If you are using a subscription license, you can enable your VMware Horizon deployment to connect to the Horizon Control Plane. You can optionally use the SaaS services provided by the Horizon Control Plane. You must first use the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance to connect your VMware Horizon deployment with the Horizon Control Plane.

Subscription Licenses for VMware Horizon

VMware Horizon subscription licenses are available through the Horizon universal license, which is available standalone and as part of the Workspace ONE Enterprise bundle.

The VMware Horizon subscription license provides the same VMware Horizon product components with more flexible deployment options. While the perpetual license only allows you to deploy VMware Horizon on-premises or in private datacenters, the Horizon subscription license gives the following additional benefits:

  • Ability to deploy into public clouds with VMware SDDC service such as VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure VMware Solution, Google VMware Cloud Engine, and Oracle VMware Cloud Solution.
  • Services available through the Horizon Control Plane.
Note: The subscription license for VMware Horizon is managed by VMware only after you deploy the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance. You will not receive the license key for VMware VMware Horizon with this subscription license. However, you will receive license keys for vSphere, vCenter Server, vSAN, App Volumes, and Dynamic Environment Manager with this subscription license. You will receive these keys in an email with the following subject: Welcome to VMware Horizon On-Premises Subscription.

Horizon Control Plane for Horizon Pods

After you configure the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance to connect your pod to the Horizon Control Plane, you have the option to leverage the management, features, and workflows that are provided by Horizon Control Plane and which are available to you according to that subscription license. For information about those services, see Introduction to Horizon Cloud in the VMware Control Plane documentation.

Horizon Cloud Connector and Horizon Control Plane can be used for any Horizon pods, whether they are deployed on-premises or in public clouds.

Note: For multi-location pods, Horizon assigns the deployment type of the connection server as the pod type and the location of the connection server as the pod location.

Horizon Cloud Connector

The Horizon Cloud Connector is a virtual appliance that is deployed alongside the Horizon pod and pairs the Horizon pod with the Horizon Control Plane. Horizon Cloud Connector is a required component that bridges your Horizon pods with VMware Horizon Cloud Service.

You must have an active My VMware account to purchase a VMware Horizon license from https://my.vmware.com. You then receive an email with the link to download the Horizon Cloud Connector as an OVA file.

When you deploy the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance from vSphere Client, the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance connects the Connection Server to Horizon Control Plane to manage the VMware Horizon subscription license and other services. With a VMware Horizon subscription license, you do not need to manually enter a VMware Horizon license key for the VMware VMware Horizon product activation. However, you do need to use the license keys to activate supporting components such as vSphere, vCenter Server, App Volumes, and others.

Note: The Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance does not support an IPv6 environment.

For more information about deploying the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance and completing that connection between a Horizon pod with Horizon Control Plane, see the following topics in the Horizon Control Plane documentation: