SOLUTION GUIDE

Optimizing VMware Horizon Data

Solution Guide
Version 1.1
November 2013
Optimizing VMware Horizon Data: Solution Guide

© 2013 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved.

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Optimizing VMware Horizon Data: Solution Guide

Contents
PREFACE ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
About This Guide .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Audience .................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Contacting Riverbed ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Internet ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Technical Support ...................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Professional Services................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Chapter 1 Solution Overview ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Why Riverbed? ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Solution Architecture ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Requirements ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 5
Chapter 2 Deploying with Steelhead Appliances ........................................................................................................................................................ 6
Understanding the Deployment Process ........................................................................................................................................................... 6
Creating an In-Path Rule ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Installing the Certificate and Private Key ........................................................................................................................................................... 8
Installing the Root CA Certificate........................................................................................................................................................................ 9
Verifying Optimization.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Chapter 4 Troubleshooting ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Server Bypassed ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 10
Ensure Trust is Established Between Steelhead Appliances ........................................................................................................................ 10
Miscellaneous Troubleshooting Tips ............................................................................................................................................................... 10
Appendix A Additional Resources............................................................................................................................................................................. 11
Steelhead Management Console User’s Guide ............................................................................................................................................... 11
RiOS Technical Overview .................................................................................................................................................................................. 11
Installing and Configuring Horizon Workspace .............................................................................................................................................. 11
VMware Horizon Data Performance Brief ......................................................................................................................................................... 11

© 2013 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. 2

Optimizing VMware Horizon Data: Solution Guide

PREFACE
Welcome to the Optimizing VMware Horizon Data Solution Guide. Read this preface for an overview of the information provided
in this guide and contact information. This preface includes the following sections:

 About This Guide

 Contacting Riverbed

About This Guide

The Optimizing VMware Horizon Data Solution Guide describes how to configure Steelhead appliances to optimize VMware
Horizon Data traffic.

Audience

This guide is written for network administrators familiar with administering and managing WANs using common network protocols
such as TCP, CIFS, HTTP, FTP, and NFS. This guide also assumes familiarity with VMware virtualization technology along with
VMware Horizon Workspace.

You must also be familiar with:

 the Management Console. For details, see the Steelhead Management Console User’s Guide.
 the installation and configuration process for the Steelehead appliance. For details, see the Steelhead Appliance Installation
and Configuration Guide and the Virtual Steelhead Installation Guide.
 the installation and configuration process for VMware Horizon Workspace. For details, see the Installing and Configuring
Horizon Workspace guide.
 administration of VMware Horizon Workspace. For details, see Horizon Workspace Administrator's Guide.

For more details on the Steelhead appliance family, see

http://www.riverbed.com/products-solutions/products/wan-optimization-steelhead/

Contacting Riverbed

This section describes how to contact departments within Riverbed.

Internet

You can learn about Riverbed products through the company Web site: http://www.riverbed.com.

Technical Support

If you have problems installing, using, or replacing Riverbed products, contact Riverbed Support or your channel partner who
provides support. To contact Riverbed Support, open a trouble ticket by calling 1-888-RVBD-TAC (1-888-782-3822) in the United
States and Canada or +1 415 247 7381 outside the United States. You can also go to https://support.riverbed.com.

Professional Services

Riverbed has a staff of professionals who can help you with installation, provisioning, network redesign, project management,
custom designs, consolidation project design, and custom coded solutions. To contact Riverbed Professional Services, email
proserve@riverbed.com or go to http://www.riverbed.com/us/products/professional_services/.

© 2013 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. 3

Optimizing VMware Horizon Data: Solution Guide

Chapter 1 Solution Overview

VMware® Horizon® Data is a key part of the VMware Horizon Workspace. VMware Horizon Data allows Horizon Workspace users
to share files and folders with other Horizon Workspace users. It allows Horizon Workspace users to synchronize access to their
files across multiple devices ensuring that they get up-to-date and always-on access to their files of choice. Ensuring users have
quick access to these critical files is key to maintaining productivity. Delays in accessing documents, tools and other data can impact
productivity and overall time-to-market for customers, and ultimately, delivery to clients.

Riverbed® Steelhead® appliances can accelerate Horizon Data by up to 25 times - while cutting WAN bandwidth consumption by
up to 99%. By dramatically accelerating the performance of the Horizon Data over the WAN, users can access their files almost
instantaneously as though the files were located locally on their device.

This chapter includes the following sections:

 Why Riverbed?
 Solution Architecture
 Requirements

Why Riverbed?

Steelhead appliances are based on RiOS technology. RiOS accelerates applications on three levels simultaneously:

1. Data Streamlining: Data Reduction for All TCP Applications

2. Transport Streamlining: TCP Optimizations for All Applications
3. Application Streamlining: Application-Specific Optimizations

Each of these approaches happens independently in RiOS, meaning that all enterprise applications can benefit from data
reduction and transport layer acceleration. Application layer acceleration is treated as one piece of the puzzle in this architecture,
while in the caching architecture it is a requirement that the cache understand the application protocol. The application-
independent optimizations in RiOS mean that email, file sharing, document management, ERP applications, CAD applications,
network-based backup, software distribution, web-based applications, and even custom-built applications see benefits.

The result of this approach enables massive acceleration for all applications that run over TCP – users see up to 100 times faster
application speed and up to 95% less bandwidth utilization at the same time. The system is designed to intelligently accelerate
applications while not creating the management problems that caches have created in today’s networks.

© 2013 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. 4

Optimizing VMware Horizon Data: Solution Guide

Solution Architecture

Steelhead appliances sit in-between the clients and Horizon Workspace as depicted in the diagram below. The traffic is
transparently intercepted by the Steelhead and optimized, greatly reducing the time required to open, save and transfer files
across a wide area network (WAN).

Figure 1-1 Steelhead optimized VMware Horizon Data topology

Mobile Workers

VMware Horizon
Workspace
WAN
Branch Offices and
Remote Sites

Data Center / Cloud

As a result, organizations can achieve LAN-like access speeds to documents stored in Horizon Data, leading to great
collaboration and productivity. This gives organizations the opportunity to source people on projects regardless of their location
and enables real-time collaboration across distributed teams.
Copyright Riverbed Technology 1 Riverbed Confidential

Requirements

The following table describes the hardware and software requirements for deploying Steelhead appliances with VMware Horizon
Data.

Requirement Notes
Riverbed Steelhead appliances with RiOS 7.0 or later A Steelhead appliance is needed at each site as depicted in Figure 1-
1.
VMware Horizon Workspace Horizon Workspace is distributed as vApp. A vApp is a collection of
virtual machines packaged together. In this solution guide we will
primarily be working with the Horizon Gateway and Horizon
Configurator virtual machines.

A free trial is available

© 2013 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. 5

Optimizing VMware Horizon Data: Solution Guide

Chapter 2 Deploying with Steelhead Appliances

This chapter describes the process and procedures for deploying VMware Horizon Data with Steelhead appliances. It includes
the following sections:

 Understanding the Deployment Process

 Creating an In-Path Rule
 Installing the Certificate and Private Key
 Installing the Root CA Certificate
 Verifying Optimization

Understanding the Deployment Process

The following table displays the process for deploying and configuring Steelhead appliances to optimize VMware Horizon Data
traffic.

Component Procedure Description

Both Steelhead Enable SSL optimization Navigate to Configure -> Optimization -> SSL Main Settings and check the Enable SSL
appliances Optimization checkbox.
Client-side Steelhead Add an In-Path rule to allow port 443 destined By default port 443 is bypassed and not optimized. Create an In-Path rule to allow port
appliance to the Horizon Gateway to be optimized. 443 with the Destination IP of the Horizon Gateway to be optimized.

For details, see “Creating an In-Path Rule”

Server-side Steelhead Install the certificate and private key The certificate and private key are available on the Horizon Configurator under FQDN and
appliance SSL. The certificate and private key can be installed on the server-side Steelhead
appliance by navigating to Configure -> Optimization -> SSL Main Settings and clicking on
Add a New SSL Certificate. Select the option for Two Files in PEM or DER formats and
copy/paste the SSL Certificate Chain and Private Key into the appropriate text boxes.

For details, see “Installing the Certificate and Private Key”

(Optional) Install Root CA certificate The default certificate that ships with Horizon is self-signed and needs to be installed on
the Steelhead appliance. This can be done by navigating to Configure -> Optimization ->
Certificate Authorities on the server-side Steelhead appliance and copy/pasting in the SSL
Certificate Chain from the FQDN and SSL page of the Horizon Configurator.

For details, see “Installing the Root CA Certificate”

Client PC Go to https://<FQDN of Horizon Gateway> in a
web browser. For example,
“https://horizongateway.mycompany.com”
Both Steelhead Configure each Steelhead appliance to trust its
appliances peer Steelhead appliance.
Client PC Reload https://<FQDN of Horizon Gateway> in
a web browser and log in. The traffic should
now be optimized
This initial session will not be optimized until Secure Peering is configured in the next step
Navigate to Configure -> Optimization -> Secure Peering (SSL) and scroll down to Self-
Signed Peer Gray List. The peer Steelhead appliance will be listed here. In the Actions
drop down menu select Trust.
To verify optimization navigate to Reports -> Networking -> Current Connections on either
Steelhead appliance. Optimized connections to the Horizon Gateway server should be
listed here.

For details, see “Verifying Optimization”

© 2013 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. 6

Optimizing VMware Horizon Data: Solution Guide

Creating an In-Path Rule

To create and In-Path rule navigate to Configure -> Optimization -> In-Path Rules. Set the Port to 443 and the IP Address to the
IP of the Horizon Gateway server (10.32.162.74 in this example). Make sure to set the position to Start.

Figure 2-1 In-Path rule to allow Horizon Data traffic to be optimized

© 2013 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. 7

Optimizing VMware Horizon Data: Solution Guide

Installing the Certificate and Private Key

The certificate and private key are available on the Horizon Configurator under FQDN and SSL. The certificate and private key
can be installed on the server-side Steelhead appliance by navigating to Configure -> Optimization -> SSL Main Settings and
clicking on Add a New SSL Certificate. Select the option for Two Files in PEM or DER formats and copy/paste the SSL Certificate
Chain and Private Key into the appropriate text boxes.

Figure 2-2 Copy and paste the certificate and private key in to the server-side Steelhead

Horizon Configurator FQDN and SSL Server-side Steelhead SSL Main

page Settings page

© 2013 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. 8

Optimizing VMware Horizon Data: Solution Guide

Installing the Root CA Certificate

The default certificate that ships with Horizon is self-signed and needs to be installed on the Steelhead appliance. This can be
done by navigating to Configure -> Optimization -> Certificate Authorities on the server-side Steelhead appliance and copy/pasting
in the SSL Certificate Chain from the FQDN and SSL page of the Horizon Configurator.

Figure 2-3 Install the Root CA certificate onto the server-side Steelhead

Horizon Configurator FQDN and SSL Server-side Steelhead Certificate

page Authorities page

Verifying Optimization

To verify optimization first log in to the Horizon Gateway. On either Steelhead appliance navigate to Reports -> Networking ->
Current Connections and you will see multiple optimized connections as in Figure 2-4 below.

Figure 2-4 Current Connections showing optimization

© 2013 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. 9

Optimizing VMware Horizon Data: Solution Guide

Chapter 4 Troubleshooting

Steelhead optimization errors are indicated with a red Protocol Error icon in the Notes section of the Reports -> Networking ->
Current Connections page. This section provides some troubleshooting tips in the case of an error. This chapter contains the
following sections:

 Server Bypassed
 Ensure Trust is Established Between Steelhead Appliances
 Miscellaneous Troubleshooting Tips

Server Bypassed

In the course of testing it may be possible for servers to get temporarily bypassed. To see if a server is in the bypass list navigate
to Configure -> Optimization -> SSL Main Settings and see if it is listed under Discovered Servers (bypassed, not optimizable for
SSL). If it is, try selecting it and remove it from the list.

Ensure Trust is Established Between Steelhead Appliances

Trust must be established between peer Steelhead appliances. To verify the Steelhead appliances trust each other navigate to
Configure -> Optimization -> Secure Peering (SSL) on each Steelhead appliance and ensure that it’s peer Steelhead appliance is
listed under the Self-Signed Peer White List.

Miscellaneous Troubleshooting Tips

This section contains some miscellaneous tips to debug optimization errors:

 If everything seems to be configured properly but the traffic is still not being optimized try restarting the optimization service.
Navigate to Configure -> Maintenance->› Services and click on restart. This initiates a complete reset of the optimization
service.
 Ensure that the In-Path rule created in Chapter 2 is installed at the start of the list.
 Rather than Installing the Root CA Certificate, no protocol ssl backend server verify can be entered in conf t mode of the
server-side CLI to rule out the Root CA Certificate being the cause of any issues.
 Check the system logs for errors or anomalies by navigating to Reports -> Diagnostics -> System Logs.

© 2013 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. 10

Optimizing VMware Horizon Data: Solution Guide

Appendix A Additional Resources

This appendix describes resources that supplement the information in this guide. It includes the following resources:

 Steelhead Management Console User’s Guide

 RiOS Technical Overview
 Installing and Configuring Horizon Workspace
 VMware Horizon Data Performance Brief

Steelhead Management Console User’s Guide

The Steelhead Management Console User’s Guide describes how to configure and monitor the Steelhead appliance using the
Management Console. It is available at
https://support.riverbed.com/software/appliance.htm

RiOS Technical Overview

The RiOS Technical Overview provides details on the optimizations performed by the Steelhead appliance. It is available at
http://media-cms.riverbed.com/documents/TechOverview-Riverbed-RiOS-6.5.pdf

Installing and Configuring Horizon Workspace

This guide goes through the installation and configuration process for the Horizon Workspace server.
http://pubs.vmware.com/horizon-workspace-15/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/horizon_workspace_15_install.pdf

VMware Horizon Data Performance Brief

This Performance Brief shows the benefits of optimizing VMware Horizon Data with Steelhead appliances.
https://splash.riverbed.com/docs/DOC-3404

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