Horizon 8 Reviews

My use case is to try from the customer experience because right now, we work from home and anywhere. So, and also the power consumption of the desktop and IT security are concerns. 

I find the virtual desktop and its spacious capacity to be the most valuable aspect of VMware Horizon View in my experience.

There is room for improvement in security features. In the next release, perhaps they could add some 3D features to Horizon View, especially considering the concerns around ransomware and security. 

I have been using this solution for two years. 

It's stable; we haven't experienced any major issues or glitches.

We can scale it easily. There are around 200 users in my company who use Horizon View. 

In terms of technical support, it's easier to contact the support team with Horizon View.

The initial setup is very simple. 

The solution has a higher price than competitors. The price could be more flexible for clients.

In my experience, the deployment process is better with Horizon View than with other solutions. The GUI is also better and it's easier to operate. And in terms of technical support, it's easier to contact the support team with Horizon View.

I would definitely recommend using this solution. Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We are using it to provide our users with a personalized desktop experience when they're working remotely, especially during the pandemic.

We are using its latest version. We usually deploy it on-prem, but I know that there is a possibility to put it on the cloud.

It is simpler and faster to deploy new versions and updates. It is also easier to make sure that everybody is using a standard image or a standard setup.

One of the most interesting features in the enterprise version is the ability to do some support. There is a feature for remote control and debugging, which is something we didn't have before having Horizon 7 and the enterprise version.

It is safer in terms of viruses and other types of attacks. If a machine ever becomes compromised, you can just destroy it immediately by logging off and having it recomposed.

The most important feature that is missing is the ability to do some remote support on the client itself. For example, if somebody has a Horizon client installed on his machine, there should be a way to support his local machine as well. That's because most of the problems can't be solved very often due to the computer or the setup that someone is using on his personal machine. Because a Horizon client is already installed on the machine to access the environment, it would be nice if the client itself possessed some sort of remote control tool in it so that if needed, we could support both the virtual setup and the actual setup of the machine. It pretty much does everything well. It is mostly the support aspect that can be improved. You have perfect control over your in-house environment. You have a solution that can pretty much be used anywhere, but you have no control over the machine that's being used to access your environment. Definitely, that's where most of the features are lacking. There should be an option for remote control and maybe some options for conformity. For example, if somebody installed the Horizon client on their shared computer, there could be some safety features or safety checks that were implemented in the client itself to make sure that the person using it is not using a compromised machine or something like that.

Its integration with third parties can be improved. Sometimes, there is a lack of integration with third parties. For example, we had issues at some point with Adobe products running in virtualization. I know they have a very hard time running in a virtualized environment and performing correctly. They work, but they're very slow, and they're hard to support.

I have been using this solution for probably close to two years.

The solution is very stable. It is very robust. The most fragile factor is the actual VM or the OS that you run on it. You might have a good virtual desktop solution, but if your VM that is running has an actual bug in it, such as a faulty patch or a problem that has to do more with software, then you're stuck with it anyway. 

Its scalability is very good based on what I have seen so far. It is easy to scale it up or down, and I haven't seen any constraints of any kind.

Usually, at any given time, there are close to a hundred users who are using it. It is used by all departments. We use it everywhere, and it is used extensively. We don't really plan to extend it because it is already fulfilling all of our needs, so we don't need to upscale or downscale it. It is just perfect right now for our needs.

It often depends on who you end up with. I've seen some people who go the extra mile and solve your problems really easily and quickly. If they don't have a solution, they'll make sure that somebody is able to help you. I've also seen the complete opposite at times where you have trouble trying to get follow-ups. It really depends on who's handling your case, and the fact that their support center is in India doesn't always help. I don't know if it's a language barrier or a social barrier or something else, but it's not easy. They are on the better side than the worst, but there is definitely room for improvement.

We were using Horizon 5. Before that, I've used different technologies but not in this environment. I've used a Citrix Metaframe in a different environment and not at this job.

It was very straightforward. It was a lot simpler than previous versions.

It was an in-house job. We were using Horizon 5, so we already had some experience with the product.

For its maintenance, one or two people are enough.

We have definitely got an ROI.

It is hard to know for sure. It is definitely in the $20,000 to $30,000 range. It is quite expensive, but you do save money on desktop power, desktop upgrades, etc. You're able to extend the useful life of your previous desktops. Previously, we used to change desktops regularly, and now we just change them when they break.

If you're currently looking for a solution that's in-house, it's a great solution. If you're looking into something that's more cloud-based, then you should definitely try a successor, which is a Horizon 8 or Horizon Air.

I would rate Horizon 7 an eight out of 10.

We were spread across several offices and with the main production software tool and the weak WAN infrastructure, it was impossible to share data reliably. It seemed the only solution was to centralize the data and make it so the people using the data - the workers - could be anywhere. With past experiences in server virtualization, I investigated VMware View. It was the missing key that made this all work.

At this stage, a couple of iterations later, workers now only come to the office a couple of days a week. The company has been able to eliminate two offices entirely, and in addition, we have a much wider base of operations because employees can live practically anywhere in our "territory".

The ability to reliably virtualize desktops and support them. Simple to say, but complicated nonetheless. 

Almost all VMware products are "designed" for the enterprise and it sometimes takes some wise wrangling to make it financially viable. And VMware doesn't make that easy. I think the SMB market is largely untapped and maybe even ignored.

VMware is incredibly stable. Even when you don't know what you're doing. And for the times you get stuck - that's why they offer support. VMware support is pretty good.

VMware products are almost infinitely scalable. 

Tech support by and large is excellent. There is some swapping out between internal VMware groups sometimes, they are very compartmentalized but they generally can get you out of just about any hole you dig yourself into. 

No. I had used VMware in a "past" life and didn't even consider other solutions as viable.

It's not shake the box easy but if you do your homework, do some rudimentary testing and do a lot of research it's possible, viable - you can even do it yourself.

I did it all in house on my own.

It's not cheap but compared to constant hardware refreshes it doesn't take long to pay itself back. 

Don't be afraid to search out your own solution. It's not that hard to architect a viable virtual desktop environment. You don't have to implement each and every feature. 

No, as stated above.

The solution's most valuable features are its ease of deployment and ease of distribution of the desktops and the applications. It is quite an easy product since the end user does not have to go through much of a learning curve.

I have not come across many of the product's weaknesses. Considering the tool's weaknesses, the product probably has scope for some improvement in the context of how the applications or Linux operating systems are delivered using VMware Horizon View. In general, I want VMware Horizon View's compatibility with Linux to improve.

I have experience with VMware Horizon View. I am a technical trainer who teaches others VMware technologies. My company has a partnership with VMware.

I find the product to be quite stable.

It is a scalable solution.

I have used Citrix VDI in the past.

I have lost track of Citrix VDI since I have not used it for a few years.

Some detailed and in-depth documentation on the protocols, like Blast and PCoIP, would be good.

The time taken for deployments completely depends on the customer's call.

I have seen a lot of improvement in VMware Horizon View over the years because I have been teaching it to others for quite a few years now.

I don't find any issues with the product's interface since it is easy to use and does not pose any issues.

The documentation of VMware Horizon View is quite good.

Most of the environments have many implementations going forward, and then our company regularly comes across the need for VMware Horizon View training. My company is not into advisory roles. We just get or receive and deliver the training.

The product is easy to use.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case for this solution is the virtual desktop infrastructure.

We have found this solution valuable because it has cut our costs for purchasing new hardware.

The product could be improved by correcting how information is provided because we have issues with the client and the backend. The system is not designed to allow the client to log in easily and multiple passwords are required. This could be improved by requiring the client to input only the active directory username and password.

The primary problem we are facing is logging in locally on the SIEM client as a local, then click on the Horizon Seven and then call or connect to the server connection, then use the administrative username and password to log in, which is difficult for the students when we are dealing with the student. This is the most challenging stage because the rest of the backend is okay. We would like to see improvements to this problem and understand why there is no compatibility between the SIEM client and the backend.

We have been using this solution for about four years and are currently working with Horizon Seven. It is deployed on-premises.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. There are 200 people using it in our organization. However, it is difficult to maintain because the handover from our third party was bad. There was no adequate knowledge transfer.

The support from VMware is very good and they have amazing experts. Whenever I raise a case to VMware technical support team, they respond immediately and fix any issues we have. They are very professional.

The initial setup was difficult. I rate it a seven out of ten.

We used the resellers to set up. However, the reseller we used is no longer in the market anymore. The company closed.

The product has high license costs. I cannot give an exact figure on the price as our procurement department handles this. However, we would rate the licensing fees a nine out of ten because of how high it is.

I rate this solution a seven out of ten. The product is good, but improvements can be made to how information is provided. We recommend this solution to new users who want to start working with it.

We use this solution for our virtual desktop infrastructure where the user's desktops are running the data center using Horizon. With the increase in the number of people working from home, we wanted a solution like Horizon. We are customers and I'm a resident consultant. 

The major advantage of this solution is that users can log in from anywhere and from a variety of devices. Previously, it was difficult for us to manage but when we moved to VDI and people were able to log in from anywhere, it made a huge difference. I like that we're able to take a snapshot of the desktop. 

Reporting could be improved. We have 200-300 users and it's difficult to know who has logged in and when. We have to do this manually so having a tool that would enable the export of reporting would be useful and save a lot of time.

I've been using this solution for six months. 

The solution is stable and highly reliable. We haven't had any issues with bugs, users are able to plug in properly, and the VMs are working fine.

Scalability is good. We initially started with four servers and within a month we have scaled it up, adding an additional four servers. We initially purchased 100 licenses and then another 100. It was simple and straightforward to scale up.

We contacted support for implementing the SSL certificate and for enabling the MFA. The support was good and we were able to resolve our issues. 

The initial setup was simple and straightforward although it will be more difficult for anyone who doesn't have experience. We have around 200 users and deployment took about three days. We have one admin for patching and updating.

Licensing is on an annual basis and quite costly. 

We use this solution heavily and I would definitely recommend it. 

I'd like to rate this solution more highly, but because of the issue with reporting, I rate it eight out of 10. 

We use it to provide virtual client desktops for remote users or data center users. It's basically for people to work from home or for a call center.

Instant Clone instantly creates another VM with a Delta disk, which is just the VMware backend. This helps with scalability and management.

They need to make troubleshooting, diagnostics, and error reporting a little better. There are too many consoles with different error messages to identify a problem and figure out how to fix it

I have been using VMware Horizon for 10 years.

It's hard to generally classify this product's performance as stable or not. The performance is dependent on the hardware, not the product. If you have fast hardware, it's going to be fast. If you have slow hardware, it's going to be slow.

Technical support is better than most. I would say it's above average.

It's very complex. There are multiple steps, connectors, and servers. All of them have multiple components that all talk, so that's never going to be easy. But I think it's complex because of what it's doing. And if you use it all the time, that complexity just becomes familiar.

We implemented in-house.

Test it. You can't just listen to a consultant. You have to test it yourself and set up a proof of concept.

I would rate VMware Horizon a seven out of ten. 

It is a method of providing a user with access to centralized resources in the form of either a full desktop session or a hosted application, whether it is Windows or Linux.

Horizon is known for its simplicity, security and flexibility in its deployment. It allows for simplified management, advanced user configuration and apllication deployment, all at speed and at scale.

The most valuable feature of this solution is secure remote access to resources.

A simple way to load-balance components has been missing for several years. Because VMware Horizon lacks a load-balancing component, you must always use a third-party solution. VMware recommends that since you have VMware vSphere underneath, you run NSX to get your load balancer from there. However, not every customer can afford to run NSX.

A simple way, particularly for smaller environments, would be to have load balance connection servers and unified access gateways would be extremely beneficial.

The backlog of the development team is extensive. We know the load-balancing is in the roadmap somewhere but it's unknown when it will get addressed.

I would like to see simple load-balancing for smaller environments that lack large solutions like F5, or NSX; it should be redundant or unavailable but in a simple way.

Perhaps limited to only two components; if more are required, a paid load balancing solution can be used.

Load balancing for simple environments, or simple redundancy, is sorely lacking.

I have been working with VMware Horizon for approximately eleven years.

The first one I sold was version four.

We are working with version eight, and our customers run version seven and some are already on version eight. 

Version seven is already out of support.

The most recent version is 8.11, but they no longer use that numbering; it is now 2312. The new numbering reflects the month and year of release.

The stability of VMware Horizon is incredible for both Horizon version seven and version eight.

The only reason the basic component connection server failed was that there was something broken underneath, either storage or compute. Horizon itself rarely has any issues.

At present, VMware Horizon scales up to 250,000 concurrent sessions.

In my opinion, VMware Horizon is a very scalable product. The most prominent companies in the world use it. Some require it to scale to that level, which is why it is capable of doing so.

I would rate the technical support a three and a half out of five. 

It has become a very large organization with many procedures and layers. It usually takes a long time to get to the right person who can actually solve your problem, if you get there at all.

I was better in the past, but it was also smaller, and that would have made it easier.

The response times are not an issue, but you must go through a couple of layers, especially if you have a more complicated problem, to get the right person involved. It takes time.

The future with KKR is uncertain, due to the fact that EUC has now split up and has left VMware/Broadcom. It could be very positive, as it will now be a focused group that only supports the EUC stack.

It can be deployed in your private cloud, a public cloud, or a hybrid of the two. 

VMware Horizon only has one license, which is a license to run desktops. They don't care if you run them on Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba, your own Data Center, or a combination of those.

There is a cloud platform included to be able to govern it, the Horizon Cloud Console.

The initial setup is dependent on what you compare it to. 

When referring to an on-premises installation, the infrastructure isn't that complex; otherwise, it's just the cloud, which is a service that you use, and that is not necessarily complex.

On-premises you have some components, and there is some designing involved, especially if the environment is medium to large.

The complexity is in your data, and your applications, not in VMware Horizon.

A PoC is set up in a couple of days.

The basic environment depends on the organization; for example, a complete infrastructure for a large company can take two weeks to set up. You are dealing with a lot of integration with other components, and setting up load balancers and certificates.

It is worth the investment. We have customer success stories about how great VMware Horizon is as a product and how it has solved problems for them.

One of the things I try to do as an architect is to give or provide the customer with a solution that actually fits.

There are numerous methods for delivering a digital workplace to you; it does not have to be a virtual desktop; there are other options.

I am aware of the license models, but not the prices. There are multiple licensing options, please refer to Understanding Horizon Licenses (87490) (vmware.com) for more information.

Our company became a VMware partner because they already had Airwatch as a very large product, and VMware purchased Airwatch.

We then did some Digital Workspace and complimented it with Horizon. We do infrastructure as well as network virtualization.

I would advise using a trial first. You can use a free trial version for 60 days for almost every VMware product that is available. Register for a trial, download the bits and you are ready to go. For two months you can spend some quality time to see if the solution is what you need.

There are also the VMware hands-on labs that VMware provides. 

VMware provides live labs that you can use. They are built on request just by clicking a button and one minute later you have an environment that you want to get acquainted with.

It allows you to open the console, change the configuration and do whatever you want, and when you are done, the lab gets destroyed and rebuilt for another person free of charge.

It's a friendly way to get to know a product and to get acquainted with the look and feel to see if it is something that would fit with your environment. Then you could try a trial in your environment.

I would rate VMware Horizon an eight out of ten. 

It is a complete product.

It is fully mature, easy to manage, and it is easy to design if you know what you are doing. 

It is stable and there are new features that come from the new release twice a year.