Horizon Administrator Free Sample Questions

Virtual Dedicated Graphics Acceleration (vDGA) uses vSphere DirectPath I/O (PCI passthrough) to give a virtual machine exclusive access to one entire physical GPU with the native NVIDIA driver. This offers the highest performance for demanding 3D applications, at a strict 1:1 mapping of GPU to VM. vSGA and NVIDIA vGPU share a GPU among multiple VMs, and software 3D rendering uses the CPU.

Users can authenticate and see their entitlements, so the control traffic is working: client to UAG over HTTPS, and UAG to Connection Server. The black screen means the display-protocol connection from the UAG in the DMZ to the Horizon Agent is failing. For tunnelled or gateway connections, Omnissa requires TCP and UDP 22443 from the Unified Access Gateway to the Horizon Agent for Blast, and TCP 4172 plus UDP 4172 (from source port 55000) for PCoIP. A firewall change that blocks these ports between the DMZ and the desktop network causes exactly this symptom, while internal users are unaffected. Source: Horizon Security, 'TCP and UDP Ports for Clients and Agents'.

Per the Horizon privilege tables: Manage Sessions allows disconnecting and logging off sessions and sending messages. Manage Reboot Operation allows restarting virtual desktops and resetting VMs (restart and reset need this privilege, not Manage Sessions). Manage Help Desk (Read only) gives read-only access to the Horizon Help Desk Tool and pool/session information. None of these lets the role create or delete pools (Manage Farms and Desktop and Application Pools), change global configuration (Manage Global Configuration and Policies) or manage roles (Manage Roles and Permissions). Source: Omnissa Horizon 8 Administration, 'Object-Specific Privileges' and 'Privileges for Managing Sessions and Global Sessions'.

Cloud Pod Architecture (CPA) links multiple pods into a pod federation with global entitlements. The Global Data Layer is replicated to every Connection Server, so any pod knows a user's entitlements and home site, and the VIPA channel lets the connecting pod launch or find sessions in other pods. Home sites steer users to their home datacenter, and when a site is unavailable the scope policy lets desktops be allocated from the other site. A global load balancer is normally placed in front of the pods to give users a single namespace URL, but on its own it has no entitlement or home-site awareness; CPA is the Horizon feature that meets the requirement. (Omnissa Horizon Cloud Pod Architecture guide.)

The Horizon Connection Server is the core management component, acting as the 'brain' of the Horizon pod. It handles user authentication against Active Directory, queries the desktop inventory, brokers the connection between the client and the appropriate desktop or application, and enforces policies.

The Horizon HTML Access Client allows users to connect to their desktops and applications through a standard web browser without needing to install any client software. This is the ideal solution for unmanaged devices, kiosks, or situations where software installation is restricted.

This is false. A single Horizon pod, which consists of a set of Connection Servers sharing a common AD LDS database, must be located within a single datacenter. The latency requirements between components are too low to support a stretched deployment. To span multiple datacenters, you must use Cloud Pod Architecture (CPA) to link separate, distinct pods.

vSGA is a feature that uses a native VMware driver to share a physical GPU's resources among multiple VMs. It is suitable for light 3D workloads, such as Windows Aero or office applications. It provides a lower level of performance and compatibility compared to NVIDIA GRID vGPU but can support a higher density of users per GPU for less demanding tasks.

When you store instant-clone replicas on a separate datastore, the Omnissa documentation requires that the replica datastore be accessible from all ESXi hosts in the cluster; only one separate replica datastore can be specified per pool, and the option is not available with vSAN datastores. Source: Omnissa Horizon 8 'Reducing Storage Requirements with Instant Clones'.

In the Horizon Console, the logical grouping of one or more Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) servers is called a 'Farm.' To create, manage, or view these groupings, the administrator must navigate to the Inventory > Farms section. Once a farm is created, it can then be used to create Application Pools or RDS Desktop Pools.

A Writable Volume is a dedicated, user-assigned virtual disk (VMDK or VHD) that attaches to a user's session. It captures and persists changes that would normally be lost on a non-persistent desktop, such as user-installed applications, profile settings, and other user-specific data. This provides a persistent experience on a non-persistent desktop.

During the customization phase each new instant clone powers on, gets an IP address from DHCP, and ClonePrep joins it to the domain. During a push-image, new clones are created while the old ones are still being replaced, so extra addresses are needed and the old leases have not yet expired. If the desktop VLAN's DHCP scope is exhausted, the new VMs get no address, cannot reach a domain controller, and customization times out. Enlarging the scope or shortening lease times fixes this. Source: Desktops and Applications in Horizon 8, 'Instant Clone Desktop Pools' (customization and domain join during initial power-on) and 'Instant Clone Image Publishing and Creation Workflow'.

The Horizon Connection Server integrates directly with the vCenter Server. vCenter is the management plane for the vSphere environment. Horizon leverages vCenter's APIs to perform all virtualization-related tasks, such as powering on VMs, creating clones (full, instant), taking snapshots, and managing the ESXi hosts and datastores where the desktops reside.

This is the correct multi-site architecture. Deploying independent pods in each datacenter avoids stretching the management plane over a high-latency WAN. Cloud Pod Architecture (CPA) federates these pods, and a global entitlement makes the application available across both sites. The Global Server Load Balancer (GSLB) is the key component that provides the single entry point and directs users to their nearest datacenter based on latency, while also handling failover if one site is unavailable.

Active Directory user account properties include session limits, such as 'End a disconnected session' and 'Active session limit'. These settings are often used to enforce security policies but can be overlooked during VDI troubleshooting. If a specific user's account has an 'Active session limit' of 60 minutes, it would explain why only that user is being disconnected at a regular interval, overriding any settings within Horizon itself.