Upgrading to
VMware Horizon 8
Introducing VMware Horizon 8
Why you need to upgrade to Horizon 8
VMware Horizon 8 was released in August 2020 and the first big change is with the naming convention.
Instead of the 7.x naming convention, Horizon 8 now uses a YYMM format. The first Horizon 8 release being Horizon 8 (2006), and the latest release being Horizon 8 (2111), or Horizon 8.4 in old But it is not just the name that has changed. There are some significant and fundamental changes to the way the architecture components are deployed in Horizon 8.
Upgrading to Horizon 8 from Horizon 7.x is not just a case of simply downloading and installing the new version. VMware have acknowledged that this is no small task and so have extended support for Horizon 7.13 to October 2022 giving customers more time to design and implement their upgrade.
Critical for production environments is that they are supported, and to ensure continued support customers need to upgrade and embrace these fundamental architecture component changes.
What’s changed in VMware Horizon 8?
View Composer
Security Server
Persistent Disks
View Persona
The View Composer Server and Linked Clone desktops are no longer available.
Virtual desktop machines
should now be built using Instant Clones
The Security Server role has been removed. For secure remote access, customers
should now deploy a hardened Linux appliance; the Unified Access Gateway
Persistent Disks
no longer exist within Horizon 8 and to deliver t his feature you need to deploy App Volumes and the Writable
Volume feature
View Persona Management profile management no
longer exists and has been replace by VMware Dynamic Environment Manager (DEM)
OS Support
vROPS
for Horizon
ThinPrint
JMP Server
Windows 7, 8.1, and
Windows Server 2008 are no longer supported operating systems.
vRealize Operations for Horizon is now Cloud Monitoring Service and ControlUp Entitlement.
ThinPrint is no longer supported by virtual desktops, replaced by VMware Integrated Printing.
Just in Time Management Platform is no longer deployed on premises, and is part of cloud subscription.
How DES can help you
We are experts at helping our customers upgrade their
VMware digital workspace environments.
Our experts not only have
a wealth of experience in
delivering digital workspace solutions in the most
demanding environments, some of them have literally
written the book when it comes to VMware Horizon.
- End user/device/infrastructure assessments
- Design, build, and implementation
- Managed services
- Onsite project delivery
- Virtual team extensions
Next steps
Here at DES our digital workspace experts have delivered numerous end user computing and desktop virtualisation projects and so are ideally placed to help you plan, design, deploy, and support your upgrade to the latest VMware Horizon 8 technology. This means that not only will you be running a supported version of VMware Horizon , but you will also benefit from the array of new advanced features that Horizon offers.