Horizon 8 uses desktop pools as its basis of centralized management. You create pools of virtual machines and select settings that give all the machines in a pool a common desktop definition. Horizon 8 can then deliver the desktops to end users through Horizon Clients.
Horizon 8 can deliver desktops from single-user virtual desktop machines that are managed by vCenter Server.
You can create a desktop pool from one of the following sources:
- A virtual machine that is hosted on an ESXi host and managed by vCenter Server.
- A session-based desktop on a multi-session host. For more information, see Setting Up Multi-Session Linux Desktop and Application Pools.
You can create the following types of desktop pools:
| Desktop Pool Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Automated | Automated desktop pools use a vCenter Server virtual machine template or snapshot to create a pool of identical virtual machines. You can create these automated desktop pools:
|
| Manual | Manual desktop pools are a collection of existing vCenter Server virtual machines. For manual pools, Horizon 8 does not create and manage the life cycle of the desktops in the pool. The desktops are created outside of Horizon 8 and then imported into Horizon Console. |
