Complete Pairing the Horizon Pod with Horizon Cloud Using the Horizon Cloud Connector Configuration Portal

In this step in the workflow of onboarding a Horizon pod to Horizon Cloud, you use the Horizon Cloud Connector configuration portal to specify details that the Horizon Cloud Connector uses to pair with the Horizon pod's Connection Server. Completing these steps successfully results in that pod connected to your Horizon Cloud tenant environment.

Important: To ensure the proper functioning of the Horizon subscription license and other cloud-hosted services for a pod, you must pair only one Horizon Cloud Connector appliance with that pod. The pairing of more than one appliance with a pod is allowed only under special circumstances such as appliance updates and troubleshooting procedures.

For an illustration of how the Horizon pod, Horizon Cloud, and Horizon Cloud Connector relate to each other in the pairing process, see the diagram shown in Connect Horizon Cloud Service with an Existing Horizon Pod to Use Horizon Subscription Licenses or Cloud-Hosted Services or Both.

Note: If you encounter connectivity issues with the Horizon Cloud Connector configuration portal, see the troubleshooting information in VMware Knowledge Base (KB) article 79859.

Prerequisites

Verify that you have completed the required preparation steps:

Verify that you have completed the steps in the applicable subtopics under Download and Deploy the Horizon Cloud Connector into Your Pod's Environment.
Verify that you have completed the steps in Verify the Horizon Pod and Virtual Appliance Are Ready to Be Paired.

Also, verify that:

The primary node (Horizon Cloud Connector 2.0 and later) or virtual appliance (Horizon Cloud Connector 1.10 and earlier) is powered on.
You have the URL for displaying the browser-based Horizon Cloud Connector configuration portal. This URL is based on the IP address of the virtual appliance, such as https://IP-address/ where IP-address is the appliance's IP address. Alternatively, if you have mapped a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance's IP address in your DNS server, the configuration portal's URL is that FQDN.

Verify that you have fulfilled all the items described in Horizon Pod and Horizon Cloud Connector - Preparing to Onboard to Control Plane Services, especially:

You have met the DNS, ports, and protocols requirements when using the Horizon Cloud Connector to pair a Horizon pod with Horizon Cloud.
Your DNS configuration in your network topology enables the deployed Horizon Cloud Connector to resolve the FQDN of the pod's Connection Server. If the deployed Horizon Cloud Connector cannot resolve the Connection Server using DNS, the onboarding wizard will encounter an unexpected error at the step where you enter the pod's domain credentials.
The Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance must reach the Internet to talk to the Horizon Cloud control plane and display the browser-based configuration portal. If your environment requires use of a proxy server and proxy configuration with deployed appliances, verify that you have configured the deployed Horizon Cloud Connector appliance with the proxy settings required for your environment. 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 have the credentials of the My VMware account that is associated with the Horizon Cloud customer account to which you are pairing the pod. As described in Connect Horizon Cloud Service with an Existing Horizon Pod to Use Horizon Subscription Licenses or Cloud-Hosted Services or Both, a My VMware account is required to authenticate with the cloud management plane to set up the connector and establish the connection to use that license for the Horizon subscription offerings.

Procedure

Get the URL for launching the web-based configuration portal.
- (Horizon pods on premises or in VMware Cloud on AWS) Get the URL from the appliance's blue console screen.
- (Horizon pods in Azure VMware Solution) Get the URL by navigating to the appliance VM in the Azure portal VM Properties and noting the IP address or FQDN of the appliance VM. Construct the URL as follows: https://IP-address or https://FQDN/
Using a browser, navigate to the URL that you obtained in the previous step.

Important: In this step, the Horizon Cloud Connector makes a connection to Horizon Cloud to display the login screen, which will be used to authenticate your My VMware account credentials with the cloud control plane. This connection is outbound HTTPS using port 443. If you do not see a login screen, verify that you have met the DNS, ports, and protocols requirements.

The login screen for logging in to the Horizon Cloud Connector configuration portal appears.
In the login screen, enter the My VMware account credentials and click Login.
The following screenshot is an example of the login screen with the credentials entered before clicking Login.

When the Terms of Service message appears, click Accept to continue.

The configuration portal displays the first step of the pod onboarding wizard. The following screenshot illustrates this step before any fields are filled in.

Note: At this point, the system detects whether the Horizon Cloud Connector environment is configured improperly. If this is the case, a message appears prompting you to proceed with the cleanup tasks required to correct the configuration.
After the completion of the cleanup, you might encounter a message prompting you to restart the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance. In this case, restart the appliance using vSphere Client and then start the pairing process again by going back to step 1 of this procedure. If you do not receive a message prompt, you do not need to restart the appliance and can continue directly to the next steps of this procedure.
In the Connect to Horizon Connection Server field, enter the FQDN of the pod's Connection Server instance to which you are pairing the Horizon Cloud Connector.
As you type in the field, the Connect button appears.
When you have typed in the FQDN, click Connect.

The Horizon Cloud Connector attempts to communicate with the specified Connection Server and retrieve its certificate information. This process can take a few minutes. When communication is established, the page displays the retrieved certificate information.
If the Connection Server does not have a valid Root CA certificate, a warning message appears saying that the certificate cannot be automatically validated and you must confirm its validity by clicking the check box. The following screenshot is an example of this situation.

If you see this message, verify that the displayed certificate information is accurate and click the check box so you can proceed to the next step.
Note: If the Connection Server has a valid Root CA certificate, the wizard automatically validates the information and you can proceed to the next step.
The following screenshot illustrates the screen after clicking the check box.
In the credentials section, type the domain name and the administrator credentials used by the Connection Server and click Connect.
This administrator account must have the Horizon predefined Administrators role with root access for the pod. For more information about the requirements of the administrator account, see Horizon Pod and Horizon Cloud Connector - Preparing to Onboard to Control Plane Services.
The following screenshot illustrates this area of the screen.

Note: At this point, the system detects whether the specified Connection Server instance is already paired with another instance of the Horizon Cloud Connector. If this is the case, the page displays a message asking whether you want to perform a New Install action that deletes the existing pairing and pairs this Connection Server with the new Horizon Cloud Connector instance. If the new Horizon Cloud Connector instance is at a later version than the existing instance, you also have the option to perform an Upgrade action that copies the existing appliance configuration into the new Horizon Cloud Connector instance, as described in Manually Update the Horizon Cloud Connector Virtual Appliance.
Click the appropriate action button in the message to continue pairing the pod using the next steps of this procedure.

If prompted, restart the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance using vSphere Client and then start the pairing process again by going back to step 1 of this procedure. If you do not receive a message prompt, you do not need to restart the appliance and can continue directly to the next steps of this procedure.

Step 2 of the wizard appears.

In this wizard step, provide details about the pod.

The following screenshot is an example of this step filled in.

These details are used in the cloud management plane to associate the paired Connection Server instance and Horizon Cloud Connector with your Horizon Cloud tenant environment. As an example, the specified name, location, and description will be visible in the administrative console so that you can identify this pod from your other pods that are connected to the control plane.

Option	Description
Name	Enter a friendly name to identify this pod in your Horizon Cloud tenant environment.
Data Center Location	Select an existing location or click New to specify a new one to use for this pod. In the cloud-based administrative console, your pods are grouped and displayed according to the locations you specify. In the City Name text box, start typing the name of a city. The system automatically displays world city names in its backend geography lookup table that match your entered characters, and you can choose a city from that list. Note: You must select a city from the system's autocomplete list. Currently, due to a known issue, the location names are not localized.
Description	Optional: Enter a description for this pod.

Proceed to the next wizard step by clicking Save.
The wizard's configuring step appears. The system checks the connection to the specified Connection Server instance and completes the final configuration steps. The following screenshot is an example of this step.
When the system determines that the pod is successfully connected to the Horizon Cloud control plane, a congratulations screen appears with some guidance text and action buttons for post-configuration management tasks. The screen also shows the health status of activated cloud-hosted services. A gray dash icon indicates that the service is deactivated and therefore has no health status to display.
The following screenshot is an example of this screen for Horizon Cloud Connector 1.9 and later.
Note: You might see components that always appear in a deactivated state. Such components are planned for use in a future service release. Also, the action buttons on the congratulations screen can vary depending on the version of Horizon Cloud Connector that you have deployed:
- The Configure vCenter Server and Network Details button is available only if you have deployed Horizon Cloud Connector 1.7 or later.
- The Configure Automatic Cloud Connector Updates button is available only if you have deployed Horizon Cloud Connector 1.6 or earlier and your Horizon Cloud tenant account is configured for automated updates of the Horizon Cloud Connector. For details about that feature, see the topic Automated Updates of the Horizon Cloud Connector Virtual Appliance in the Administration Guide.
Note: (Horizon pods in Azure VMware Solution) Due to a known issue with Horizon Cloud Connector 1.7, certain components such as Cloud Broker Client Service, Cloud Gateway Service, Connector Client Service, and HzE-gateway might display with an error state. These error displays are incorrect and can be disregarded.

Important: (Horizon pods on premises or in VMware Cloud on AWS) If you have deployed Horizon Cloud Connector 1.7 or later, the Horizon Cloud Connector vCenter Server Details window automatically opens in front of the congratulations screen. To ensure the proper functionality of Horizon Cloud Connector and to support automated updates of the appliance, you must enter vCenter Server and network details as described in the article Automated Updates of the Horizon Cloud Connector Virtual Appliance in the Administration Guide. Note that the configuration of these details is mandatory, even though the automated update feature is an optional capability that is enabled on a per-pod basis. If you close the Horizon Cloud Connector vCenter Server Details window without entering the mandatory details, you will encounter persistent warning messages until you click the Configure vCenter Server and Network Details button and enter the details.
The options provided in the Horizon Cloud Connector vCenter Server Details window can vary depending on the version of Horizon Cloud Connector that you have deployed. The following screenshot shows an example of the window as it initially appears when you have deployed version 1.9 or later of the appliance.

The following screenshot shows an example of the window as it initially appears when you have deployed version 1.8 or earlier of the appliance.

Results

When you reach this point, the pairing workflow is complete. At this point, VMware activates the subscription license, typically within 30 minutes after you paired the pod with the cloud control plane. When VMware has activated the subscription license, a message appears in your pod's web-based management console that indicates your pod is using the subscription type of license. The following screenshot is a sample illustration.

Attention: If four hours pass and you still do not see the Connected to License Service message in your pod's web-based management console's licensing area, contact your VMware representative.

Connected to License Service message in pod management console

What to do next

From this point, the pod is successfully paired with Horizon Cloud . For details about those Horizon Cloud Connector administrative and maintenance tasks that are typically done from this point on, see the topic Typical Administrative and Maintenance Tasks You Perform on the Horizon Cloud Connector After the Horizon Pod is Paired with Horizon Cloud in the Administration Guide.

(Horizon Cloud Connector 2.0 and later) To support service-level fault tolerance, deploy a worker node. See Horizon Cloud Connector 2.0 and Later - Add a Worker Node to a Horizon Cloud Connector Cluster.

Note: If you have just onboarded your first pod into a new tenant account using Horizon Cloud Connector 1.8 or 1.9 and you selected the Basic Feature profile in the deployment wizard, manually deactivate the Cloud Monitoring Service (CMS) setting. Due to a known limitation, the CMS setting does not automatically deactivate when you select the Basic Feature profile. Deactivating the CMS setting manually ensures that the administration console does not make unnecessary attempts to connect to the CMS service.

Select Settings > General Settings.
Move the Cloud Monitoring Service toggle to the off position.