Home Sites and Cloud Pod Architecture in Horizon 8

A home site is a relationship between a user or group and a Cloud Pod Architecture site. With home sites, VMware Horizon 8 begins searching for desktops and applications from a specific site rather than searching for desktops and applications based on the user's current location.

If the home site is unavailable or does not have resources to satisfy the user's request, Horizon 8 continues searching other sites according to the scope policy set for the global entitlement.

For global desktop entitlements that contain dedicated pools, the home site affects where Horizon 8 looks for desktops the first time a user requests a dedicated desktop. After Horizon 8 allocates a dedicated desktop, it returns the user directly to the same desktop.

The Cloud Pod Architecture feature includes the following types of home site assignments.

Global home site

A home site that is assigned to a user or group.

If a user who has a home site belongs to a group that is associated with a different home site, the home site associated with the user takes precedence over the group home site assignment.

Global homes sites are useful for controlling where roaming users receive desktops and applications. For example, if a user has a home site in New York but is visiting London, Horizon 8 begins looking in the New York site to satisfy the user's desktop request rather than allocating a desktop closer to the user. Global home site assignments apply for all global entitlements.

Important: Global entitlements do not recognize home sites by default. To make a global entitlement use home sites, you must select the Use home site option when you create or modify the global entitlement.

Per-global-entitlement home site (home site override)

A home site that is associated with a global entitlement.

Per-global-entitlement home sites override global home site assignments. For this reason, per-global-entitlement home sites are also referred to as home site overrides.

For example, if a user who has a home site in New York accesses a global entitlement that associates that user with the London home site, Horizon 8 begins looking in the London site to satisfy the user's application request rather than allocating an application from the New York site.

Configuring home sites is optional. If a user does not have a home site, Horizon 8 searches for and allocates desktops and applications as described in Finding and Allocating Desktops and Applications in the Pod Federation in Horizon 8.