What Is Horizon 8?

Desktops and Applications Delivered from Your Cloud

Omnissa Horizon 8 delivers virtualized Windows desktops and apps as well as Linux desktops to almost any endpoint device across a variety of form factors from vSphere-based datacenters. With clients available on Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS, Linux, many mobile devices, as well as web browsers, Horizon 8 empowers the enterprise by providing a familiar and secure computing environment for end users they can access anywhere, anytime.

With three deployment models, Horizon 8 offers administrators the flexibility to deploy desktop and application resources close to both their users as well as the corporate resources they require. At the same time, Horizon 8’s Instant Clone technology helps reduce the administrative burden of managing and maintaining environments of any scale.

Key Features of Omnissa Horizon 8

Reduced Administrative Burden

Omnissa Horizon 8 offers time and cost-saving features in which security and ease of management are foundational.

Streamlined image management - Managing virtual desktop and application images centrally reduces administrative effort and increases availability for end users.

Application management - Omnissa Horizon integrates seamlessly with Omnissa App Volumes, simplifying image management strategies and delivering packaged applications by packaging each app once and deploying it across multiple Horizon environments, both on-premises and in the cloud. Image count, maintenance, and complexity of application packaging by managing applications separately from the image are some of the benefits offered by App Volumes.

Efficient Resource Consumption - On cloud-based platforms, finding ways to consume resources efficiently has a direct impact on cost of ownership. Idle desktops and apps still consume resources, which can quickly run costs out of control. With App Volumes App on Demand, applications are delivered just-in-time to desktops and RDS farms, ensuring that idle resource consumption is as minimal as possible.

This strategy also simplifies and turns RDS Farms more elastic and dynamic, which drives efficiency versus static deployments where resources are consumed irrespective.

Flexible Monitoring capability - For individual pods, Horizon offers centralized monitoring capability through the Horizon Admin Console for administrators and the Helpdesk Console for call center workers. The Horizon Control Plane services offer centralized analytics across multiple pods irrespective of their location. Workspace ONE Intelligence Integration offers customized reporting, orchestration, and remediation. Horizon 8 Integrates seamlessly with the Horizon Cloud Service and Workspace ONE Intelligence, offering new, deeper monitoring levels.

Flexible hybrid and multi-cloud deployment options - Horizon 8 can be deployed in private or public cloud scenarios. Examples of private clouds might be a private vSphere data center.

Multi-OS support for the deployment of virtual desktops and hosted apps - With Instant Clone Technology, Horizon offers rapid delivery of Microsoft Windows and Linux resources at scale across multiple data centers. Published Applications are supported on Microsoft Windows and Linux servers or Windows desktops.

Optimizing experience with unified communication and collaboration - Increased user experience and productivity with optimized audio and video support for Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Cisco WebEx, and other communication and collaboration tools. Session collaboration allows multiple users to view and modify the same desktop in real-time.

The Omnissa Blast Extreme Protocol is the primary display protocol for Horizon.
The Omnissa Blast Extreme Protocol is a dynamic display protocol built by Omnissa to deliver an immersive, feature-rich experience for end users across devices, locations, media, and network connections.
Blast Extreme is included with Horizon, the latest generation of desktop virtualization and remote application-delivery software.

User-Specific Settings and Innovative Policy Options

Omnissa Dynamic Environment Manager offers a broad base of functionality to facilitate the user experience and maintain business continuity.

Based on the user’s role, device, or location. A Windows user might be offered user and computer-specific settings to ensure the user’s desktop offers everything in place they need to do their work.
All user-defined preferences are saved when a user logs off from a Desktop—allowing the user to continue exactly where they left off from a prior session.
In the context of the client’s device, place, or other conditions. Peripheral elements like drive mappings and printers can be presented to the user at logon or when a specific application is launched.
Dynamic Environment also integrates with Workspace ONE Intelligence and the Omnissa Unified Access Gateway to facilitate risk scoring enforcement. For example. If a user’s Risk score changes from low to medium, blocking access to sensitive data and applications might be necessary.

A Familiar and Streamlined End User Experience

As enterprise data migrates to more and more locations in both private data centers and public clouds, Horizon 8 provides a consistent user experience across any location.

Streamlined access - The login process is simplified with Single-Sign-On. End users log in only once and get access to all the desktops and apps they need to do their jobs—no need to log in separately to each virtual desktop or app.
More Secure - Organizations no longer require the end user to authenticate using a Password form of authentication, allowing organizations to move forward with Zero Trust strategies that have, for example, in the United States of America (USA), been mandated to be effective by law.
Easy access from any device - The software client application —Omnissa Horizon Client— can be installed on Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS or iOS, Linux Chromebook, or Android devices. End users can also use a web browser to connect with the same level of security and consistency.

Horizon Clients can be downloaded from customerconnect.omnissa.com.

Multi-OS support for the deployment of virtual desktops and hosted apps - Horizon 8 allows rapid access to Microsoft Windows and Linux resources at scale across multiple Data centers. Application Publishing is supported for both Microsoft Windows and Linux platforms.
Improved user experience - After an end-user authenticates, the end user gets a smooth, consistent user experience with the entitled resources assigned to this individual. No matter what device they log in from, users see only what is assigned to them and nothing else. They have everything at their fingertips, including the virtual desktops and apps they need to do their job.
Optimized experience with unified communication and collaboration - Horizon 8 has been developed to facilitate the User experience with optimized audio and video support for Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Cisco WebEx, and other communication and collaboration tools. Session collaboration allows multiple users to view and modify the same desktop in real-time.
High-definition, graphically intensive display options - End users that have immersive, feature-rich graphics requirements will get this experience with the Blast Extreme display protocol. The Blast display protocol allows the delivery of rich 2D and 3D graphics for high-fidelity displays. Horizon 8 integrates with NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD high-end graphics hardware.

Omnissa Horizon 8 Architecture Overview

As a solution, Horizon 8 can be deployed on-premises or in cloud platforms. Additional Centralized Monitoring and inspection benefits come to Horizon 8 environments by connecting to the Horizon Cloud Service. Simplified single sign-on benefits come with Workspace ONE Access. Deep end-user experience analytics, customized reporting, Orchestration, and Risk Scoring are offered using Workspace ONE Intelligence.

Key Architectural Components

The Omnissa Horizon architecture is made up of the following components:

Omnissa Horizon 8 Admin Console - This web-based HTML Interface allows an administrator to configure, deploy, and manage published applications and desktops. Some examples of administrative functions include controlling user authentication, initiating and examining system and user events, delivering support to end users, and performing analytic activities. User entitlements can also be configured at a Global or local level.
Omnissa Horizon Client - The software client application allows end users to connect to their Horizon virtual desktop or published applications.

The Horizon Client can be installed on Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS or iOS, Linux, Google Chromebook, or Android platforms. The Horizon Client can be downloaded from customerconnect.omnissa.com.
Alternatively, a web browser can also be used as a client.

Omnissa Horizon Cloud Service - The Omnissa Horizon Cloud Service – next-gen facilitates subscription-based licensing across all Horizon deployments regardless of the infrastructure used. Another service the Cloud Service offers Horizon 8 Pods, is monitoring. More cloud-based services and features will be added over time.
Omnissa Unified Access Gateway - Provides secure remote access to Horizon sessions for users outside the corporate network to access virtual desktops and published applications without a VPN. For more information, see Unified Access Gateway Architecture. Omnissa now supports the federation of Edge services like the Unified Access Gateway with Workspace ONE Access back-channel and front channel services. For more information, see Enabling SAML 2.0 Authentication for Horizon with Unified Access Gateway and Horizon.
Horizon 8 Connection Servers - The function of the Connection Server is an Authenticator, Broker. It hosts the admin user interface and orchestrates vSphere-based infrastructure.
Horizon 8 Enrollment services - Horizon Enrollment services are required to facilitate a seamless single sign-on user authentication experience for end users called True SSO.
The Horizon Edge Gateway Appliance - A virtual appliance that connects a Horizon 8 pod with Horizon Cloud Service – next-gen services. Individual Horizon Edge Gateway connects Horizon pods to the Horizon Cloud Service - next-gen. Horizon 8 uses the Horizon Edge Gateway to manage subscription-based licensing, bundled as the Horizon Universal License or Horizon Plus License. Using these licenses entitles customers to use the features of the Horizon Cloud Service.
Omnissa Horizon Agent - Allows the virtual machine (VM) to be managed by Horizon Connection Servers and allows a Horizon Client to form a protocol session to the VM. VMs can be virtual desktops, Remote Desktop Session Hosts (RDS Hosts), physical desktops, or PCs.
Omnissa Access and Omnissa Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub - Using Workspace ONE Access is optional to the client. End users can authenticate using password-based authentication directly to the Horizon Cloud Service.

Workspace ONE Access is included with Horizon licensing. As an Access management solution, Workspace ONE Access offers world-class patented certificate-based single sign-on solutions for Android, Apple iOS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.
Omnissa Intelligent Hub Services offers a customizable client called Omnissa Intelligent Hub. Intelligent Hub Services facilitates a Unified App Catalog that can be natively installed on Android, Apple IOS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows. Intelligent Hub can also be opened using a web browser.

RDSH servers - Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) server farms offer end users published applications and session-based remote desktops.

The published application can be installed natively on the RDSH server or delivered to the farm using App Volumes.
Leverage App Volumes to create application packages that can be mounted each time the user logs in to a desktop, at machine startup, or on-demand.
Applications packaged with Omnissa ThinApp to facilitate and enhance Application Life cycle management for RDSH server Farms.
When deploying Applications on RDSH Servers, ThinApp can be deployed natively or delivered using App Volumes.

Conclusion

Omnissa Horizon 8 is a software solution that gives any remote worker access to a desktop, physical or virtual, and published applications. Access is simple and secure. Workers can access the application or desktop regardless of whether the application is Linux or Windows-based. The remote worker will connect to their published applications or desktop using the Horizon Client from their platform of choice. This might be anything Apple, Linux, or Microsoft Windows-based.

The Horizon Client (installed on the endpoint) and the Horizon agent (installed on the desktop or published application host) offer rich customizable features to enhance integration with peripherals to facilitate an Office worker experience.

Horizon 8 integrates with Access, UEM, and Intelligence to support organizations with Zero Trust requirements and move away from password-based authentication to more secure certificate-based forms of authentication.

Find out more

One of the fastest ways to learn about Horizon is to check out the Omnissa Horizon 8 product page on Tech Zone.

You’ll also find a wealth of Horizon-related information on Tech Zone and Omnissa Docs, including:

Learn more about other Omnissa products

If you are interested in other Omnissa products, see the following introductions: