To enhance the effectiveness of VMware Horizon in your organization, you can use several interfaces to integrate VMware Horizon with external applications or to create administration scripts that you can run from the command line or in batch mode.
Integrating VMware Horizon with Business Intelligence Software
You can configure Horizon Connection Server to record events to a Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, or PostgreSQL database.
- End-user actions such as logging in and starting a desktop session.
- Administrator actions such as adding entitlements and creating desktop pools.
- Alerts that report system failures and errors.
- Statistical sampling such as recording the maximum number of users over a 24-hour period.
You can use business intelligence reporting engines such as Crystal Reports, IBM Cognos, MicroStrategy 9, and Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System to access and analyze the event database.
For more information, see the Horizon Administration document.
You can alternatively generate VMware Horizon events in Syslog format so that the event data can be accessible to analytics software. If you enable file-based logging of events, events are accumulated in a local log file. If you specify a file share, the log files are moved to that share. For more information, see the Horizon Installation document.
Using Horizon PowerCLI Cmdlets to Create Administration Scripts
You can use Horizon PowerCLI cmdlets with VMware PowerCLI. Use Horizon PowerCLI cmdlets to perform various administration tasks on Horizon components.
For more information about Horizon PowerCLI cmdlets, read the VMware PowerCLI Cmdlets Reference available at https://code.vmware.com/docs/6978/cmdlet-reference.
For information on the API specifications to create advanced functions and scripts to use with Horizon PowerCLI, see the Horizon API Reference at the VMware Developer Center.
For more information on sample scripts that you can use to create your own Horizon PowerCLI scripts, see the Horizon PowerCLI community on GitHub.
You can use the Horizon PowerCLI cmdlets to perform various administration tasks on VMware Horizon components.
- Create and update desktop pools.
- Configure multiple network labels to greatly expand the number of IP addresses assigned to virtual machines in a pool.
- Add data center resources to a full virtual machine.
- Sample the usage of specific desktops or desktop pools over time.
- Query the event database.
- Query the state of services.
Modifying LDAP Configuration Data in VMware Horizon
When you use Horizon Console to modify the configuration of VMware Horizon, the appropriate LDAP data in the repository is updated. Horizon Connection Server stores its configuration information in an LDAP compatible repository. For example, if you add a desktop pool, Connection Server stores information about users, user groups, and entitlements in LDAP.
You can use VMware and Microsoft command-line tools to export and import LDAP configuration data in LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) files from and into VMware Horizon. These commands are for advanced administrators who want to use scripts to update configuration data without using Horizon Console or Horizon PowerCLI.
You can use LDIF files to perform a number of tasks.
- Transfer configuration data between Connection Server instances.
- Define a large number of VMware Horizon objects, such as desktop pools, and add these to your Connection Server instances without using Horizon Console or Horizon PowerCLI.
- Back up a configuration so that you can restore the state of a Connection Server instance.
For more information, see the Horizon Administration document.
Using the vdmadmin Command
You can use the vdmadmin command line interface to perform a variety of administration tasks on a Connection Server instance. You can use vdmadmin to perform administration tasks that are not possible from within the Horizon Console user interface or that need to run automatically from scripts.
For more information, see the Horizon Administration document.
