View Connection Servers (Standard and Replica)

[kelvinteang]

How to configure Connection Server (Replica) to takeover Connection Server (Standard) is not available?  Should I edit both servers external URL to https://myconnection.local:443 ?  In addition, register myconnection A record for DNS round robin?  Please advice.  Thanks.

[Magneet]

you will need a load balancer in front of both for a proper failover, round robin will still send data the the one being down. And as said above the replica is the same as a standard connection server after installation.

[kelvinteang]

Hi Magneet,

I noticed that replica does not have web server.  Is it possible to install web server manually or it is better to have 2 * Standard (Active/Active instead of Active/Replica) ?

[techguy129]

I deleted my other post because I didn't read your initial post properly( Didn't have my coffee yet) sorry.

To answer your question:

There is no difference between standard and replica server after the initial install of the standard version. Everything after the first install should be replica.

You can run all the servers in Active/Active mode with a load balancer with a heathbeat/monitor.

As for your web portal:

You need to uninstall/install the replica server. During the installation, you need to make sure you check the box for Allow HTML access. This is probably why you don't have the web portal.

[kelvinteang]

Hi Techguy129,

I did install Horizon 7 Replica Server with "Install HTML Access".  However, when I used Horizon Client -> New Server -> Enter the name of the Connection Server. Likewise when I used Browser to to access https://connectreplica.local

connectreplica.local (Error: Timeout was reached)

No issues when I connect to Connection Server (Standard).  Checked replication between Standard and replica are working fine.

Replica is not listened to TCP/443 & TCP/80 as compared to standard connection server.  Hence, installation of replica connection server was successfully completed.

[kelvinteang]

Hi all,

I have found the answer for one Connection Server, and if it went down or became unavailable. The solution to this single point of failure is to install a second Connection Server, referred to by VMware as a Replica. More than one Connection Server is referred to as a View Connection Server Group.

It’s important to understand the limits of what a replica server can deliver. Replica servers are intended to offer availability, not fault tolerance. Once a user is actively connected to a Connection Server, if it becomes unavailable the sessions it is holding do not magically get moved to the replica. Additionally, there is no automatic load balancing built-in to the Connection Server which required 3rd-party technologies to distribute the user load evenly between the Connection Servers.  In this case is 2*Standard Connection Servers.

[techguy129]

Verify that the service is running.

View the logs to see if are any issues

C:\ProgramData\VMware\VDM\logs

I strongly suggest to uninstall and install. I've had the same type of issue when I did a in-place upgrade. I had to uninstall and install to fix the issue.

[BenFB]

kelvinteang​ This is only true if tunneling is enabled on the connection servers (The default behavior). We reboot our connection servers regularly with no interruption to the connected users.

A replica is just the second server. It is functionally equivalent to a standard server but instead of building a new environment it joins the replicates with the first connection server. You could install the first connection server, then add two replicas and then remove the first connection server without any issues.

[kelvinteang]

Are you saying that I should have "VMware Horizon View Web Component" service in Connection (Replica) Server?

In my case, I don't have that service.  I have only 5x VMware related services as shown below

[techguy129]

Yes and you should also have the other services. You need to install the connection server software, select Replica and check the HTML box.

[kelvinteang]

Yes, you are right.  Did reinstall replica server and VMware Horizon View Web Component service is back.

Thanks.