Welcome to the forum, and Horizon.
I'll do my best to summarize the various moving parts of Horizon for you. For the full documentation, see this: VMware Horizon 7
What is Horizon?
Horizon is a collection of VMware tools and utilities that allow administrators to create an environment of virtual machines that are either created on-demand or ahead of time, for end-users to be able to access.
What does it actually do?
Horizon allows you to create groups/pools of either Virtual Machines or Windows Applications which can be accessed through web, client, or even phone/tablet app by end-users. It uses templates or full virtual machines to create/maintain any number of sessions at a given time, with full video access through the varying client applications.
Think of it as having the ability to use Microsoft's Remote Desktop on your phone, tablet, web browser, etc to connect to any kind of virtual machine directly as if through the console. In the background, the machine may be a full, standalone virtual machine, or simply a small clone of a larger template - which one they get depends on how you want to setup your environment.
What are the components?
Horizon is made up of a handful of moving parts, that come together to allow for a seamless interaction between a user and their session.
- View Composer: The service that provides the video/console environment which end-users will connect to.
- View Administrator: The web-based administration tool that you will use to create resources for end-users to utilize.
- View Agent: The service which runs on the target/client machines that allows for the View Composer to connect and control them.
- Client: The application end-users will use on their computer, tablet, phone, or via web-browser to connect to sessions.
How does it all work (basically)?
Setup your View Composer server, the machine that will be serving up all the sessions. Install the agent on any/all virtual machines that will be available to end-users. Use the Administrator interface to create Desktop or Application "Pools" of machines that end-users will connect to. Use the Administrator Interface to assign permissions to users per Pool.
Point your users/their Horizon applications at your View Composer server so that they can see and login to the pools that you've given them permission to.
Hope this helps!
