWP applications might determine which Active Directory OU you use for the farm. For more information, see Enable a Horizon Agent Policy to Allow Running UWP Applications from RDSH VMs.

Procedure

1. In the administrative console, navigate to Inventory > Farms.
2. Click New and start the wizard.
3. Complete your selections as appropriate and then move to the next step.
   Note: You might have to use the scroll bar to see all the required fields.

   Option	Description
   Name	Enter a name for this farm.
   Description	Enter an optional description.
   VM Names	Base name for all of the RDSH VMs created for this farm. The VM names will have numbers appended to this base name, for example, win2016-1, win2016-2, etc. The name must start with a letter and can contain only letters, dashes, and numbers.
   Farm Type	Specify the type of asset this farm provides to end users: Select Desktops to use this farm to provide session-based desktops. Select Applications to use this farm to provide access to remote applications. After an applications farm is created, you can use the New Application workflow's Auto-scan from Farm option to import applications from the farm's VMs' operating system into your application inventory.
   Location	Select the location associated with the pod that has the RDSH image. This selection filters the choices in the Pod field to only the pods in the selected location.
   Pod	Select the pod. Tip: If you do not see any pods to select, verify that the Location list is not displaying a location without pods. The Location field works on the Pod list to filter out pods that are not associated with the selected location. If you previously had a pod at a location and then deleted that pod or moved it to a different location, so that the displayed location no longer has any pods, the Pod list will display no entries. Because the locations are listed alphabetically, when the screen opens, it automatically selects the one that is first in the alphabet. If that location no longer has any pods associated with it, you must switch the location to a different entry.
   Specify VM Subnet(s)	Enable this toggle to select one or more specific subnets to which the farm's VMs will be connected. After enabling the toggle, you can select the specific subnets from the displayed list. When this toggle is switched off, the farm's VMs will be connected to the pod's primary VM subnet by default.
   Filter Models	Set one or more filters to control the models available in the Models drop-down menu. You can filter models by type, series, number of CPUs, memory, and tags. For more information about selecting models, see Managing VM Types and Sizes for Farms and Assignments in the Horizon Universal Console, which describes the options on the VM Types & Sizes page (Settings > VM Types & Sizes). Note: For Windows 11 Enterprise operating system farms, make sure to select Gen1 or Gen1, Gen2 models. To set a filter, you first select the criterion in the drop-down menu and then enter the desired value(s). By default, there is a single filter with the criterion 'Tag' the value 'VMware Recommended'. You can edit this first filter and add more filters connected by And and Or operators. The following are the criteria you can use for filters and descriptions of the values you can enter for each. Type When you select this option, there is only one value available in the second drop-down menu: GPU and High Performance - Models with GPU. Note: If you choose a GPU model, then the list of images shown will contain only images that were created with the Include GPU flag selected, so you need at least one such image in order to create a farm or pool using a GPU model. If you choose a non-GPU model, then the list of images shown will contain only images that were created without the Include GPU flag. Series When you select this option, you can then select a series of models from a second drop-down menu. You can also filter this list by entering text in the Filter text box at the top of the list. CPUs When you select this option, you can then enter a CPU range. Important: For production environments, to avoid unexpected end-user connection issues, use VM models that have a minimum of two (2) CPUs. Memory When you select this option, you can then enter a range of memory in GBs. Tag When you select this option, you can then select a tag from a second drop-down menu. You can also filter this list by entering text in the Filter text box at the top of the list. Tags available in the drop-down menu are both hard-coded system tags and custom tags that you created on the VM Types & Sizes page (Settings > VM Types & Sizes). You can set additional filters by performing the following steps for each filter: Click the Add link. Select either And or Or as the operator between the previous filter and the new one you are creating. Set the new filter by selecting a criterion and entering value(s). Note: If the model you selected to create the farm becomes unavailable in the future, you will not be able to expand the farm. The farm remains fully functional except for this limitation. To see if a VM type is available, navigate to the VM Types & Sizes page ( Settings > VM Types & Sizes).
   Model	The choices here are filtered by your selections in Filter Models. Select the VM model to use for the farm's RDSH VMs. This selection defines the set of underlying resources that will be used when the farm's RDSH VMs are created, in terms of capacity (compute, storage, and so on). The available choices map to standard VM sizes that are available in Microsoft Azure. Note: For Windows 11 Enterprise operating system farms, make sure to select Gen1 or Gen1, Gen2 models. Important: For production environments, select a VM model that has a minimum of two (2) CPUs. VMware scale testing has shown that using 2 CPUs or more avoids unexpected end-user connection issues. Even though the system does not prevent you from choosing a VM model with a single CPU, you should use such models for tests or proof-of-concepts only.
   Disk Type	Select a supported disk type from the available options. Disk type options are based on the model selected, and your Azure subscription and region. The following are some commonly available disk types. Standard HDD - Default disk type. Standard SSD Premium SSD - Option only appears if you selected a model that supports premium IO. You can edit your selection later if desired.
   Disk Size	Enter the OS disk size in GiB for the farm's VMs. The default value is the base image OS disk size (typically 127 GiB). If you edit the size, the value you enter must be greater than the base image OS disk size, and cannot exceed the largest size (typically 1024 GiB) supported by the selected model. You can also edit this value later if desired. Important: If you edit the disk size, there are additional actions you must take to ensure that the VMs are created as expected. For more information, see Required Administrator Actions When the Disk Size for a Farm or VDI Desktop Assignment is Increased.
   Image	Select the RDSH image. Important: If the image's operating system contains Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications, there are additional actions you must take to ensure that your end users will be able to use those UWP applications from the farm's RDSH VMs. For more information, see Enable a Horizon Agent Policy to Allow Running UWP Applications from RDSH VMs. If you set the NSX Cloud Managed toggle to Yes, ensure that the image you select here has the NSX agent installed on it. For the NSX Cloud management features to work with the farm's VMs, the image that you select for this farm must have the NSX agent already installed on it. The system does not verify if the selected image has the NSX agent when it creates the farm.
   Preferred Protocol	Select a default display protocol you want the end-user sessions to use. Circumstances might occur that cause another protocol to be used instead of the default protocol. For example, the client device does not support the default protocol or the end user overrides the default protocol selection.
   Preferred Client Type	Select the preferred client type used when end users launch their session-based desktops from Workspace ONE Access, either a Horizon Client or a browser for HTML Access.
   Domain	Select the Active Directory domain registered with your environment.
   Join Domain	Select Yes so that the farm's VMs are automatically joined to the domain when they are created.
   Encrypt Disks	Select Yes so that the farm's VMs have encrypted disks. Important: If you want disk encryption, you must make this selection when creating the farm. You cannot later add disk encryption after the farm is created.
   NSX Cloud Managed	Select Yes so that you can use features of NSX Cloud with the farm's VMs. For a description of using NSX Cloud features with your farms in Microsoft Azure, see VMware NSX Cloud and Horizon Cloud Pods in Microsoft Azure and its subtopics. Important: If you want to use NSX Cloud with the farm's VMs, you must make this selection when creating the farm. You cannot later enable NSX Cloud management after the farm is created. For the NSX Cloud management features to work with the VMs, the image that you select for this farm must have the NSX agent already installed on it. When you set this toggle to Yes, ensure that the image you select in Image has the NSX agent installed on it. The system does not verify if the selected image has the NSX agent when it creates the farm.
   Min VMs Max VMs	Specify the minimum number and maximum number of RDSH VMs you want in this farm. When the farm is first created, the system deploys the number of VMs specified in the Max VMs field, and then powers off the VMs except the number specified for Min VMs. Only the minimum number of VMs are initially powered on. As end user demand increases, the system powers on additional VMs, up to the Max VMs number. Then as end-user demand shrinks, the system powers off the VMs, until it reaches the Min VMs number of VMs. A VM must be completely empty of user sessions before the system powers it off. When you specify zero (0) for Min VMs, it indicates that you want the system to power off all the farm's RDSH VMs when there is no end-user demand for sessions to the farm. When you enter zero (0) for Min VMs, use the Power Of Protect Time field to specify the amount of time you want the system to wait after determining the remaining powered-on VM has no user sessions before the system powers off that VM.
   Power Off Protect Time	Specify the number of minutes that you want the system to wait before automatically powering off a powered-on farm VM. You can enter a value from 1 to 60. The default is 30 minutes. This protect time is used primarily for the situations where the system would normally power off a farm's VM. You can use this Power Off Protect Time setting to tell the system to wait the specified time before starting to power off the VM. The default wait time is 30 minutes.
   Sessions per VM	Specify the number of concurrent end-user sessions per VM that this farm will allow. For a pod in Microsoft Azure, based on performance testing of user densities, VMware has some recommended maximums. For details about these recommendations and the analysis behind them, see the VMware Horizon Cloud Service™ on Microsoft Azure RDS Desktop and Application Scalability technical paper located here in vmware.com. Note: If your GPU-enabled image is based on the Azure VM series powered by NVIDIA GRID technology and Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2, then due to a NVIDIA driver limitation, a farm using that image for its RDSH VMs is limited to 20 sessions maximum per VM. If you have that particular combination (image based on a GPU N-series model, NVIDA drivers,and Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2), do not specify more than 20 here.
   Windows license question	The wizard asks you to confirm you have an eligible license to use the Microsoft Windows operating system that is in the image and which will be in the farm's RDSH VMs. Follow the on-screen instructions.

   Optionally configure the advanced properties.

   Option	Description
   Computer OU	Active Directory Organizational Unit where the farm VMs are to be located. Enter the Active Directory Organizational Unit using the distinguished name, for example, OU=RootOrgName,DC=DomainComponent,DC=eng, and so on. The OU and each path in a nested OU can contain any combination of letters, numbers, special characters, and spaces, and can have a maximum of 64 characters. If you need to use nested Organization Units, see Considerations For Using Nested Active Directory Domain Organizational Units. Note: If the Computer OU is set to CN=Computers, the system uses the default Active Directory Computers container for VMs. Your Active Directory might have this default container redirected to an organizational unit class container.
   Run Once Script	(Optional) Location of a script that you want run in the farm's VMs after the VM creation process. Note: The script should end with a reboot step to reboot the VM. A sample reboot line as a Windows command is: shutdown /r /t 0 The script is run after the Microsoft Windows System Preparation (Sysprep) process. When the system creates a VM for the farm, the VM starts up and completes the Sysprep process in the Windows operating system. When the Sysprep process completes, the agent in the VM reaches out to do the domain join. At the same time, the agent gets the script path you specify here. The agent sets the Windows RunOnce path (System run once) and then restarts the VM. On the next restart, the system logs in to the Windows operating system using the local administrator account and runs the script.
   Azure Resource Tags	(Optional) Create custom tags to be applied to Azure resource groups. Azure resource tags are only applied to the resource groups, and are not inherited by the resources in the groups. To create the first tag, enter information in the Name and Value fields. To create an additional tag, click Add and then enter information in the Name and Value fields that appear below the existing ones. You can create a maximum of 10 tags. The tag name is limited to 512 characters, and the tag value is limited to 256 characters. For storage accounts, the tag name is limited to 128 characters, and the tag value is limited to 256 characters. Tag names cannot contain the following characters: < > % & \ ? / Tag names cannot contain these case-insensitive strings: azure, windows, microsoft. After a farm has been created, you can add more Azure resource tags and edit or delete tags for that farm.

4. In the wizard's next step, complete the fields and make your selections as appropriate and then click Next.

   Option	Description
   Rolling Maintenance	Select the maintenance type, either according to a time cadence (Scheduled) or based on user sessions to this farm's VMs (Session). When Scheduled is selected, configure the maintenance cadence, either daily or weekly. If you choose a daily recurrence, specify the hour at which the maintenance will start. If you choose a weekly recurrence, specify both the day of the week and the hour. When Session is selected, specify the number of sessions at which the farm should begin rolling maintenance. Note: Sessions which are logged off within 15 minutes are not counted for the purposes of the rolling maintenance calculations, to prevent restarting or rebuilding the VMs based on a count of short running sessions. In the Concurrent Quiescing VMs field, specify the number of farm VMs that can be in the quiescing state at the same time. When a VM is in quiescing state, the VM continues to work for the user sessions already connected to that VM, but it does not accept any new user connections. For a simple example, see Example of Farm Rolling Maintenance.
   VM Action	Select the action that the system should perform on the VMs undergoing maintenance. With Restart, the VMs are restarted. With Rebuild, the VMs are first deleted and then reprovisioned based on the farm's associated image. If you choose to have the unused VMs powered off, they will still consume some storage use in your cloud environment.
   Power Management	These power management settings are related to the thresholds at which the system automatically increases and shrinks the number of powered-on farm VMs according to the session usage on the VMs. When the usage increases above an upper bound, the system automatically powers up one of the unused VM. When the usage shrinks below a lower bound, the system drains the VM until it is not being used. Then the system shuts down the VM and deallocates it. The power management selections balance capacity cost with faster availability: Select Optimized Performance when you want the system to power on the next VM sooner rather than later. Even though you are spending more by having the next VM ready to go before the user demand requires it, this setting increases the chance that when users log in, the VM is already powered up to meet that demand. Select Optimized Power, when you want the system to wait the maximum amount of time possible before powering on the next VM. The occupancy of the VMs is higher before the system powers up the next one. Even though this selection minimizes capacity costs by getting higher use of the existing VMs, this setting increases the chance that there might be a delay when new users try to log in because they might have to wait during the time system has to power on the VM. Select Balanced to strike a balance between capacity costs and time-to-availability for users. The low and high thresholds for each selection are: Optimized Performance Low threshold: 23% High threshold: 50% Optimized Power Low threshold: 38% High threshold: 80% Balanced Low threshold: 31% High threshold: 66% For an in-depth description about the power management features of Horizon Cloud and descriptions of how they work in various scenarios, see the VMware Horizon Cloud Service™ on Microsoft Azure RDS Desktop and Application Scalability technical paper located here in vmware.com.
   Timeout Handling	Configure how you want the system to handle certain types of user sessions. Note: The user sessions governed by these settings are the user logins to the Windows operating system session of the RDS session desktop or application. These sessions are not the user logins in Horizon Client, Horizon HTML Access, or Workspace ONE. The user's session begins when the user authenticates to the Windows operating system that underlies the session-based desktop or the remote application that is served from this farm's RDSH VMs. Empty Session Timeout - For applications farms, select how the system should handle idle user sessions, whether to never time out idle sessions or to time out after a specified number of minutes. Idle timeouts are based on the activity on the endpoint device, not on the session-based desktop or application. If you specify to time out an idle session, select what happens when the timeout period is up: whether to disconnect the session or log the user off. When a session is disconnected, the session is disconnected from the network and preserved in memory. When a session is logged off, the session is not preserved in memory, and any unsaved documents are lost. Log Off Disconnected Sessions - Select when the system logs the user off of a disconnected session. Max Session Lifetime - Specify the maximum number of minutes the system should allow for a single user session.
   Session Timeout Interval	This time interval is the amount of time the end users' sessions can be idle before the system forces a logoff from the session-based desktops or applications that are served by this farm. This timeout applies to the logged-in session to the underlying Windows operating system. The time you specify here is different from the time out settings that govern the end users' Horizon Client or HTML Access logged-in session. Caution: When the system forces the logoff in the underlying Windows operating system session, any unsaved data is lost. To prevent an unintended loss of data, set this interval high enough to accommodate the business needs of your end users. The default interval is one day (1440 minutes). Note: If no user activity occurs before the timeout interval is reached, a message indicates that the user will be logged off if they do not click OK in the next 30 seconds. If the logout occurs, any unsaved user data, such as documents or files, is lost.
   Schedule Power Management	To help optimize savings and performance of the farm's VMs in Microsoft Azure, you can optionally configure schedules to adjust the minimum number of powered-on VMs in this farm on a recurring weekly basis. For example: For weekends or night hours when you know that your end users will not be using their desktops or remote applications, you can have a schedule for zero or a low number of powered-on VMs. For specific days or specific hourly stretches that you can predict will have increased end-user demand, you can have a schedule that increases the minimum number of powered-on VMs to be available to meet that demand. You can specify up to 10 schedules for the farm. If any schedules have overlapping time periods but specify different minimum VM numbers, the system uses the largest value of minimum VMs for the overlapping time period. Click the + icon to add the first row in the Schedule Power Management section. Enter an identifying name for the first schedule. Select the days for the first schedule. Note: One day is selected by default when the row is added. If you do not want to include the selected day in this schedule, click the drop-down and deselect that selected day. Specify the applicable hours in the specified days. Either: Select the All Day check box to have this schedule in effect for all hours of the specified days. Specify start and end times for the time period in each day. Note: Encrypted VMs take longer to power on than non-encrypted VMs. If you have set Encrypt Disks to Yes, and you want 100% of the encrypted VMs to be ready for end-user connections at a particular time of day, you might have to set an earlier start time here. See When Scheduling Power Management for Farms and VDI Desktop Assignments That Have Large Numbers of Encrypted VMs. Select the time zone. The time zone closest to your end users' location is recommended. As appropriate for the selected time zone, Daylight Savings Time is automatically applied. Note: If two schedules have the same time zone setting and have overlapping times, a warning is displayed. However, if two schedules have different time zone settings and overlap, the warning is not displayed. As an example, if you have two all-day Saturday schedules and one has Europe/London time zone selected and the other has America/Toronto selected, the overlap warning does not display. In the Min VMs field, enter the minimum number of VMs you want powered on during the specified time period. During the specified time period, that number of VMs at a minimum will be powered on to be available to take end-user requests during that time. The number can range from zero (0) up to the number specified for Max VMs for the farm. When this number is zero (0) and there are no active end-user sessions at the schedule's starting time point, the farm's VMs are powered off. In that scenario, if an end user then attempts to connect to a desktop or application served by this farm during the scheduled time period, there will be a delay before the desktop or application is in a usable state because the underlying VM has to power on.

5. In the wizard's Load Balancing step, enter values for Login Threshold. This setting controls the number of logins allowed within a time period before a VM is deprioritized for having new sessions assigned to it. For example, if Login Threshold is set to 3 logins per 30 seconds, then whenever there have been 3 logged-in sessions assigned to VM 1 within the previous 30 seconds, the next session is assigned to VM 2, and so on.
   Note: Load Balancing settings might not appear or might be deactivated if you have an older environment or if the agent for the farm is not the latest version.
6. Complete the fields under Session Host Load balancing settings.
   • Horizon Cloud agents use the first five settings (CPU Usage Threshold, Memory Usage Threshold, Disk Queue Length Threshold, Disk Read Latency Threshold, and Disk Write Latency Threshold) to calculate the Agent Load Index, a value between 0 and 100 that measures a VM's load.
   • The last setting, Load Index Threshold, is the Agent Load Index value at which a VM is considered full.
     Important: Because of the key role that Agent Load Index plays in power management, it is essential that you select appropriate values for these settings so you can achieve the desired balance of power consumption and performance in your environment.

   For more information about how Agent Load Index affects power management, see About Power Management and Load Balancing for Farms in Horizon Cloud.

   Option	Description
   CPU Usage Threshold	Threshold value for the CPU usage in percentage. You can set a value from 0 to 100. The recommended value is 90, which is also the default value.
   Memory Usage Threshold	Threshold value for the memory in percentage. You can set a value from 0 to 100. The recommended value is 90, which is also the default value.
   Disk Queue Length Threshold	Threshold of the average number of both read and write requests that were queued for the selected disk during the sample interval. You can set the value to any positive integer. By default, this setting is not considered for load balancing. The default value is 0.
   Disk Read Latency Threshold	Threshold of the average time of read of data from the disk in milliseconds. You can set the value to any positive integer. By default, this setting is not considered for load balancing. The default value is 0.
   Disk Write Latency Threshold	Threshold of the average time of write of data to the disk in milliseconds. You can set the value to any positive integer. By default, this setting is not considered for load balancing. The default value is 0.
   Load Index Threshold	Value of the Agent Load Index at which a VM is considered to be full and is not assigned any new sessions. You can enter a value between 0 and 100. The default value is 90. Note: The system corrects this value if necessary to be greater than the power management high threshold. This ensures effective power management.

7. Click Next.
8. In the wizard's Summary step, review the settings and then click Submit to begin creating the farm.

Results

The system starts creating the farm. You can monitor the progress using the Activity page. When the farm's status shows a green dot on the Farms page, the farm is ready for use.

Note: Creation of an encrypted farm VM takes approximately twice as long as creating a non-encrypted VM. As a result, the end-to-end time to complete creating a farm that has disk encryption enabled is approximately twice as long as creating that farm without disk encryption enabled.

Also, when an image VM has a data disk, additional time is needed for creating an encrypted farm VM based on that image VM. The longest times occur for data disks of larger, terabyte sizes.

What to do next

If you created a desktops farm, you would next create a session-based desktop assignment for your end users by following the steps in Horizon Cloud Pods - Provide Desktop Sessions from RDS Hosts for Your End Users by Creating an RDS-Based Session Desktop Assignment.

Note: If you created a desktops farm to have your end users use App Volumes applications in a Microsoft Windows 10 or 11 multi-session operating system, you would perform these workflows next:

1. Ensure the App Volumes applications are added into your applications inventory using the import workflow. Alternatively, instead of the import workflow, you can use a different image that is based on a Windows 10 or 11 client operating system, and use the create workflow to capture applications from that Windows 10 or 11 client system into your inventory. You can entitle those applications to your users and they can be used with the session-based desktops based on this farm, even when those applications are captured from the client type of Windows 10 or 11 operating system.
2. Entitle those applications to your users by creating an App Volumes assignment.
3. Entitle a session-based desktop to those users, based on this farm by creating a session-based desktop assignment.

If you created an applications farm, you would next scan that farm to load applications into Horizon Cloud and then create an applications assignment so your end users can use the remote applications from that farm.

For more information, see Applications in Your Horizon Cloud Inventory, Remote Applications - Importing from RDSH Farms that are Provisioned by Horizon Cloud Pods in Microsoft Azure, and Remote Applications - Create a Remote Application Assignment for Remote Applications Provisioned By Horizon Cloud Pods in Microsoft Azure.

If the image for this farm has applications that require opening special ports, you might need to modify this farm's associated Network Security Group (NSG) in Microsoft Azure. For details about the NSG, see About Network Security Groups and Farms in a Horizon Cloud Pod.

If you specified NSX Cloud management for this farm, you can use your NSX Cloud environment's Service Manager (CSM) to see that the farm's VMs are managed in NSX Cloud. Log in to your environment's CSM and navigate to Clouds > Azure > Instances. When that Instances page shows a status of Managed for the farm's VMs, you can start implementing NSX policies on them.