This three-day, hands-on course gives you the skills to deliver virtual desktops and applications through a single virtual desktop infrastructure platform. This course builds your skills in configuring and managing VMware Horizon® 8 through a combination of lecture and hands-on labs. You learn how to configure and deploy pools of virtual machines and how to provide a customized desktop environment to end-users.

By the end of the course, you should be able to meet the following objectives:

• • Recognize the features and benefits of Horizon
• • Use VMware vSphere® to create VMs to be used as desktops for Horizon
• • Create and optimize Windows VMs to create Horizon desktops
• • Install and configure Horizon Agent on Horizon desktop
• • Configure and manage the VMware Horizon® Client™ systems and connect the client to a VMware Horizon desktop
• • Configure, manage, and entitle desktop pools of full VMs
• • Configure, manage, and entitle pools of instant-clone desktops
• • Create and use Remote Desktop Services (RDS) desktops and application pools
• • Monitor the Horizon environment using Horizon Console Dashboard and Horizon Help Desk Tool

Operators, administrators, and architects for VMware Horizon should enroll in this course. These individuals are responsible for the creation, maintenance, and or delivery of remote and virtual desktop services.

Customers attending this course should have, at a minimum, the following VMware infrastructure skills:

• • Use VMware vSphere® Web Client to view the state of virtual machines, datastores, and networks
• • Open a virtual machine console on VMware vCenter Server® and access the guest operating system

Attendees should also have the following Microsoft Windows system administration experience:

• • Configure Active Directory services, including DNS, DHCP, and time synchronization
• • Restrict user activities by implementing Group Policy objects
• • Configure Windows systems to enable Remote Desktop Connections
• • Build an ODBC connection to an SQL Server database

1 Course Introduction

• • Introductions and course logistics
• • Course objectives

2 Introduction to VMware Horizon

• • Recognize the features and benefits of Horizon
• • Describe the conceptual and logical architecture of Horizon

3 Introduction to Use Case

• • Define a use case for your virtual desktop and application infrastructure
• • Convert customer requirements to use-case attributes

4 vSphere for Horizon 8

• • Explain basic virtualization concepts
• • Use VMware vSphere

® Client™ to access your vCenter Server system and VMware ESXi™ hosts

• Create, provision, and remove a virtual machine

5 VMware Horizon Desktops

• • Create a Windows and a Linux virtual machine using vSphere
• • Optimize and prepare Windows and Linux virtual machines to set up Horizon desktop VMs

6 VMware Horizon Agents

• • Outline the configuration choices when installing Horizon Agent on Windows and Linux virtual machines
• • Create a gold master for Windows Horizon desktops

7 VMware Horizon Pools

• • Identify the steps to set up a template for desktop pool deployment
• • List the steps to add desktops to the VMware Horizon

® Connection Server™ inventory

• Compare dedicated-assignment and floating-assignment pools

• Outline the steps to create an automated pool

• Define user entitlement

• Explain the hierarchy of global, pool-level, and user-level policies

8 VMware Horizon Client Options

• • Describe the different clients and their benefits
• • Access Horizon desktop using various Horizon clients and HTML
• • Configure integrated printing, USB redirection, and the shared folders option
• • Configure session collaboration and media optimization for Microsoft Teams

9 Creating and Managing Instant-Clone Desktop Pools

• • List the advantages of instant clones
• • Explain the provisioning technology used for instant clone desktop pools
• • Set up an automated pool of instant clones
• • Push updated images to instant clone desktop pools

10 Creating RDS Desktop and Application Pools

• • Explain the difference between an RDS desktop pool and an automated pool
• • Compare and contrast an RDS session host pool, a farm, and an application pool
• • Create an RDS desktop pool and an application pool
• • Access RDS desktops and application from Horizon Client
• • Use the instant clone technology to automate the build-out of RDSH farms
• • Configure load-balancing for RDSHs on a farm

11 Monitoring VMware Horizon

• • Monitor the status of the Horizon components using the Horizon Administrator console dashboard
• • Monitor desktop sessions using the HelpDesk tool

VMware Horizon 8: Skills for Virtual Desktop Management is the first half of a two-course requirement for the following certification:

• • VMware Certified Professional

– Desktop and Mobility 2020 (VCP-DTM 2020).

VMware Horizon 8: Infrastructure Administration satisfies the second requirement. The courses are also available as a single, bundled offering, VMware Horizon 8: Deploy and Manage, which meets the certification requirement on its own.