The latest release of VMware Horizon 7.11, VMware Horizon Client 5.3, and VMware Dynamic Environment Management 9.10 includes a multitude of offerings, from SAML authentication to new REST APIs; with the HTML5-driven Console as primary, better integrated help, and better visibility via dashboard; upgraded Horizon GPO bundle, and much more.
Horizon 7 SAML Authentication with VMware Unified Access Gateway 3.8
This release includes changes to the Horizon 7 Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) Authentication which improves your ability to use a single set of credentials to log into multiple websites. You must have Unified Access Gateway 3.8 and Horizon 7.11. The SAML 2.0 Standard is supported and can be used with or without TrueSSO.
Find out more by watching the following video:
You can read more about it at Enabling SAML 2.0 Authentication for Horizon with Unified Access Gateway and Okta: VMware Horizon Operational Tutorial.
Additional VMware Horizon 7.11 Updates
This release includes the following new features and enhancements:
What’s New in Horizon 7
This release includes new REST APIs, as well as a variety of enhancements to published desktops and applications, and the Horizon Group Policy Object (GPO) bundle.
New REST APIs
This release adds many new APIs for configuration, additional external information, and more monitoring endpoints. This enables you to build scalable automation frameworks, and integrate third-party products with HzE to perform all administrative, management and monitoring operations.
Horizon Group Policy Object (GPO) Bundle
The ADMX template files have been enhanced with new settings in this release.
Enhanced settings include:
• Enable Battery State Redirection
• Enable UWP support on RDSH platforms
What’s New in Horizon Console
In this release, the HTML5-based console steps forward as the defaulted primary user interface, including enhancements to help desk, dashboard, global entitlements, and more.
Default HTML5-based Horizon Console
The Horizon Console (HTML5) is the primary user interface, and Flash is being decommissioned soon. The default will be to Horizon Console, which will have an option to connect to FLEX.
Integrated Help Desk
The Horizon Help Desk Tool is now more visibly integrated into the Horizon Console. You can access it easily by clicking Monitor > Help Desk.
Display Connection Server Health Statistics – Dashboard
This release provides you with greater visibility into the health of your Connection Server. Multiple improvements to the dashboard include displays of CPU and memory usage for the Connection Server, as well as displaying all Connection Servers that are offline, if any.
View Progress Bar during Instant Clone Publish
This release provides you with greater visibility into the status of publish operations, with a progress bar which is displayed during new image publish operations.
Display Application Name on RDSH Sessions
You now have better and easier troubleshooting and monitoring capabilities, including the ability to see the application names that an individual user is connected to. This is currently supported for RDSH only.
View Global Entitlements
You now have visibility into Global Entitlements at the desktop pool level. You no longer need to drill down on Global Entitlements, because you can see directly into the desktop pool.
What’s New in Horizon Client 5.3
This release offers a variety of new features and enhancements to Horizon Clients 5.3, including support for HTTP 307 redirection, ability to customize RADIUS authentication login pages, and more.
General enhancements include:
• Support for HTTP 307 redirection– You might remember that when an HTTP 307 redirect happened, the URL of the redirected server used to appear in the authentication dialog box. Not anymore. Now, Horizon Client shows the original server URL that the user entered. This is supported for all Horizon Clients except HTML5.
• Ability to customize the RADIUS authentication login page– You can now customize the labels on the RADIUS authentication login page that appears in Horizon Client. This enhancement is supported for all Horizon Clients.
Windows Client
This release includes the following enhancements to Windows Clients:
• Support for battery state redirection– In this release, data about the Windows client system battery is now redirected to a Windows remote desktop, which you can set using GPO.
• Support for Universal Broker – You can now use Horizon Client for Windows in a cloud brokering environment.
• Improvements to resolution and DPI to server– You can now save custom resolution and scaling to the server, which provides consistency when connecting through Workspace ONE Access or Horizon and Unified Access Gateway SAML. This feature is supported for Windows Clients only.
Linux Client
This release includes the following enhancements to Windows Clients:
• Support for redirection of battery state – In this release, data about the Linux client system battery is now redirected to a Windows remote desktop, which is set using GPO.
• Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 – Included is the ability to dynamically adjust remote desktop display over multiple monitors, when their topology changes on Ubuntu 16.04 and 1804 or Red Hat 6.10 and 7.6.
• Support for redirection for Scanner and HTML5 Multimedia– Scanner Redirection has been added for RDSH and VDI, using both Blast and PCoIP. HTML5 Multimedia Redirection, which a feature to render video like YouTube or Vimeo on the client is now also available as a beta on Linux and so is VMware Printer Redirection.
iOS Client
This release includes the following enhancements to iOS Clients:
• Support for OPSWAT integration – You can now use OPSWAT integration with Horizon Client for iOS by installing OPSWAT Mobile App on the client device.
• Enhancements to the derived credentials feature – If you want to use the derived credentials feature, you must now create a group policy object (GPO) in Active Directory that pairs a virtual smart card with the smart card middleware installed on the remote desktop.
• Support in dark mode – The iOS client now reflects when OSX is set to dark mode.
Android Client
This release includes the following enhancements to Android Clients:
• Favorite desktops and apps – You can now mark remote desktops and published applications as favorites by adding a star in the desktop and application selection window.
• Set Unauthenticated Access in a JSON file– This release also allows you to enable or disable the Unauthenticated Access feature. You can do this using the enable_unauthenticated_access property in a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file.
• New requirements to the derived credentials feature– If you want to use the derived credentials feature, you must now create a group policy object (GPO) in Active Directory that pairs a virtual smart card with the smart card middleware installed on the remote desktop.
Chrome Client
This release includes the following enhancements to Chrome Clients:
• Favorite desktops and apps– You can now mark your remote desktops and published applications as favorites by adding a star in the desktop and application selection window.
• Set Unauthenticated Access in a JSON file– This release also allows you to enable or disable the Unauthenticated Access feature. You can do this using the enableAnonymousLogin property in a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file.
What’s New in Horizon Agents 5.3
Many improvements were made to the Horizon Agent in this release, including the Blast Extreme Codec and Blast Extreme Dynamic Encoder, as well as updates to Horizon Agent for both Windows and Linux.
Blast Extreme Blast Codec
The Blast Codec now delivers sharper images and fonts. It operates like a video codec, complete with motion detection, motion vectors, and macroblocks. The Blast Codec is an improvement over both Adaptive and H.264 encoders in desktop usage.
The Blast Codec is disabled by default, but you can enable it if you want:
• Windows – To enable the Blast Codec in a Windows Agent, set the registry key toHKLM\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\VMware Blast\Config, and set EncoderBlastCodecEnabled = 1.
• Linux– To enable the Blast Codec in a Linus Agent, under \etc\vmware\config, set allowBlastCodec=TRUE.
Blast Extreme Dynamic Encoder
A dynamic encoder switch now allows you to switch between a video optimized encoder and a text optimized encoder, either Blast Codec or Adaptive. This switch helps maintain crisp text and video with reduced bandwidth usage.
The dynamic encoder is disabled by default. Like the Blast Codec, you can enable it using very similar steps:
• Windows – To enable the Blast Codec in a Windows Agent, set the registry key as follows:HKLM\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\VMware Blast\Config, and set EncoderSwitchEnabled = 1.
• Linux– To enable the Blast Codec in a Linus Agent, under \etc\vmware\config, set allowSwitchEncoder=TRUE.
Note: Blast Codec is disabled by default. If you do not enable it, the switch encoder uses Adaptive for text optimized encoding by default.
Horizon Agent
In addition to the enhancements to the Blast Codec and dynamic encoder, updates were also made to Horizon Agent for both Windows and Linux.
Horizon Agent for Windows
Updates to Horizon Agent for Windows include Skype for Business Q4 2019, support for Red Hat 8 Linux, improved CPU performance, and support for local security authority (LSA)-enabled machines during installation.
Horizon Agent for Linux
Updates to Horizon Agent for Linux include support for TrueSSO on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
What’s New in VMware Dynamic Environment Management
New features and enhancements in Dynamic User Management 9.10 enable you to better manage the Horizon user experience. These include Horizon Smart Policies computer environment settings, as well as support for roaming FTAs and protocols.
Horizon Smart Policies
Horizon Smart Policies provide a single location for managing granular user experience on Horizon 7, Horizon Cloud, and Horizon Apps. Support for computer-based Horizon Smart Policies means you can manage the Horizon user experience without depending on Group Policy.
• With the User Environmenttab, you can configure general user environment settings, as well as Smart Policy settings such as Blast protocol, redirection, file transfer, and more.
• With the new Computer Environment tab, you can configure general Computer Environment settings, as well as Smart Policy settings such as Flash multi-media redirection, integrated printing, USB redirection, etc.
Roaming FTAs and Protocols
You can configure File Type Associations (FTAs) in Dynamic User Management, and now can you ensure a consistent user experience when roaming, as well. To provide the ability to roam file types and protocol associations with a more consistent experience, you can create new Windows common settings. For more information, see the Dynamic Environment Management and Windows 10 compatibility matrix.
To learn more visit Digital Workspace Tech Zone at https://techzone.vmware.com. Feel free to comment below or contact VMware End-User-Computing Technical Marketing at [email protected] with your feedback.
