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.
You create a desktop pool from one of the following sources:
- A Windows or Linux virtual machine hosted on an ESXi host and managed by vCenter Server.
- A Windows virtual machine running on a virtualization platform other than vCenter Server that supports Horizon Agent.
- A physical Windows or Linux computer.
- A multi-session desktop on a multi-session host.
- You can create a Windows multi-session desktop pool from an RDS host.
- You can create a Linux multi-session desktop pool from a Linux host that supports mutli-session capabilities.
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, physical computers, or non-vCenter Windows 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. |
