Horizon Pods - Federated Architecture with Google Cloud VMware Engine: Download and Deploy the Horizon Cloud Connector into Your Pod's Environment

Follow these steps to download and deploy the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance for a pod deployment that uses the federated architecture with Google Cloud VMware Engine (GCVE). In the federated architecture, you must deploy Horizon Cloud Connector into the native Google Cloud Platform (GCP) infrastructure of your pod's environment.

Note: For background information on Horizon pod deployment architectures, see Horizon Pod Deployment Architectures. For detailed information about working with a GCVE environment, see the Google Cloud documentation at https://cloud.google.com/vmware-engine/docs.

The following is a high-level overview of the steps required to deploy Horizon Cloud Connector into the native GCP infrastructure within your pod's environment:

Download the Horizon Cloud Connector TAR file.
Create a Google Cloud Storage bucket and upload the appliance TAR to that bucket.
Create a custom image from the uploaded TAR file.
Create the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual machine (VM) instance from the custom image.

Prerequisites

Verify that you have met the connector-related prerequisites described in Horizon Pod and Horizon Cloud Connector - Preparing to Onboard to Control Plane Services.
Verify that you have met the DNS, ports, and protocols requirements for using Horizon Cloud Connector to pair a Horizon pod with Horizon Cloud.
The Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance must reach the Internet to talk to the Horizon Cloud control plane. If your environment requires use of a proxy server and proxy configuration for deployed appliances to reach the Internet, verify that you have reviewed the proxy-related information, known limitations, and known issues when using proxy settings with the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance. See the proxy-related information in Horizon Pod and Horizon Cloud Connector - Preparing to Onboard to Control Plane Services, Horizon Cloud Connector Known Considerations, and Modifying Proxy Settings for Horizon Cloud Connector 1.6 or Later.
You can perform some of the deployment steps using either the Google Cloud graphical user interface (GUI) or the Google Cloud command-line interface (CLI). To use the CLI, you must first install the required components on your local system:
- The gsutil tool. For instructions, see the Google Cloud Storage documentation.
- The Google Cloud SDK. For instructions, see the Google Cloud SDK documentation.

Procedure

Download the Horizon Cloud Connector disk image using the link provided in your subscription email.
The Horizon Cloud Connector disk image is available as a TAR file compressed into a .GZ package after you log in to my.vmware.com using your My VMware account credentials. Download the TAR file to your local system.
Note: To deploy the appliance into a GCVE environment, download version 1.10 or later of the Horizon Cloud Connector disk image.

Before uploading the disk image file to your GCVE environment, you must first create a Google Cloud Storage bucket.
Create a Google Cloud Storage bucket in your GCVE environment. For detailed instructions, refer to the Google Cloud documentation.
Upload the downloaded TAR file to your Google Cloud Storage bucket. You can perform this step using either the Google Cloud graphical user interface (GUI) or the Google Cloud command-line interface (CLI).
- (GUI) Log in to the Google Cloud Platform for your GCVE environment. Go to the Cloud Storage page, select the bucket that you created earlier, and upload the TAR file to that bucket.
- (CLI) Open the gsutil console and run the following command.
```
gsutil cp <file-path-to-TAR-file> gs://<bucket-name>
```
Create a custom image from the uploaded TAR file.
- (GUI) In the Google Cloud Platform, go to the Compute Engine > Images page. Select the option to create an image. In the image creation page, specify Cloud Storage as the source and browse to the uploaded TAR file in your bucket. Specify other image properties as appropriate and then proceed to create the image.
  Verify that the new image appears in the Images list.
- (CLI) In the gsutil console, run the image creation command, similar to the following example.
```
gcloud compute --project <project-name> images create <image-name> --description <image-description> --source-uri <TAR-file-uri>
```
  Note: You can customize the command with appropriate parameters as needed. For detailed information, see the Google Cloud SDK reference documentation.
To support the creation and configuration of the Horizon Cloud Connector VM instance, prepare a startup script similar to the following example.
```
#! /bin/bash
/usr/bin/python3 /opt/vmware/bin/configure-adapter.py --sshEnable
sudo useradd ccadmin
echo -e 'password\npassword' | passwd ccadmin
echo 'cs_ip cs_fqdn' >> /etc/hosts
```
In the example, the script supports the following configurations:
- Enablement of SSH access to the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance.
- Creation of a ccadmin user account on the appliance with the defined password (password).
- Resolution of the Connection Server host name (cs_fqdn) to the Connection Server IP address (cs_ip).
Create the Horizon Cloud Connector VM instance from the custom image. Ensure that you configure a minimum of n2-standard-8 for the VM sizing or machine type.
- (GUI) In the Google Cloud Platform, go to the Images page, select the custom image that you created earlier, and select the option to create a VM instance. Specify a minimum of n2-standard-8 for the VM sizing or machine type, designate the custom image as the boot disk, and add the startup script that you prepared earlier. Specify other VM properties as appropriate and then proceed to create the VM instance.
  Verify that the Horizon Cloud Connector VM appears in the list of VM instances.
- (CLI) In the gsutil console, run the instance creation command, similar to the following example.
```
gcloud compute --project <project-name> instances create <instance-name> 
--zone <zone> --machine-type <n2-standard-8-minimum> --network <network> 
--subnet <subnet> --maintenance-policy <maintenance-policy> --scopes <scope> 
--image <custom-TAR-image> --metadata startup-script=<startup-script>
```
  Note: You can customize the command with appropriate parameters as needed. For detailed information, see the Google Cloud SDK reference documentation.
After the Horizon Cloud Connector VM starts up, edit the configuration of the VM instance and remove the startup script.

Important: You must remove the startup script from the instance to prevent the script from running every time the Horizon Cloud Connector reboots.

What to do next

Continue with the pod onboarding workflow by following the steps in Verify the Horizon Pod and Virtual Appliance Are Ready to Be Paired with Horizon Control Plane. Then proceed to Complete Pairing the Horizon Pod with Horizon Cloud Using the Horizon Cloud Connector Configuration Portal.