If you plan to deploy VMware Horizon on a VMware virtualization platform, you must configure VMware Horizon to connect to the vCenter Server instances in your VMware Horizon deployment. vCenter Server creates and manages the virtual machines that VMware Horizon uses in desktop pools.

If you run vCenter Server instances in a Linked Mode group, you must add each vCenter Server instance to VMware Horizon separately. Horizon supports one or multiple vCenter Servers added to the same Horizon pod, as well as a single vCenter Server across multiple Horizon pods in a Cloud Pod Architecture environment.

VMware Horizon connects to the vCenter Server instance using a secure channel (TLS).

Prerequisites

  • Install the Horizon perpetual license key. Or if you are using a subscription license, deploy the Horizon Cloud Connector to enable your subscription license.
  • Prepare a vCenter Server user with permission to perform the operations in vCenter Server that are necessary to support VMware Horizon.
  • Verify that there is a TLS server certificate installed on the vCenter Server host. In a production environment, install a valid certificate that is signed by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA).

    In a testing environment, you can use the default certificate that is installed with vCenter Server, but you must accept the certificate thumbprint when you add vCenter Server to VMware Horizon.

  • Verify that all Connection Server instances in the replicated group trust the root CA certificate for the server certificate that is installed on the vCenter Server host. Check if the root CA certificate is in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities > Certificates folder in the Windows local computer certificate stores on the Connection Server hosts. If it is not, import the root CA certificate into the Windows local computer certificate stores.

    See "Import a Root Certificate and Intermediate Certificates into a Windows Certificate Store".

  • Verify that the vCenter Server instance contains ESXi hosts. If no hosts are configured in the vCenter Server instance, you cannot add the instance to VMware Horizon.
  • Verify that the domain administrator account that you use as the vCenter Server user was explicitly assigned permissions to log in to vCenter Server by a vCenter Server local user.
  • Familiarize yourself with the settings that determine the maximum operations limits for vCenter Server.

Procedure

  1. In Horizon Console, navigate to Settings > Servers.
  2. On the vCenter Server tab, click Add.
  3. In the vCenter Server Settings Server address text box, enter the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the vCenter Server instance.
    The FQDN includes the host name and the domain name. For example, in the FQDN myserverhost.companydomain.com, myserverhost is the host name and companydomain.com is the domain.
    Note: If you enter a server by using a DNS name or URL, VMware Horizon does not perform a DNS lookup to verify whether an administrator previously added this server to VMware Horizon by using its IP address. A conflict arises if you add a vCenter Server with both its DNS name and its IP address.
  4. Enter the name of the vCenter Server user.
    For example: domain\user or [email protected]
  5. Enter the vCenter Server user password.
  6. (Optional) Enter a description for this vCenter Server instance.
  7. Enter the TCP port number.
    The default port is 443.
  8. Select the deployment type for your vCenter from the drop-down menu.
    Deployment Type Description
    AWS vCenter is deployed on VMware Cloud on AWS
    Azure vCenter is deployed on Azure VMware Solution
    DELLEMC vCenter is deployed on VMware Cloud on Dell EMC
    Google vCenter is deployed on Google Cloud VMware Engine
    Oracle vCenter is deployed on Oracle Cloud VMware Solution
    General vCenter is deployed on-premises or in an environment not listed above
  9. Under Advanced Settings, set the concurrent operations limits for vCenter Server operations.
  10. Click Next and follow the prompts to complete the wizard.

What to do next

If VMware Horizon uses multiple vCenter Server instances, repeat this procedure to add the other vCenter Server instances.