Enable Virtualization-based Security on a Virtual Machine on Nested ESXi Server in VMware Workstation

First Step Shutdown ESXi Server enable Encryption
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Second Add vTPM

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Boot ESXi Server(s)

Configure Key Providers (Add Native Key Provider)

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Now you can add vTPM to you VM
Don’t forget to enable VBS

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Create GPO SRV 2022 – Virtualization Based Security and I did Apply only to my Server 2022 Lab Environment
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System Information on my Server 2022 Lab Server
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Building NSX-T 3.1 Home lab Step 1

I’m doing a mini-series on my NSX-T home lab setup. It’s only for testing en knowledge about NXS-T.

With newer versions of NSX-T 3.1 and later a couple of enhancements have been made that makes the setup a lot easier, like the move to a single N-VDS with the ability to run NSX on a Virtual Distributed Switch (VDS) in vCenter with VDS version 7.0.

In NSX-T 3.11 we got the ability to have the Edge TEP on the same subnet as the hypervisor TEP. A nice write-up of this feature can be found here: https://www.virten.net/2020/11/nsx-t-3-1-enhancement-shared-esxi-and-edge-transport-vlan-with-a-single-uplink/

Lab environment

First let’s have a quick look at the lab environment:

Compute

I have 1 have one ESXi Server Dell Server R730. I use only one nic for Management en Virtual Machine Traffic.

Network

My home network consists of single VLAN

VLAN

Subnet

Role

Virtual Switch

0

192.168.150.0/24

Management/Virtual Machine Traffic

vSwitch0

 Also ensure you enable the required security settings to support nested virtualization:

Virtual Machines

I run a virtualized vSphere 7 Cluster on my host

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The Distributed Virtual Switches are running version 7.0.0 which let’s us deploy NSX-T on the VDS directly.

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Preparations

Check out the NSX-T Data Center Workflow for vSphere for details and documentation on the process

IP Addresses and DNS records

Before deploying NSX-T in the environment I’ve prepared a few IP addresses and DNS records

Role

IP

NSX Manager

192.168.150.229

NSX-T Edge node 1

192.168.150.227

NSX-T Edge node 2 (currently not in use)

192.168.150.228

NSX-T T0 GW Interface 1

192.168.99.2

Note that I’ve reserved addresses for a second Edge which I’m not going to use at the moment.

Deploy NSX manager appliance

VMware documentation reference

The NSX manager appliance has been downloaded and imported the OVF to the cluster. I won’t go into details about this, I just followed the deployment wizard.

In my lab I’ve selected to deploy a small appliance which requires 4 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM and 300 GB disk space. For more details about the NSX Manager requirements look at the official documentation

Note that I’ll not be deploying a NSX Manager cluster in my setup. In a production environment you should naturally follow best practices and configure a cluster of NSX Managers

NSX-T deployment

Now let’s get rocking with our NSX-T setup!

We’ll start the NSX manager and prepare it for configuring NSX in the environment

Initial Manager config

After first login I’ll accept the EULA and optionally enable the CEIP

License

Next I’ll add the license.

Add license

Import certificate

Imported certificates

IP Pools

Our Endpoints will need IP addresses and I’ve set aside a subnet for this as mentioned. In NSX Manager we’ll add an IP pool with addresses from this subnet. (The IP pool I’m using is probably way larger than needed in a lab setup like this)

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TEP pool

Compute Manager

With all that sorted we’ll connect the NSX manager to our vCenter server so we can configure our ESXi hosts and deploy our edge nodes.

Best is a specific service account for the connection

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Compute Manager added

Fabric configuration

Now we’re ready for building out our network fabric which will consist of the following:

Transport Zones

Overlay

VLAN

Transport Nodes

ESXi Hosts

Edge VMs

Edge clusters

Take a look at this summary of the Key concepts in NSX-T to learn more about them.

Transport Zone

The first thing we’ll create are the Transport Zones. These will be used later on multiple occasions later on. A Transport Zone is used as a collection of hypervisor hosts that makes up the span of logical switches.

The defaults could be used, but I like to create my own.

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Transport Zones

Uplink Profiles

Uplink profiles will be used when we configure our Transport Nodes, both Hosts and Edge VMs. The profile defines how a Host Transport node (hypervisor) or an Edge Transport node (VM) will connect to the physical network.

Again I’m creating my own profile and leave the default profiles be as they are.

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Uplink profile

In my environment I have only one Uplink to use. Note that I’ve set the Transport VLAN to 0 which also corresponds with the TEP VLAN mentioned previously.

Transport Node Profile

Although not strictly needed, I’m creating a Transport Node profile which will let me configure an entire cluster of hosts with the same settings instead of having to configure each and every host

In the Transport Node profile we first select the type of Host switch. In my case I’m selecting the VDS option, which will let me select a specific switch in vCenter.

We’ll also add in our newly created Transport Zones

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Creating Transport Node profile

We’ll select our Uplink profile and our IP Pool which we created earlier, finally we can set the mapping between the Uplinks

vCenter View

Creating Transport Node profile

Configure NSX on hosts

With our Transport Node profile we can go ahead and configure our ESXi hosts for NSX

Configure cluster for NSX

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Select profile

After selecting the profile NSX Manager will go ahead and configure our ESXi hosts.

Hosts configuring

After a few minutes our hosts should be configured and ready for NSX

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Hosts configured

Trunk segment

Next up is to create our Edge VMs which we will need for our Gateways and Services (NAT, DHCP, Load Balancer).

But before we deploy those we’ll have to create a segment for the uplink of the Edge VMs. This will be a Trunk segment which we create in NSX. Initially I created a Trunk portgroup on the VDS in vSphere, but that doesn’t work. The Trunk needs to be configured as a logical segment in NSX-T when using the same VLAN for both the Hypervisor TEPs and the Edge VM TEPs

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Trunk segment

Edge VM

Now we can deploy our Edge VM(s). I’m using Medium sized VMs in my environment. Note that the Edge VMs is not strictly necessary for the test we’ll perform later on with connecting two VMs, but if we want to use some services later on, like DHCP, Load balancing and so on we’ll need them.

Deploy edge VM

Deploy edge VM

Note the NSX config, where we set the switch name, the Transport Zones we created, the Uplink profile, the IP pool and finally we use the newly created Trunk segment for the Edge uplink

NSX Edge config

Edge cluster

We’ll also create an Edge cluster and add the Edge VM to it

Edge cluster

Summary

Wow, this was a lot of configuring, but that was also the whole point of doing this blog post. Stuff like this is learnt best while getting your hands dirty and do some actual work. And I learn even better when I’m writing and documenting it as well.

In the next blog post we’ll test the fabric to see if what we’ve done is working. We’ll also try to get some external connectivity to our environment.

Hopefully this post can help someone, if not it has at least helped me.

Thanks for reading!

Special thnx for https://rudimartinsen.com/2021/06/29/nsx-t-31-homelab/ for his blog post

VMware vSphere 6.7

VMware is announcing vSphere 6.7, the latest release of the industry-leading virtualization and cloud platform. vSphere 6.7 is the efficient and secure platform for hybrid clouds, fueling digital transformation by delivering simple and efficient management at scale, comprehensive built-in security, a universal application platform, and seamless hybrid cloud experience.

vSphere 6.7 delivers key capabilities to enable IT organizations address the following notable trends that are putting new demands on their IT infrastructure:

  • Explosive growth in quantity and variety of applications, from business critical apps to new intelligent workloads.
  • Rapid growth of hybrid cloud environments and use cases.
  • On-premises data centers growing and expanding globally, including at the Edge.
  • Security of infrastructure and applications attaining paramount importance.

Let’s take a look at some of the key capabilities in vSphere 6.7:

Simple and Efficient Management, at Scale

vSphere 6.7 builds on the technological innovation delivered by vSphere 6.5, and elevates the customer experience to an entirely new level. It provides exceptional management simplicity, operational efficiency, and faster time to market, all at scale.

vSphere 6.7 delivers an exceptional experience for the user with an enhancedvCenter Server Appliance (vCSA). It introduces several new APIs that improve the efficiency and experience to deploy vCenter, to deploy multiple vCenters based on a template, to make management of vCenter Server Appliance significantly easier, as well as for backup and restore. It also significantly simplifies the vCenter Server topology through vCenter with embedded platform services controller in enhanced linked mode, enabling customers to link multiple vCenters and have seamless visibility across the environment without the need for an external platform services controller or load balancers.

Moreover, with vSphere 6.7 vCSA delivers phenomenal performance improvements (all metrics compared at cluster scale limits, versus vSphere 6.5):

  • 2X faster performance in vCenter operations per second
  • 3X reduction in memory usage
  • 3X faster DRS-related operations (e.g. power-on virtual machine)

These performance improvements ensure a blazing fast experience for vSphere users, and deliver significant value, as well as time and cost savings in a variety of use cases, such as VDI, Scale-out apps, Big Data, HPC, DevOps, distributed cloud native apps, etc.

vSphere 6.7 improves efficiency at scale when updating ESXi hosts, significantly reducing maintenance time by eliminating one of two reboots normally required for major version upgrades (Single Reboot). In addition to that, vSphere Quick Boot is a new innovation that restarts the ESXi hypervisor without rebooting the physical host, skipping time-consuming hardware initialization.

Another key component that allows vSphere 6.7 to deliver a simplified and efficient experience is the graphical user interface itself. The HTML5-based vSphere Client provides a modern user interface experience that is both responsive and easy to use. With vSphere 6.7, it includes added functionality to support not only the typical workflows customers need but also other key functionality like managing NSX, vSAN, VUM as well as third-party components.

Comprehensive Built-In Security

vSphere 6.7 builds on the security capabilities in vSphere 6.5 and leverages its unique position as the hypervisor to offer comprehensive security that starts at the core, via an operationally simple policy-driven model.

vSphere 6.7 adds support for Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 hardware devices and also introduces Virtual TPM 2.0, significantly enhancing protection and assuring integrity for both the hypervisor and the guest operating system. This capability helps prevent VMs and hosts from being tampered with, prevents the loading of unauthorized components and enables guest operating system security features security teams are asking for.

Data encryption was introduced with vSphere 6.5 and very well received.  With vSphere 6.7, VM Encryption is further enhanced and more operationally simple to manage.  vSphere 6.7 simplifies workflows for VM Encryption, designed to protect data at rest and in motion, making it as easy as a right-click while also increasing the security posture of encrypting the VM and giving the user a greater degree of control to protect against unauthorized data access.

vSphere 6.7 also enhances protection for data in motion by enabling encrypted vMotion across different vCenter instances as well as versions, making it easy to securely conduct data center migrations, move data across a hybrid cloud environment (between on-premises and public cloud), or across geographically distributed data centers.

vSphere 6.7 introduces support for the entire range of Microsoft’s Virtualization Based Security technologies. This is a result of close collaboration between VMware and Microsoft to ensure Windows VMs on vSphere support in-guest security features while continuing to run performant and secure on the vSphere platform.

vSphere 6.7 delivers comprehensive built-in security and is the heart of a secure SDDC. It has deep integration and works seamlessly with other VMware products such as vSAN, NSX and vRealize Suite to provide a complete security model for the data center.

Universal Application Platform

vSphere 6.7 is a universal application platform that supports new workloads (including 3D Graphics, Big Data, HPC, Machine Learning, In-Memory, and Cloud-Native) as well as existing mission critical applications. It also supports and leverages some of the latest hardware innovations in the industry, delivering exceptional performance for a variety of workloads.

vSphere 6.7 further enhances the support and capabilities introduced for GPUs through VMware’s collaboration with Nvidia, by virtualizing Nvidia GPUs even for non-VDI and non-general-purpose-computing use cases such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data and more. With enhancements to Nvidia GRID™ vGPU technology in vSphere 6.7, instead of having to power off workloads running on GPUs, customers can simply suspend and resume those VMs, allowing for better lifecycle management of the underlying host and significantly reducing disruption for end-users. VMware continues to invest in this area, with the goal of bringing the full vSphere experience to GPUs in future releases.

vSphere 6.7 continues to showcase VMware’s technological leadership and fruitful collaboration with our key partners by adding support for a key industry innovation poised to have a dramatic impact on the landscape, which is persistent memory. With vSphere Persistent Memory, customers using supported hardware modules, such as those available from Dell-EMC and HPE, can leverage them either as super-fast storage with high IOPS, or expose them to the guest operating system as non-volatile memory. This will significantly enhance performance of the OS as well as applications across a variety of use cases, making existing applications faster and more performant and enabling customers to create new high-performance applications that can leverage vSphere Persistent Memory.

Seamless Hybrid Cloud Experience

With the fast adoption of vSphere-based public clouds through VMware Cloud Provider Program partners, VMware Cloud on AWS, as well as other public cloud providers, VMware is committed to delivering a seamless hybrid cloud experience for customers.

vSphere 6.7 introduces vCenter Server Hybrid Linked Mode, which makes it easy and simple for customers to have unified visibility and manageability across an on-premises vSphere environment running on one version and a vSphere-based public cloud environment, such as VMware Cloud on AWS, running on a different version of vSphere. This ensures that the fast pace of innovation and introduction of new capabilities in vSphere-based public clouds does not force the customer to constantly update and upgrade their on-premises vSphere environment.

vSphere 6.7 also introduces Cross-Cloud Cold and Hot Migration, further enhancing the ease of management across and enabling a seamless and non-disruptive hybrid cloud experience for customers.

As virtual machines migrate between different data centers or from an on-premises data center to the cloud and back, they likely move across different CPU types. vSphere 6.7 delivers a new capability that is key for the hybrid cloud, called Per-VM EVC. Per-VM EVC enables the EVC (Enhanced vMotion Compatibility) mode to become an attribute of the VM rather than the specific processor generation it happens to be booted on in the cluster. This allows for seamless migration across different CPUs by persisting the EVC mode per-VM during migrations across clusters and during power cycles.

Previously, vSphere 6.0 introduced provisioning between vCenter instances. This is often called “cross-vCenter provisioning.” The use of two vCenter instances introduces the possibility that the instances are on different release versions. vSphere 6.7 enables customers to use different vCenter versions while allowing cross-vCenter, mixed-version provisioning operations (vMotion, Full Clone and cold migrate) to continue seamlessly. This is especially useful for customers leveraging VMware Cloud on AWS as part of their hybrid cloud.

Learn More

As the ideal, efficient, secure universal platform for hybrid cloud, supporting new and existing applications, serving the needs of IT and the business, vSphere 6.7 reinforces your investment in VMware. vSphere 6.7 is one of the core components of VMware’s SDDC and a fundamental building block of your cloud strategy. With vSphere 6.7, you can now run, manage, connect, and secure your applications in a common operating environment, across your hybrid cloud.

This article only touched upon the key highlights of this release, but there are many more new features. To learn more about vSphere 6.7, please see the following resources.

VMware Horizon 7.3.1 and Horizon Client 4.6 released

VMware has released VMware Horizon 7.3.1 and Horizon Client 4.6! With this new release, Horizon 7.3 enhances key platform features, including Horizon Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business, VMware Instant Clone Technology and the Horizon Help Desk Tool.

Many new items have been introduced, such as HTML5 video redirection support for the Chrome browser and the ability to configure Windows Start menu shortcuts for desktop and application pools using the Horizon Administrator console. As always, you can count on increased operating system support for virtual desktops and clients.

Here is an overview of the new features:

VMware Horizon 7.3 Server Enhancements

Horizon Help Desk Tool

  • Displays application process resources with reset control
  • Role-based access control for help desk staff
  • Activity logging for help desk staff
  • Displays Horizon Client information
  • Granular logon time metrics
  • Blast Extreme display protocol metrics

Instant Clone Technology

  • Instant-clone desktops can now use dedicated assignment to preserve the hostname, IP address and MAC address of a user’s desktop
  • Windows Server OS is now supported for desktop use
  • Instant clones are now compatible with Storage DRS (sDRS)
  • If there are no internal VMs in all four internal folders created in vSphere Web Client, these folders are unprotected, and you can delete them
  • IcUnprotect.cmd utility can now unprotect or delete template, replica or parent VMs or folders from vSphere hosts

Windows Start Menu Shortcuts Created Using the Admin Console

  • Create shortcuts to Horizon 7 resources:
    • Published applications
    • Desktops
    • Global entitlements

Cloud Pod Architecture Scale

  • Total session limit is increased to 140,000
  • The site limit is now seven

VMware Horizon Apps

  • This update makes Horizon Apps easier to use and allows the administrator to restrict entitlements
  • Restrict access to desktop and application pools from specific client machines

Resiliency for Monitoring

  • If the event database shuts down, Horizon administrator maintains an audit trail of the events that occur before and after the event database shutdown

Database Support

  • Always-On Availability Groups feature for Microsoft SQL Server 2014

ADMX Templates

  • Additional GPO settings for ThinPrint printer filtering, HTML5 redirection and enforcement of desktop wallpaper settings

Remote Experience

Horizon Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business

  • Multiparty audio and video conferencing
  • Horizon 7 RDSH support
    • Windows Server 2008 R2
    • Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Forward Error Correction (FEC)
  • Quality of Experience (QOE) metrics
  • Customized ringtones
  • Call park and pickup
  • E911 (Enhanced 911) support, to allow the location of the mobile caller to be known to the call receiver
  • USB desktop-tethering support
  • Horizon Client for Linux support for the following Linux distributions:
    • Ubuntu 12.04 (32-bit)
    • Ubuntu 14.04 (32 & 64-bit)
    • Ubuntu 16.04 (64-bit)
    • RHEL 6.9/CentOS 6.x (64-bit)
    • RHEL 7.3 (64-bit)
    • SLED12 SP2 (64-bit)

Additional NVIDIA GRID vGPU Support

  • Support for the Tesla P40 graphics card from NVIDIA

HTML5 Video Redirection

  • View HTML 5 video from a Chrome browser and have video redirected to the client endpoint for smoother and more efficient video playback

Performance Counter Improvements

  • Windows agent PerfMon counters improvements for Blast Extreme sessions: imaging, audio, client-drive redirection (CDR), USB and virtual printing

Linux Virtual Desktops

  • KDE support: Besides RHEL/CentOS 6.x, the KDE GUI is now supported on RHEL/CentOS 7.x, Ubuntu 14.04/16.04 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 SP4
  • MATE  interface is now supported on Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 16.04
  • Blast Extreme Adaptive Transport is now supported for Linux desktops
  • vGPU hardware H.264 encoder support has been added

USB Redirection

  • USB redirection is supported in nested mode

ThinPrint Filtering

  • Administrators can filter out printers that should not be redirected

Horizon Client 4.6 Updates

Security Update

  • All clients have been updated to use SHA-2 to prevent SHA-1 collision attacks

Session Pre-launch

  • Session pre-launch is now extended to both Horizon Client for macOS and Horizon Client for Windows

Apteligent

  • Integration of Apteligent crash log

Blast Extreme

  • Improvements in Blast Extreme Adaptive Transport mode for iOS and macOS
  • User can change Blast Extreme settings without having to disconnect

Horizon Client 4.6 for Windows

  • Support for UNC path with CDR

Horizon Client 4.6 for macOS

  • Support for macOS Sierra and macOS High Sierra
  • Selective monitor support
  • Norwegian keyboard support

Horizon Client 4.6 for iOS

  • CDR support with drag and drop of files in split view
  • iOS split keyboard enhancement
  • iOS UI updates

Horizon Client 4.6 for Android

  • Android Oreo support
  • Manage the Horizon server list with VMware AirWatch
  • Simple shortcuts
  • External mouse enhancements
  • Real-Time Audio-Video (RTAV) support for Android and Chrome OS

Horizon Client 4.6 for Linux

  • Blast Extreme Adaptive Transport support

Horizon Client 4.6 for Windows 10 UWP

  • Network recovery improvements

Horizon HTML Access 4.6

  • HTML Access for Android with a revised UI
  • Customization of HTML Access page

Horizon Help Desk Tool

The Horizon Help Desk Tool provides a troubleshooting interface for the help desk that is installed by default on Connection Servers. To access the Horizon Help Desk Tool, navigate to https://<CS_FQDN>/helpdesk, where <CS_FQDN> is the fully qualified domain name of the Connection Server, or click the Help Desk button in the Horizon Administrator console.

The Help Desk Tool was introduced in Horizon 7.2 and has been greatly expanded upon in the Horizon 7.3 release.

Help Desktop Tool features with Horizon 7.2:

  • Virtual machine metrics
  • Remote assistance
  • Session control (restart, logoff, reset, and disconnect)
  • Sending messages

Additional features with Horizon 7.3:

  • Display application process resources with reset control
  • Role-based access control for help desk staff
  • Activity logging for help desk staff
  • Granular login time metrics
  • Display Horizon Client information

User Session Details

The user session details appear on the Details tab when you click a user name in the Computer Name option on the Sessions tab. You can view details for Horizon Client, the VDI desktop or RDSH-published desktop, CPU and memory stats, and many other details.

  • Client version
  • Unified Access Gateway name and IP address
  • Logon breakdown (client to broker):
    • Brokering
    • GPO load
    • Profile load
    • Interactive
    • Authentication

Blast Extreme Metrics

Blast extreme metrics that have been added include estimated bandwidth (uplink), packet loss, and transmitted and received traffic counters for imaging, audio, and CDR.

Note the following behavior:

  • The text-based counters do not auto-update in the dashboard. Close and reopen the session details to refresh the information.
  • The counters for transmitted and received traffic counters are accumulative from the point the session is queried/polled.

Blast Extreme Metrics for a Windows 10 Virtual Desktop Session

Display and Reset Application Processes and Resources

This new feature provides help desk staff with a granular option to resolve problematic processes without affecting the entire user session, similar to Windows Task Manager. The session processes appear on the Processes tab when you click a user name in the Computer Name option on the Sessions tab. For each user session, you can view additional details about CPU- and memory-related processes to diagnose issues.

Role-based Access Control and Custom Roles

You can assign the following predefined administrator roles to Horizon Help Desk Tool administrators to delegate the troubleshooting tasks between administrator users:

  • Help Desk Administrator
  • Help Desk Administrator (Read Only)

You can also create custom roles by assigning the Manage Help Desk (Read Only) privilege along with any other privileges based on the Help Desk Administrator role or Help Desk Administrator (Read Only) role.

Members of the Help Desk Administrators (Read Only) role do not have access to following controls; in fact, functions such as Log Off and Reset are not presented in the user interface.

Watch this brief demonstration video of the Horizon Help Desk Tool to see it in action:

Horizon Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business

You can now make optimized audio and video calls with Skype for Business inside a virtual desktop without negatively affecting the virtual infrastructure and overloading the network.

All media processing takes place on the client machine instead of in the virtual desktop during a Skype audio and video call.

New support with many expanded features for the Horizon Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business can be found in Horizon 7.3 and Client 4.6.

New Features

Horizon Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business offers the following supported features:

System Requirements

The following table outlines the system requirements for the new release:

Supported Clients

The following table provides the list of support Horizon clients:

Start Menu Shortcuts Configured Through the Admin Console

This feature improves the user experience by adding desktop and application shortcuts to the Start menu of Windows client devices.

You can use Horizon Administrator to create shortcuts for the following types of Horizon 7 resources:

  • Published applications
  • Desktops
  • Global entitlements

Shortcuts appear in the Windows Start menu and are configured by IT. Shortcuts can be categorized into folders.

Users can choose at login whether to have shortcuts added to the Start menu on their Windows endpoint device.

Watch this brief demonstration video of the new Desktop and Apps Shortcuts feature to see it in action:

Dedicated Desktop Support for Instant Clones

Upon the initial release of instant clones in Horizon 7, we supported floating desktop pools and assignments only. Further investments have been made to Instant Clone Technology that add support for dedicated desktop pools. Fixed assignments and entitlements of users to instant-clone machines is now provided as part of Horizon 7.3.

Dedicated instant-clone desktop assignment means that there is a 1:1 relationship between users and desktops. Once an end user is assigned to a desktop, they will consistently receive access to the same desktop and corresponding virtual machine. This feature is important for apps that require a consistent hostname, IP address, or MAC address to function properly.

Note: Persistent disks are not supported. Fixed assignments to desktops does not mean persistence for changes. Any changes that the user makes to the desktop while in-session will not be preserved after logoff, which is similar to how a floating desktop pool works. With dedicated assignment, when the user logs out, a resync operation on the master image retains the VM name, IP address, and MAC address.

Support for the Tesla P40 Graphics Card from NVIDIA

VMware has expanded NVIDIA GRID support with Tesla P40 GPU cards in Horizon 7.3.

HTML5 Video Redirection

This feature provides the ability to take the HTML5 video from a Chrome (version 58 or higher) browser inside a Windows VDI or RDSH system and redirect it to Windows clients. This feature uses Blast Extreme or PCoIP side channels along with a Chrome extension.

The redirected video is overlaid on the client and is enabled as well as managed using GPO settings.

Benefits include:

  • Supports generic sites such as YouTube, without requiring a server-side plugin.
  • Provides smooth video playback comparable to the native experience of playing video inside a browser on the local client system.
  • Reduces data center network traffic and CPU utilization on the vSphere infrastructure hosts.

Improved USB Redirection with User Environment Manager

The default User Environment Manager timeout value has been increased. This change ensures that the USB redirection Smart Policy takes effect even when the login process takes longer than expected.

With Horizon Client 4.6, the User Environment Manager timeout value is configured only on the agent and is sent from the agent to the client.

You can now bypass User Environment Manager control of USB redirection by setting a registry key on the agent machine (VDI desktop or RDSH server). This change ensures that smart card SSO works on Teradici zero clients. Note: Requires a restart.

HKLM\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware VDM\Agent\USB uemFlags (REG_DWORD 1)

Blast Extreme Performance Counter Improvements

The Windows Agent PerfMon counters for the Blast Extreme protocol have been improved to update at a constant rate and to be even more accurate.

Counters include:

  • Imaging
  • Audio
  • CDR
  • USB
  • Virtual printing

Linux Virtual Desktops

Features and functions for Horizon 7 for Linux virtual desktops have been expanded:

  • KDE support – Besides RHEL/CentOS 6.x, the KDE GUI is now supported on RHEL/CentOS 7.x, Ubuntu 14.04/16.04, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 SP4.
  • Support for the MATE interface on Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04.
  • Blast Extreme Adaptive Transport support.
  • vGPU hardware H.264 encoder support.

USB Redirection Support in Nested Mode

The USB redirection feature is now supported when you use Horizon Client in nested mode. When using nesting–for example, when opening RDSH applications from a VDI desktop–you can now redirect USB devices from the client device to the first virtualization layer and then redirect the same USB device to the second virtualization layer (that is, nested session).

Filtering Redirected Printers

You can now create a filter to specify the printers that should not be redirected with ThinPrint. A new GPO ADMX template (vmd_printing_agent.admx) has been added to enable this functionality.

By default, the rule permits all client printers to be redirected.

  • Supported attributes:
    • PrinterName
    • DriverName
    • VendorName
  • Supported operators:
    • AND
    • OR
    • NOT
  • Supported searching pattern is a regular expression.

Blast Extreme Improvements in CPU Usage

Now even lower CPU usage is achieved with adaptive Forward Error Correction algorithms. This clever mechanism decides how to handle error correction, lowering CPU usage within virtual desktop machines as well as on client endpoint devices.

Blast Extreme Adaptive Transport Side Channel

New support has been added for Blast Extreme Adaptive Transport side channels for USB and CDR communications. Once enabled, TCP port 32111 for USB traffic does not need to be opened, and USB traffic uses a side channel. This feature is supported for both virtual desktops and RDS hosts.

  • Feature is turned off by default.
  • Enable the feature through a registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\VMware Blast\Config\UdpAuxiliaryFlowsEnabled 1

Entitlement Restrictions Based on Machine Name

This feature allows IT administrators to restrict access to published applications and desktops based on both client computer and user. With client restrictions for RDSH, it is now possible to check AD security groups for specific computer names. Users only have access to desktops and apps when both the user and the client machine are entitled. For this release, the feature is supported only for Windows clients and works with global entitlements.

Pre-Launch Improvements

Pre-launch provides the ability to launch an empty (application-less) session when connecting to the Connection Server. The feature is now also available to Windows clients, in addition to macOS.

Also, it is no longer necessary to manually make changes to the client settings. You can configure automatic reconnection.

Blast Extreme Adaptive Transport Mode for iOS and macOS

With prior client releases, users were required to configure their Blast Extreme settings before they connected to the Connection Server. After a connection was established, the options to change the Blast Extreme setting—which included H.264, Poor, Typical, and Excellent—were unavailable.

With this release, users can change the network condition setting from Excellent to Typical or the reverse while inflight to sessions. Doing so also changes the protocol connection type between TCP (for Excellent) and UDP (for Typical).

Note: End users will not be able to change the network condition setting if Poor is selected before establishing a session connection.

Horizon Client for Windows

Horizon Client 4.6 updates include:

  • Additional command-line options for the new client installer – When silently installing the Windows client, using the /s flag, you can now also set:
    • REMOVE-SerialPort,Scanner – Removes the serial port, scanner, or both.
    • DESKTOP_SHORTCUT-0 – Installs without a desktop shortcut.
    • STARTMENU_SHORTCUT-0 – Installs without a Start menu shortcut.

  • Support for UNC paths with client drive redirection (CDR):
    • Allows remote applications to access files from a network location on the client machine. Each location gets its own drive letter inside the remote application or VDI desktop.
    • Folders residing on UNC paths can now be redirected with CDR, and get their own drive letter inside the session, just as any other shared folder.

Horizon Client for macOS

Horizon Client 4.6 updates include:

  • Apple macOS High Sierra day 0 support.
  • Users can select which monitors to use for VDI sessions and which to use for the local system.
  • Norwegian keyboard support and mappings are now available

Horizon Client for iOS

Horizon Client 4.6 updates include:

  • iOS 11 support
  • iOS split keyboard update – Removes the middle area in the split keyboard for a better view of the desktop
  • New dialog box for easy connection to a Swiftpoint Mouse

Horizon Client for Android

Horizon Client 4.6 updates include:

  • Android 8.0 Oreo support.
  • Server URL configuration – Allows administrators to configure a list of Connection Servers and a default Connection Server on Android devices managed by VMware AirWatch.

Android and Chrome OS Client Updates

Horizon Client 4.6 for Android and Horizon Client 4.6 for Chrome OS updates include:

  • Simple shortcuts – Users can right-click any application or desktop to add a shortcut to the home screen.
  • Webcam redirection – Integrated webcams on an Android device or a Chromebook are now available for redirection using the Real-Time Audio-Video (RTAV) feature.

HTML Access

HTML Access 4.6 updates include:

  • HTML Access on Android devices – Though HTML Access has fewer features than the native Horizon Client, it allows you to use remote desktops and published applications without installing software.
  • HTML Access page customization – Administrators can customize graphics and text and have those customizations persist through future upgrades.

Horizon Client for Linux

Horizon Client 4.6 updates include:

  • Support for Raspberry Pi 3 Model B devices:
    • ThinLinx operating system (TLXOS) or Stratodesk NoTouch operating system
    • Supported Horizon Client features include:
  • Blast Extreme
  • USB redirection
  • 264 decoding
  • 8000Hz and 16000Hz audio-in sample rate
  • RHEL/CentOS 7.4 support

Horizon Client for Windows 10 UWP

Horizon Client 4.6 updates include:

  • Network recovery improvements – Clients can recover from temporary network loss (up to 2 minutes). This feature was already available for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android, and is now available for Windows 10 UWP.
    • Automatically reconnects Blast Extreme sessions
    • Reduces re-authentication prompts

We are excited about these new features in Horizon 7.3.1 and the Horizon Client 4.6.  We hope that you will give them a try.

You can download it here.

New MVA learning paths for IT pros

Learn about the new paths for IT pros:

  • PowerShell: Beginner. Step up your IT pro game with foundational knowledge of PowerShell. Learn to use the command line to solve an issue, automate your infrastructure, and more.
  • PowerShell: Advanced. Go beyond the basics with scripting, reusable tools, and cmdlets—all taught by the architect and inventor of PowerShell, Jeffrey Snover.
  • Security for IT Pros. Beef up your security know-how with practical tips and tricks from the Microsoft security team.
  • DevOps for IT Pros. Your devs need you! Learn more about application performance and support monitoring with Microsoft Azure.
  • Introduction to Windows Server 2012 R2. Command this leading-edge server with tutorials on installation, roles, Microsoft Active Directory, storage, performance management, and maintenance.
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 Security and Identity. Build upon your security knowledge with Windows Server 2016 fundamentals, like Active Directory, basic PKI, and BYOD concepts.
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 Compute. Discover everything you need to know about virtualization and storage with courses on IP address management, server networking, Microsoft Hyper-V, and more.

Hyper-V Reporting Script

Serhat AKINCI, a Hyper-V MVP, has just posted this very useful script:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Hyper-V-Reporting-Script-4adaf5d0

In his own words:

It can be difficult to monitor and assess resources in large Hyper-V environments. This PowerShell based script helps you to understand virtualization inventory, capacity and general resource availability in your Standalone or Clustered Hyper-V Environment.

Highlights
  • More than 2600+ lines of PowerShell, HTML and CSS code examples.
  • Creates a plain but detailed and user-friendly HTML report which is compatible with all modern browsers.
  • Provides more detailed information via tooltips in the HTML report. (cells with asterisks and highlights)
  • Checks and installs required runtime environment prerequisites like Hyper-V and Clustering PowerShell.
  • Collects information by using standard Hyper-V and Clustering PowerShell cmdlets and custom WMI queries.
  • Shows alerts in the report for certain situations (utilizations, VM checkpoints, replication status, etc.)
  • Can be used directly from command-line or as a scheduled Windows task.
  • Supports report delivery via e-mail with advanced options. (authentication, TLS/SSL, multiple recipients)
  • Includes a mode that reports only alerts in the Hyper-V environment. (aka Highlights Only mode)
  • Advanced error handling and logging. (Console messages and log file)

You can see an full example report here: http://www.serhatakinci.com/files/get-hypervreport-v1-0-demo-output.html
Open-mouthed smile

Virtualization 2.0 For Dummies

Virtualizing your servers was the first step to achieving cost savings, high availability, and greater IT efficiency. But as your business is evolving and growing, your virtualized infrastructure needs to do the same – leading to the next-generation data center running on Virtualization 2.0.
In Virtualization 2.0 For Dummies®, we will explore:

  • How Virtualization 2.0 can deliver improved visibility, optimized planning and more predictive control through capacity management and performance monitoring
  • A deep dive into virtualization beyond the server, including operations management, virtualized backup, storage, and networking
  • How to prepare your IT environment for the next steps in your virtualization journey, with advice on storage options and security
  • Technical tips, best practices, and links to in-depth resources to help you save time setting up, managing, and troubleshooting

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