Eric Sloof

This guide describes the vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View monitoring solution and how to use it, including useful lab exercises. It includes deployment scenarios for administrators planning to expand their use of vCenter Operations Manager Enterprise to manage Horizon View desktops.



This document complements related documents, such as the vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View Administration and Installation guides. This deployment guide is not, however, a reference architecture guide or a recommendation for third- party products.

This VMware Mirage large-scale reference architecture solves two common challenges faced by IT managers today:

1. How to back up a large number of desktops deployed throughout the enterprise while protecting the customization, applications, and data that personalize each system for its end user.
2. How to migrate thousands of desktops from Microsoft Windows XP to Windows 7 efficiently, with minimal impact on IT resources and end-user productivity.

Both tasks typically require a substantial investment in IT resources and the use of separate backup and PC lifecycle management tools. VMware Mirage, however, performs both tasks efficiently. The test results in this paper show that Mirage delivered even better results than initially expected. VMware Mirage

• Efficiently backed up desktops located on a local area network (LAN), slashing the amount of data transferred to the data center by up to 32 percent through its deduplication and compression capabilities.
• Increased system performance to match increased network bandwidth, linearly decreasing the amount of time required to back up desktops.
• Migrated up to 800 desktops concurrently from Windows XP to Windows 7 in a short time, requiring minimal IT resources and bandwidth.
• Reduced end-user downtime and resulting productivity loss during the migration to 26 minutes on average.
  
  

This reference architecture and the real-world testing behind it are provided to help guide the planning and design of other successful Mirage implementations.

This hands-on training course explores the use of VMware vCenter Orchestrator 5.5 and VMware vCloud Automation Center 6.1 for the automation of VMware cloud infrastructure and IT processes.

The course focuses on extensibility and advanced administration through the use of vCenter Orchestrator workflows in vCloud Automation Center. Students will gain practical experience through the completion of hands-on labs.

• Describe the features, benefits, components, and integration of vCenter Orchestrator and vCloud Automation Center and the role of vCenter Orchestrator workflows and content elements in automation
• Use the vCenter Orchestrator client to access and navigate the vCenter Orchestrator platform and to import and run library vCenter Orchestrator workflows
• Design, develop, and run custom reusable vCenter Orchestrator workflows
• Use VMware APIs in vCenter Orchestrator workflow scripts
• Integrate vCloud Automation Center with vCenter Orchestrator instances to extend infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) machine lifecycle processes and enhance and deliver custom IT services
• Use the Advanced Service Designer in vCloud Automation Center to integrate vCenter Orchestrator workflows with external systems and build automation solutions
• Export, package, and apply version control to vCloud Orchestrator workflows
• Configure a vCenter Orchestrator environment for server availability using built-in clustering

Course Datasheet