VMware Horizon 8: Virtual Desktop Troubleshooting

This two-day course builds your skills in resolving common issues that occur in a VMware Horizon® environment. You engage in a series of lab exercises to bring existing environment issues to resolution. The exercises mirror real-world troubleshooting use cases. These exercises equip learners with the knowledge and practical skills to manage typical challenges faced by virtual desktop administrators and operators.

Who Can Benefit

• New or junior administrators and operators; system managers accountable for staffing and training Horizon operators and administrators.

Skills Gained

• By the end of the course, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Implement a structured approach to troubleshooting
• Resolve common issues that occur in a VMware Horizon environment
• Troubleshoot issues with linked and instant clones
• Configure the Windows client
• Identify the correct log level for gathering logs
• Optimize protocols for best end-user experience

Prerequisites

• VMware Horizon 8: Skills for Virtual Desktop Management. This course also requires knowledge of the following:
• Using VMware vSphere® Web Client to view the state of virtual machines, datastores, and networks
• Opening a virtual machine console on VMware vCenter Server® and accessing the guest operating system
• Configuring Active Directory services, including DNS, DHCP, and time synchronization
• Restricting user activities by implementing Group Policy objects
• Configuring Windows systems to enable Remote Desktop Connections
• Building an ODBC connection to an SQL Server database

Course Content

Outline

• Course Introduction
• Introductions and course logistics
• Course objectives

• Overview of Virtual Desktop Troubleshooting
• Structured approach to troubleshooting configuration and operational problems
• Applying troubleshooting methods
• Documenting the steps to resolving the problem

• Command-Line Tools and Backup Options
• Using command-line tools
• Backing-up and restoring VMware Horizon databases

• Troubleshooting Horizon Linked Clone Desktops
• Only applicable for Horizon 7.x environments
• Describe the components that make up a VMware Horizon desktop
• Explain how the View Agent Direct-Connection plug-In is useful for diagnosing problems
• Highlight the best practice for optimizing a VMware Horizon desktop
• Troubleshoot common problems with VMware Horizon desktops

• Troubleshooting Instant Clones
• Discuss how instant clones are created
• Discuss what gets logged when an instant clone is created
• Discuss the keywords to look for in the logs when troubleshooting instant clones
• Discuss how to troubleshoot problems with instant clones

• Windows Client
• Correctly configure the Windows Client
• Identify the correct log level for gathering logs
• Enable the required SSL configuration level for the environment

• Ports and Protocols
• Discuss the key ports on a Horizon Environment
• Discuss protocols used in the Horizon Environment
• Understand the benefit of optimizing Blast
• Become familiar with the optimization features for Blast
• Implement GPO changes for Blast
• Become familiar with the causes for Black Screens
• Discuss how to troubleshoot Black Screen problems
• Identify problems encountered when applying GPOs
• Discuss how to troubleshoot GPO-related problems