Horizon 8 Reviews

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.

We use the solution for deployed applications.

The solution’s stability and pricing could be improved.

I have been using VMware Horizon View for one and a half years.

The product is stable.

It will be difficult to manage or to scale if the deployment is complex.

We have the product countrywide.

We always use the tech support and health check. Everything is excellent.

The initial setup is complex. Depending on the project, it can take one year, one and a half year to deploy. We have to take a lot of things in the configuration.

We do the deployment in-house. We too have many vendors onboard like Dell.

VMware Horizon has been changing a lot in the past years. It is a good option. The company should adopt more technology as it went on cloud.

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

Our company uses the solution as a virtual desktop for clients at universities and banks. One customer has more than 200 users who log in from anywhere. 

The solution includes good user profiles and policies. 

The solution integrates well with other VMware products.

Productivity is improved with use of the solution. 

The standard license does not include certain features. 

Customers do not understand the requirements for VGA solutions so education and marketing are needed. 

I have been using the solution for four years. 

The solution is stable compared to other platforms. 

The solution is scalable to any number of devices or users and integrates well with other VMware products. 

Technical support is responsive and solves issues quickly so I rate support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

I previously used Citrix.

The setup is straightforward in comparison to Citrix. 

Our internal team implements the on-premises solution for clients and utilizes third-party providers for VGA components. 

Ongoing maintenance only requires two team members. 

The pricing can be a challenge because certain features are not standard and require a separate license. 

The solution can be costly for customers who do not run mission-critical applications or who have less than 50 users. For these use cases, we recommend alternative products. 

I evaluated other options that included RDS. 

The solution is big and stable with many features. Integrations and user scalability are easy compared to other products. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

The administrative console – it allows us to do a lot from the back-end where we don’t have to impact the users at all.

We can spin up a virtual machine real quick for any solutions that any end-user needs. That’s what I really like.

Well, one of the features we would like to have (even though it was released last year), was NSX. We’re providing a web portal services so that we can spin out any servers that they need, so those things would help. The NSX is something that we are looking at right now.

It’s very stable. We have a very stable environment. We use a cloud provider to provision our desktop, just trying to get our servers to collaborate together takes a bit of a challenge. It’s an ongoing transition, so the knowledge transition takes a bit of time.

We’ve scaled up a lot. When we first started out, we’re fairly young using a virtual environment. We started with 130, and moved to over 500 now. It’s great and it’s not time consuming at all or difficult. It’s been rewarding to us.

The only downfall in our organization is the budget constraints, as we’re a nonprofit organization, so using a third party cloud provider is not free, so we have to let our user community know about the costs associated with using the environment. It’s a direct cost.

They’re great. They use the case number customer support, and the technician will contact you and you tell them your issues. They give you a knowledge based article, and then if you can’t resolve the issue they will get back with you. They also do a WebEx session with you in figuring our problems. They’re able to resolve it right away. When I have to call them, they’re very good at what they do, and especially talking to somebody on the phone, they’re very knowledgeable in diagnosing issues. They share information, they communicate well, and they give you a comfort zone to make sure you’re ok with everything.

We were using an HP appliance, and we were trying to get away and use what VMware recommended. Our HP appliance was out of warranty and old, and we just needed o upgrade.

The design was complex to understand. When we set it up on our environment, I went through the classes but doing it hands on was a little different. However, after that initial hurdle, it was very clear.

Dependability, stability, and ease of use are what we look for. We looked at Citrix and Microsoft, we went with VMware as we had been using VMWare for the last ten years in our tech lab, so it was easy to just have it across the board.

Definitely. Peer reviews are one of the first things I take a look at before creating my vendor list.

We would have to be completely VMware, i.e every product we have from VMware to have it working perfectly. However, it is great for us right now though.

I use VMware Horizon for a variety of workforce, both internal and external.

The solution is easier to deploy and maintain on any Windows desktop, making it simpler to manage. It provides a robust infrastructure.

The most valuable feature is the instant clones, the integration with ESXi, and the center servers are the standout features.

There is room for improvement in the integration with other parts of the suite. For example, you currently need separate windows to manage app volumes and the dynamic environment manager (DEM). So, it's important to integrate all these infrastructure elements into one window.

I have been using this solution for six years. We used version 7, now we are using VMware Horizon 8. 

I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. 

It is easy to scale. I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten.

The complexity of the initial setup was acceptable. 

There is a big return of investment. Because I implemented it in a university, and they mentioned that the administration of lab PCs became much more efficient. Tasks that used to take a month now take less than a week, so it's a significant return on investment.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. I recommend choosing the best implementation company because sometimes clients aren't happy with Horizon due to poor implementation. I've seen this happen often. So, selecting a company with a lot of experience and successful implementations is essential. Sometimes, users get frustrated not with the product itself but with the way it's implemented.

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. 

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 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.