March 26, 2020

Leveraging Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure for Business Continuity

I've seen many IT administrators using the Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure work-from-home technology to support remote workers who are stuck in areas of the world under quarantine. Enterprises of all sizes are leveraging Microsoft Azure capacity to enable their workforces—customer service, sales, and more—to work from home. If you are in a similar situation, this blog post is for you. It describes 3 remote working solutions we can offer, if your employees suddenly need to work from home. A video explains how to set up Horizon Cloud on Azure from scratch, and connect it with your home system.

In just the last few weeks, I've seen an increase in the number of IT administrators who are implementing Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure to provide their employees with remote access to their internal applications.

It started with government departments and universities in Australia deploying Horizon Cloud in Azure to support their people, stuck in areas of the world under quarantine, and unable to return to campus. And it went from there. Now enterprises of all types and sizes are leveraging Microsoft Azure capacity to enable their workforces—customer service, sales, and more—to work from home.

If you are in a similar situation, let me introduce you to Shane Fowler, a Senior Specialist SE in Melbourne, Australia. Shane has put together a video that explains how he set up Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure from scratch, and connected it to his home lab.  

3 Screenshots from a video of Shane Fowler, a Senior Specialist SE explaining how he set up Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure

Shane told us his mind was reeling when he first heard from one of his clients that a stay-at-home mandate could cost his organization close to $600 mil. His client wasn’t alone. You and many other IT administrators are also asking how to set up the capability for your employees to work remotely.

We have three solutions we can offer you, if your workforce suddenly needs to work from home:

  • Workspace ONE – Enables remote connectivity with Modern Management and Enabling BYO
  • Horizon 7 On-Prem – Provides remote physical desktops and on-prem VDI
  • Horizon Cloud on Azure – Supports cloud-hosted virtual desktops

A series of videos can get you started as you either deploy or scale your implementation, starting with A Step-by-Step Guide How to Deploy Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure.

In this video, Shane demonstrates how easy it is to purchase Azure capacity as an individual, rather than relying on a corporate agreement and fully deployed network connection to Azure. He shows how to set up Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure with a personal subscription, and a simple VPN-based connection to Azure – all in one 55-minute video. Especially helpful for those of you who do not already have a presence in Microsoft Azure, it covers everything you need to know when setting up a Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure deployment from the first step.

Additional resources for setting up Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure

We recently released a blog and a podcast about how you can use Horizon to enable your employees to work remotely. Take a look at these, and the other business continuity assets on Tech Zone, for ideas about how Horizon can enable you to build up a work-from-home service for your employees.

Quick-Start Tutorial to help you set up Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure

Another great resource is the Quick-Start Tutorial for VMware Horizon Cloud Service on Microsoft Azure. We recently updated it with information about the latest (3.0 March 2020) release. The Quick Start Tutorial is a step-by-step guide to setting up a basic deployment of Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure. It walks you through all of the steps from setting up your Microsoft Azure subscription through deploying desktops and application hosts.

You can even practice using a deployment with the Hands-on-Lab for Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure.

For more information about the latest release, see this blog by Gabe Knuth and the release notes for Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure. You can also find many other resources on Tech Zone that can help you deploy Horizon Cloud on Azure quickly.

As Shane said, “Yes, you’re just one person, facing a world-wide problem. But together we can solve this, one endpoint at a time.”

 

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Rick Terlep

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Staff Technical Marketing Architect, End User Computing, VMware. Rick has been working on the VMware's EUC Technical Marketing team since 2014, and has been at VMware since 2008. He is a regular speaker at VMworld on different topics. Prior to VMware, he had different roles at NetIQ, at Appetizers And, Inc. and at Arthur Andersen. Rick has a degree in Computer Science from Western Illinois University and enjoys woodworking, gardening and traveling and watching way too much sports.