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VMware Horizon Mirage Essentials

VMware Horizon Mirage Essentials

by Peter von Oven
Publisher: Packt Publishing
Release Date: December 2013
ISBN: 9781782172352
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Book Description

Manage your entire desktop environment with a single management tool, VMware Horizon Mirage

  • Deliver a centralized Windows image management solution for physical, virtual, and BYOD
  • Migrate seamlessly to new versions of operating systems with minimal user downtime
  • Easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide on how to deploy and work with the technology

In Detail

Managing desktop software builds has always been a time consuming task. Having to build and maintain multiple different images for the various use cases and hardware platforms in an organization is a complex full-time job for IT admins everywhere. Delivering resilience and recovery solutions are also things that become more of a challenge when you step outside of the data center. VMware Horizon Mirage can help with all of this and more.

VMware Horizon Mirage Essentials will show you how to deliver a complete centralized image management solution by taking you through a number of Mirage use cases, each one designed to solve the challenges faced by an IT department in managing a desktop environment.

This book starts by introducing the concepts behind VMware Horizon Mirage, how they work, and how they map onto the everyday tasks faced by a desktop administrator. It will then follow three themes, manage, migrate, and protect, and will look in detail at the different features and functionality offered by Mirage in delivering against these themes to the desktop estate.

You will also learn how to design, install, and configure your own Mirage infrastructure, whether for production or a pilot deployment, covering core features such as single image management, how to migrate old operating systems such as Windows XP to Windows 7, and how to migrate to new hardware platforms.

VMware Horizon Mirage Essentials will walk you through the process of delivering single image management to your entire desktop estate, regardless of whether it’s physical or virtual.

Table of Contents

  1. VMware Horizon Mirage Essentials
    1. Table of Contents
    2. VMware Horizon Mirage Essentials
    3. Credits
    4. Forewords
    5. About the Author
    6. About the Reviewers
    7. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
        1. Why Subscribe?
        2. Free Access for Packt account holders
        3. Instant Updates on New Packt Books
    8. Preface
      1. What this book covers
      2. What you need for this book
      3. Who this book is for
      4. Conventions
      5. Reader feedback
      6. Customer support
        1. Errata
        2. Piracy
        3. Questions
    9. 1. An Introduction to VMware Horizon Mirage
      1. A quick history of Horizon Mirage
      2. What is Horizon Mirage?
      3. Horizon Mirage terminologies and naming conventions
        1. Endpoint
        2. Centralized Virtual Desktop (CVD)
        3. Collections
        4. Reference CVD
        5. Base layer
        6. Application layer
        7. Driver library / driver profile
        8. Single Instance Store (SIS)
      4. Horizon Mirage use cases
        1. Manage
          1. Endpoint repair
          2. Single image management
          3. Application layering
          4. Remote office management with Mirage Branch Reflectors
        2. Migrate
          1. Windows XP / Windows Vista to Windows 7
          2. Hardware refresh
        3. Protect
          1. Centralized endpoint backup
          2. Desktop recovery
      5. Horizon Mirage infrastructure components
        1. Mirage server
        2. Mirage Management Server
        3. Mirage Management Console
        4. Database
        5. File Portal
        6. Horizon Mirage Client
        7. Branch Reflector
      6. How to license Horizon Mirage
        1. VMware Horizon Suite
        2. Horizon Mirage standalone
        3. Migration-only license
        4. How does this book work?
        5. What do you need?
      7. Summary
    10. 2. Design, Install, and Configure
      1. Infrastructure overview and requirements
        1. Overview of Horizon Mirage infrastructure
        2. Horizon Mirage components up close
          1. Horizon Mirage Management Server
          2. Horizon Mirage Server
          3. Horizon Mirage database
          4. File Portal
          5. Horizon Mirage Client
          6. Horizon Mirage Management Console
          7. Branch Reflector
          8. Web Management Console
        3. Hardware requirements
          1. Horizon Mirage Server
            1. Physical server deployment
            2. Virtual Machine deployment
          2. Horizon Mirage Client
          3. Storage requirements
      2. Design considerations
        1. Assessment first
        2. Sizing the Horizon Mirage Server
          1. Example – small-scale deployment
          2. Example – medium-scale deployment
          3. Example – large-scale deployment
        3. Storage design considerations
        4. Network design considerations
      3. Installing and deploying Horizon Mirage
        1. Before you start – the prerequisites
        2. Installing the Horizon Mirage Management Server
        3. Installing the Horizon Mirage Management Console
        4. Installing the Horizon Mirage Server
        5. Installing the Horizon Mirage File Portal / Web Access
          1. Stage 1 – installing IIS
          2. Stage 2 – installing the File Portal
        6. Installing the Web Management Console
        7. Installing the Horizon Mirage Client
          1. Horizon Mirage Client – silent installation
        8. Troubleshooting connection issues
      4. Summary
    11. 3. A Guided Tour of Management Consoles
      1. The Horizon Mirage Management Console
        1. A high-level overview of Horizon Mirage tasks
          1. Common Wizards
          2. Dashboard
          3. Task Monitoring
          4. Inventory
          5. Image Composer
          6. Driver Library
          7. Reports
          8. Logs
          9. Users and Roles
            1. Adding an AD group to a role
          10. System configuration
      2. Web-based Management Consoles
        1. Management Console overview – Web Help Desk role
          1. Logging in
          2. Searching and adding a device or user
          3. Navigating the Web Help Desk Management Console
        2. Management Console overview – the Protection Manager role
          1. Logging in
      3. Summary
    12. 4. Getting Started with Horizon Mirage Layering Technology
      1. An introduction to layering technology
        1. What is a Horizon Mirage layer?
        2. What does a Mirage layer look like?
      2. How to capture a base layer
        1. Stage 1 – building a reference machine
          1. What is a base layer? – a quick recap
          2. What is a base layer used for?
          3. Considerations when creating a base layer
            1. Hardware
          4. Applications
            1. Licensing operating systems and applications
            2. Working with endpoint encryption solutions
          5. Base layer use case examples
          6. The departmental or individual use case scenario
            1. The hardware-specific use case
          7. Best practice and tips
        2. Stage 2 – installing the Horizon Mirage Client
        3. Stage 3 – centralizing the reference machine
        4. Stage 4 – preparing the image before capture
        5. Stage 5 – capturing the base layer
          1. The base layer capture process
          2. Updating an existing base layer
      3. Capturing an application layer
        1. The application capture process
          1. Stage 1 – performing a pre-scan
          2. Stage 2 – installing the application
          3. Stage 3 – post-scan and application layer capture
        2. App layer capture best practice
      4. Managing device drivers
        1. What is a Horizon Mirage driver library?
          1. Driver library folder structure
          2. Driver library components and structure
        2. Creating a driver library
        3. Building a driver profile
      5. Summary
    13. 5. Manage – Centralized Image Management and Deployment
      1. Horizon Mirage single image management
        1. What is single image management?
          1. Building an endpoint with a base layer and an application layer
          2. Building an endpoint with a base layer and driver profiles
          3. Building the complete endpoint
      2. Assigning a new base layer
      3. Assigning an application layer
      4. Remote office management
        1. What is a Branch Reflector?
        2. Enabling a Branch Reflector
        3. Branch Reflector configuration options
      5. Summary
    14. 6. Migrate – Operating System and Hardware Migration Made Easy
      1. Migrating Windows XP to Windows 7
        1. Preparing for the migration – where do I start?
        2. Microsoft USMT
        3. A migration example based on a virtual machine
          1. For VMware Workstation lab environments
            1. With SCSI disk-based Windows XP environments
            2. With IDE disk-based Windows XP environments
            3. Configuring the network drivers
          2. For VMware ESX lab environments
        4. The migration process
      2. Hardware migration
        1. The hardware migration process
      3. Summary
    15. 7. Protect – Backup, Recovery, and DR for Endpoint Devices
      1. Endpoint backup
        1. Archiving CVDs
        2. Configuring the frequency for uploads and snapshots
        3. Uploading policies
      2. Endpoint repair and recovery
        1. Recovering to a snapshot
          1. How does the process work?
        2. Recovering to a base layer
          1. How does the process work?
      3. Disaster recovery
        1. Streaming
        2. Self-service file restoration
        3. Remote file access / File Portal
      4. Summary
    16. Index