This is the 8th part of my VCAP7-DTM Design exam series. In part 7 I covered the creation of a physical design for Horizon desktop and pools. Now we take a look at section 7 of the blueprint, the creation of an application architecture design for Horizon 7:
Section 7 – Incorporate Application Services into a Horizon Physical Design
Objective 7.1: Design Application Integration and/or Delivery System(s) using Horizon Application Tools
Objective 7.2: Design Active Directory to Facilitate Application Assignment Objective 7.3: Design and Size RDS Application Pools and Farms
Objective 7.4: Create Application Architecture Design
Objective 7.5: Design Application Integration and/or Delivery System(s) using Horizon Workspace One
The purpose of implementing VMware Horizon 7 is to deliver virtualized applications and/or desktop for end users. You have different methods of application delivery and the delivery depends on many factors. The delivery method can have major impacts on the user experience.
End users want the “fat client experience” – they want speed and performance and ease of use. IT has to define and find a balance between user experience and security and these opposing goals of IT and end users could be a challenge.
Today, people don’t want to wait for anything. They want to use, consume, be independent and have all the permissions they need to download and/or install applications – they just want to do their job. In this case, for example, a self-service portal with workflows could provide the necessary flexibility and security. But what about application performance and delivery?
One of the biggest challenges during a VDI project are legacy applications and IT still has to manage them in 2018. And sometimes, the customer is making the money with legacy applications. If the performance suffers or these applications don’t work anymore, neither does the business.
Application Delivery
With Horizon 7 you have different options for app delivery:
- Manually installed applications in the master image or in the virtual desktop
- Delivery using ThinApp, App Volumes or RDSH (RDS application pool)
Each method has advantages, disadvantages and a different way of management. In most of the cases you will find a mix of these application delivery methods, but it depends on your use cases which ones you are going to choose.
I expect you know the features and technology of ThinApp and App Volumes and therefore I don’t explain them further. Just think about flexibility and management. I assume you don’t want to end up with 10 different master images which you have to maintain separately and modify once or twice a week. In general, Office applications and Adobe Reader are installed in the base image and the other applications can be delivered by App Volumes. If you need a “secure browser” (sandboxed browser) environment, then ThinApp is the right solution for this. Maybe you have the same application but with different versions? Then, it depends on the use case and requirement – your options are the manual installation, the delivery with App Volumes and ThinApp. Make yourself familiar with all those methods and also study the multi-site reference guide of each product.
Note: Sometimes it’s hard to know all features of a specific product, but reading and understanding the release notes can save your life sometimes. Example: ThinApp 5.2.3 only supports Firefox version 50.1 and nothing else. Maybe you can install and deploy Firefox 52.9 which is working, but is not officially supported by VMware. And then, when you want to upgrade to 60.1, suddenly the compilation with ThinApp is not working anymore even it was with 52.9, which was also not supported.
If you have read and understood this requirement before, you or your customer wouldn’t have a problem now.
Just think about if you provide secure browsing with Firefox delivered by ThinApp and you have a high security environment. When a new Firefox version gets published which is more secure and is supported by Mozilla, you cannot deliver this browser anymore. What are you doing now? Do you have enough time to find, design and test another solution?
By the way, ThinApp’s general support ends in March 2021.
ThinApp, App Volumes and RDSH have unique characteristics that allow them to increase the user experience and decrease resource utilization. Evaluate each solution and use the appropriate one for your design.
PS: If you are using XenApp/XenDesktop you could also consider App Volumes
This is all I have to say about application delivery without going too deep. Make your homework and know what you need! Next time we take a look at section 8 which is about session management and client devices.