Skip to main content
  • EN
Solved

VMware Horizon VDI support

Hello, I have been asked by one of Veeam partners about my take if it comes to Veeam support for VMware Horizon VDI platform, despite the choice of taking the POC option I also chose to take your input on this. Considering that VMware Horizon VDI is based on ESXi, do we still consider the desktops(Instances) or sockets as unit of licensing?  If so, is there any operational implication or/and limitation if it comes to operations and protection of the VMware Horizon components? 

 

Just to mention I was able to get this old article (posted 2011) but with many Veeam versions since then I decided not to fully reference ithttps://forums.veeam.com/vmware-vsphere-f24/vmware-view-best-practices-backing-up-vdi-server-clients-t6517.html

7 comments

MicoolPaul
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Hey Malo,

 

Unlike some other applications such as Microsoft Exchange, Veeam don’t have official “application support” for VMware Horizon. It would be difficult to have an official support for it as there are so many varied deployments and that will vary dramatically what can be protected.

 

Your Veeam licensing can be done per socket or per instance, I’d recommend per instance due to the amount of redundant data copies within a VMware Horizon environment, you’d be fully featured but it would be cheaper. You can then leverage tags to determine what must be backed up.

Veeam licensing won’t be the only consideration here though, you’ve not made any mention of what storage you’ll be using so I’d like to highlight one of the go to storage systems for VDI: VMware vSAN. VMware vSAN is supported in hot-add and network modes only, but VMware’s VDI licensing inclusion of ESXi is on the condition no other workloads run on the ESXi host, so you’ll be restricted to network backup mode if you’re planning on using these.

Aside from this, what is the intended deployment of VMware Horizon? RDS / Win 10? Instant Clones, Linked Clones, Agents? Etc

Michael Paul - Opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Veeam | https://micoolpaul.com | Twitter: @MicoolPaul | Mastodon: @micoolpaul@masto.nu | Bluesky: @micoolpaul.com
Malo
Userlevel 3

Hey Malo,

 

Unlike some other applications such as Microsoft Exchange, Veeam don’t have official “application support” for VMware Horizon. It would be difficult to have an official support for it as there are so many varied deployments and that will vary dramatically what can be protected.

 

Your Veeam licensing can be done per socket or per instance, I’d recommend per instance due to the amount of redundant data copies within a VMware Horizon environment, you’d be fully featured but it would be cheaper. You can then leverage tags to determine what must be backed up.

Veeam licensing won’t be the only consideration here though, you’ve not made any mention of what storage you’ll be using so I’d like to highlight one of the go to storage systems for VDI: VMware vSAN. VMware vSAN is supported in hot-add and network modes only, but VMware’s VDI licensing inclusion of ESXi is on the condition no other workloads run on the ESXi host, so you’ll be restricted to network backup mode if you’re planning on using these.

Aside from this, what is the intended deployment of VMware Horizon? RDS / Win 10? Instant Clones, Linked Clones, Agents? Etc

Thank you MiCoolPaul,

This is helpful. Storage System is HPE Nimble HF60 with 118 usable HDD and 16TB SSD. No vSAN Storage option with a mix of Win 7, 8 and 10.

Malo
MicoolPaul
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Thanks for the information, that’s good to know then, that way you can leverage storage snapshots (assuming you’ve got enterprise plus socket licensing or you’re using VUL as your license type) & Direct SAN Access, so you’ve got the potential for great backup performance there.

 

As you’ve got Windows 8 in there I take it that means you’re not trying to use Instant Clones so are they linked clone pools, automatic full virtual machine pools or manual virtual machines?

Michael Paul - Opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Veeam | https://micoolpaul.com | Twitter: @MicoolPaul | Mastodon: @micoolpaul@masto.nu | Bluesky: @micoolpaul.com
Malo
Userlevel 3

Thanks for the information, that’s good to know then, that way you can leverage storage snapshots (assuming you’ve got enterprise plus socket licensing or you’re using VUL as your license type) & Direct SAN Access, so you’ve got the potential for great backup performance there.

 

As you’ve got Windows 8 in there I take it that means you’re not trying to use Instant Clones so are they linked clone pools, automatic full virtual machine pools or manual virtual machines?

Resourceful. Linked Clone pools used.

Malo
MicoolPaul
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Thanks for the information. Going back to your original question now.

You’ll be able to protect the persistent data of the VMware Horizon VDI deployment without issue, you can protect all the management layer components such as VMware Horizon View Server and Security Server as those are just traditional virtual machines. You can back up your gold image used for deployment as well as the vCenter being used for VDI management. Aside from this we haven’t spoken about additional components such as App Volumes or Persona Management (or whether you’re using roaming profiles), but PM/Roaming Profiles will use a standard network share IIRC so you just need to back up that server as normal to protect the data.

 

Let us know if you have any further questions 😊

Michael Paul - Opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Veeam | https://micoolpaul.com | Twitter: @MicoolPaul | Mastodon: @micoolpaul@masto.nu | Bluesky: @micoolpaul.com
Malo
Userlevel 3

Thanks for the information. Going back to your original question now.

You’ll be able to protect the persistent data of the VMware Horizon VDI deployment without issue, you can protect all the management layer components such as VMware Horizon View Server and Security Server as those are just traditional virtual machines. You can back up your gold image used for deployment as well as the vCenter being used for VDI management. Aside from this we haven’t spoken about additional components such as App Volumes or Persona Management (or whether you’re using roaming profiles), but PM/Roaming Profiles will use a standard network share IIRC so you just need to back up that server as normal to protect the data.

 

Let us know if you have any further questions 😊

Thank you Michael, for the insights. This will do at this point.

Malo
Rick Vanover
Userlevel 7
Badge +10

Outstanding responses @MicoolPaul  - thank you!

Twitter @RickVanover | Email: rick.vanover@veeam.com

Comment


Terms & Conditions