A virtual workspace deployment provides a wealth of features and functions that allows users to access their data and applications on any device from anywhere. With VMware Horizon 6, IT is empowered to administer all application and desktop access and provisioning from a central, unified platform.
Horizon 6 is put to the test in the recently published technical white paper, VMware Horizon 6 Reference Architecture. By integrating the different components within Horizon 6, a unified next-generation workspace is possible. The Horizon 6 reference architecture also discusses the performance of Horizon 6 hosted applications, and managing dedicated desktops using VMware Mirage.
Highlights from the white paper are:
Figure 1: Horizon 6 Reference Architecture Highlights
To produce a highly efficient, robust, and scalable next-generation virtual workspace deployment, the reference architecture combines the technologies of
- Standard rack-mount server hardware running on EMC VNX storage, leveraging View Storage Accelerator (to accelerate existing SAN)
- VMware ESXi 5.5
- Horizon 6
Horizon 6 delivers hosted virtual desktops and applications to end users through a single platform—VMware Workspace Portal. These desktop and application services—including RDS-hosted applications, applications packaged with VMware ThinApp, software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, and even virtualized applications from Citrix—can all be accessed from one unified workspace across devices, locations, media, and connections.
Figure 2: High-Level Horizon 6 Architecture
Horizon leverages closed-loop management and is optimized for the software-defined data center. Horizon helps IT control, manage, and protect the Windows resources that end users want, at the speed they expect and with the efficiency that business demands.
Horizon 6 also provides the ability to manage both virtual and physical desktop images using VMware Mirage. Mirage allows you to manage dedicated, full-clone virtual desktops and floating, linked-clone parent desktop images. The reference architecture illustrates how Mirage and View can be set up for single image management, thereby reducing the number of Windows images needing to be managed.
Horizon 6 introduced brokering to Remote Desktop Services-based hosted applications and desktops, utilizing PCoIP. During testing, we were able to show that we could support more than 120 Horizon 6 RDS-hosted desktops on each ESXi host, while passing the user experience benchmarks of VMware View Planner. In addition, the reference architecture shows a consolidation ratio of 100 virtual desktops per ESXi host, again passing the View Planner benchmarks. Finally, our functional testing proves that users have fast access to applications and desktops from any device, anywhere.
The reference architecture details the components, architecture, and performance of a Horizon 6 deployment, tested using VMware View Planner 3.5. Download VMware Horizon 6 Reference Architecture today to learn more about how to establish your own Horizon 6-based virtual workspace!
