VMware Horizon Community
Najtsob
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

CPA - how is the correct site selected ?

I am looking into CPA setup with two sites and each site having one pod, using Horizon 7.4.

The thing I cannot grasp is how are the external users directed to the right site if you have single namespace ?

User points browser/view client to vdi.company.com and how does the LB know which is home site for the user ? Is there some communication going between LB and connection servers so that LB can know where the user is ?

I read here (http://robbeekmans.net/uncategorized/vmware-horizon-view-cloud-pod-unwanted/) that in case that user land in site that is not his home site that traffic gets redirected trough DC interconnect, which is expensive link and better used for other things.

Another option is that you have floating desktops so it doesn't matter where the user desktop spins up, which is not the case for us.

I was reading this blog (http://www.diyar.online/2017/08/vmware-horizon-7-vdi-active-activepassive-multi-site-disaster-recove... ) where it says:

We have 2 independent sites connected with an IPSEC tunnel with 50MB bandwidth on the WAN link. Each site has an application delivery controller (some LB brand) acting as an load balancer and Global Server Load Balancer. 2 GSLB virtual servers exist one for external users and one for internal users both configured with site proximity.

This seems logical if you want to ensure that user is always connected to the data center that is geographically nearest, but again not my case where I want that user is connected to his home site and that blast/pcoip traffic doesn't cross inter DC link.

And then another blog post:

If they chose the desktop pool that is CPA enabled and their desktop is in the other Horizon Pod (in this case, the other data center), the connection is made from the client to the desktop in the remote location.

Does this means if user is directed to wrong site by LB then the connection server will tell the client, well the desktop you want to connect is in another DC, so make another connection to that other address ?

Any clarification is much appreciated.

P.S. I have issues with spam word detection, I couldn't write this post normally 😕

7 Replies
sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

My understanding is if you end up in the wrong site the connection is redirected through the interconnect between the pods to the correct desktop, which means that they are still connected to the wrong site but get connected to the correct desktop.in the correct site.

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Najtsob
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

That is also my understanding, but I would like to avoid that. Because the MPLS link between data centers is limited and costly.

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sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

I just set this up for a DR environment, so since the second site is only needed for DR I'm controlling with our F5 loadbalancer to make sure the primary site is always used. For multiple active sites maybe use some kind of source based routing

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Najtsob
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I am thinking if it s possible to have single namespace for Workspace ONE portal and then directing users to different DCs from there ?

So basically the published icon which starts Horizon client points to different connection servers and thus landing user to correct DC.

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Najtsob
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Any thoughts about this last solution with workspace one portal ?

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yotadude1
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Did you ever figure this out? So CPA Global Data Layer doesn't have the logic built-in to detect the user's connecting through a UAG not in their assigned homesite? It will not recognize that and try to reconnect them to UAG in their dedicate homesite ?

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mrkasius
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Hi yotadude1,

Nowadays VMware Horizon Service Universal Broker takes care of that.