Horizon 8 Reviews

We are using VMware Horizon View in two ways - for both virtual disk infrastructure (VDI) and application virtualization. 

The primary use case is for individuals external to our company to connect and access internal resources. This is done by publishing a virtual desktop point to allow access.

In terms of productivity, VMware Horizon View has been extremely beneficial.

We can run 100 percent of our employees remotely using VDI. We have anywhere from two the three thousand employees.

I appreciate how simple and straightforward the operation of VMware Horizon View is. It is very user-friendly and can be used on any device, anywhere, and anytime.

There are certain areas that require improvement, and in my opinion, the most important factor is with some instances where I have experienced limitations, particularly with the printing service. Using a printer with the VDI is not a straightforward process.

Overall, in my opinion, the solution works perfectly.

I have been using VMware Horizon View since 2016, for seven years.

During this time, I have used several versions and performed multiple upgrades. I initially began with version 6.2, then proceeded to upgrade to 7.1, 7.4, and now to 7.13. Currently, I am planning to upgrade to version 8.

VMware Horizon View is quite a stable solution. We have had no issues.

In my opinion, scaling up to ten sites is easily achievable as the solution is highly scalable. It can be scaled not only within a single site but across multiple sites as well.

We have approximately two thousand people in our environment that are using VMware Horizon View.

We are not only planning to provide access to external employees but also aiming to expand access to internal employees.

The last time I contacted them was about an issue with USB printing, which I believe was related to a Microsoft patch rather than a VMware issue. It seems that the USB printing feature was affected negatively by the Microsoft patch.

To clarify, the printer redirection feature within VMware Horizon was impacted by a Microsoft patch or update, which resulted in the feature not functioning properly. Both products are involved in this issue.

Previously, we were using We were using Citrix XenApp.

Building the infrastructure is relatively straightforward; however, the challenge is in retrieving the master image or golden image for your desktop, which can be a time-consuming process depending on your specific needs. 

For an experienced individual, the implementation of the health solution should not take more than three days.

To be honest, I was able to implement it on my own. However, it's important to note that you may require certain prerequisites from the network team if you plan to make the solution highly available, such as utilizing LoadRunner and other tools.

In my personal opinion, the solution is worth the investment and provides good value for its cost.

I cannot provide a detailed comment on the pricing; however, I can say that it is quite expensive.

The licensing for VDI is divided into multiple modules, including standard and enterprise options. There are different types of licensing available for VDI.

We were considering Microsoft VDI as well as Zendesk.

In my opinion, for large enterprise companies, if the solution is implemented properly with high availability and designed using best practices, there should be no issues.

I would rate VMware Horizon View a ten out of ten.

Nothing is perfect, but this product is amazing.

We're a payroll company and understandably security is pretty important for us. When a user takes a laptop home you have to manage encryption in case they lose it. With everything in our data center, there's no risk of lost data because everything is run in the VDI. That's our primary use case for this product. I'm a systems engineer and we are customers of VMware Horizon View.

This product is great for desktop management, particularly when it comes to all the upgrades. It enables you to update one golden image, save it and basically deploy it. Any user logging in will get that new DDI and you've only had to upgrade one machine. The other advantage is that because you're pushing out this image, it's a clone of the original so everybody has the same experience. That's not always the case when people use different laptops, adjusting and tweaking them. It makes management a lot easier. There's also the huge savings we've had with the pandemic because everybody had to work from home. Even if there weren't enough laptops to go around, almost everybody has a home computer. It was just a matter of installing Horizon on your home computer and connecting to the office using two factor authentication. They made it really simple.

I believe documentation could be improved. There's a product in the solution called DEM, which is for screening applications or importing settings into a particular app. In VDI machines your profile's replicated or just live-streamed from the supplier server. Things like Google Chrome, with all its different application settings and passwords and whatever, is stored in zip files that are extracted when you log in. Horizon works with this but documentation is lacking. The applications have changed so much, but the company doesn't seem to be keeping up with that. The product needs to be simplified, have more documentation, and some predefined applications so that users don't have to re-engineer things each time.

For an additional feature, it would be great if they had automatic replication of all the stored profiles so we're not having to use third party tools to do the replication of their users' profiles. It would mean that you can use it as a disaster recovery server, as well as just active-active across data centers.

I've been using this solution for five years. 

It's important to set it up correctly and maintain it properly. Once it's working, it's really stable.

This solution is scalable, we currently have around 300 users and about five people who take care of everything connected to the product, including maintenance upgrades and everything. We'll expand usage if the business grows. 

There are certain aspects of technical support that are good and you can get a quick response. At other times there are issues where the blame game kicks in and you have to wait for somebody to take ownership of the problem. They're generally okay. 

In this instance we were implementing in two data centers and introducing not only a VDI, but also replicating all the data from one place to the other. Deployment involved building Microsoft clustered file servers and setting up replication between those two file servers and then mirroring the configurations. It probably took us about six months but we were doing other things at the same time. If we'd focused only on that, I think it would probably have taken about a week or two. It depends how much effort is put in. 

We definitely have an ROI. Previously, we had to patch every single laptop which was a drastic pain. With everybody now working from home, that created a whole bunch of new challenges but with VMware everything's saved in our network so no matter what's happening on the home network it's not carrying over into our business.

The product requires a Microsoft license for the operating system, which is standard. If you want support and upgrades, you pay for that. 

This is a great product but it's a massive product and you can't do anything with Horizon View alone. It requires all the other products flying together with it. It's a very complex product and it takes a lot of time to become knowledgeable about it. It's crucial to have decent hardware before implementing this solution because it's fairly resource intensive. If this is new to you, be prepared for a fairly long project because there are so many moving pieces and it's fairly complex, and it requires having a lot of things in place before you can even begin.

I rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

Our company uses the solution as a virtual desktop for clients at universities and banks. One customer has more than 200 users who log in from anywhere. 

The solution includes good user profiles and policies. 

The solution integrates well with other VMware products.

Productivity is improved with use of the solution. 

The standard license does not include certain features. 

Customers do not understand the requirements for VGA solutions so education and marketing are needed. 

I have been using the solution for four years. 

The solution is stable compared to other platforms. 

The solution is scalable to any number of devices or users and integrates well with other VMware products. 

Technical support is responsive and solves issues quickly so I rate support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

I previously used Citrix.

The setup is straightforward in comparison to Citrix. 

Our internal team implements the on-premises solution for clients and utilizes third-party providers for VGA components. 

Ongoing maintenance only requires two team members. 

The pricing can be a challenge because certain features are not standard and require a separate license. 

The solution can be costly for customers who do not run mission-critical applications or who have less than 50 users. For these use cases, we recommend alternative products. 

I evaluated other options that included RDS. 

The solution is big and stable with many features. Integrations and user scalability are easy compared to other products. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We use it to provide virtual client desktops for remote users or data center users. It's basically for people to work from home or for a call center.

Instant Clone instantly creates another VM with a Delta disk, which is just the VMware backend. This helps with scalability and management.

They need to make troubleshooting, diagnostics, and error reporting a little better. There are too many consoles with different error messages to identify a problem and figure out how to fix it

I have been using VMware Horizon for 10 years.

It's hard to generally classify this product's performance as stable or not. The performance is dependent on the hardware, not the product. If you have fast hardware, it's going to be fast. If you have slow hardware, it's going to be slow.

Technical support is better than most. I would say it's above average.

It's very complex. There are multiple steps, connectors, and servers. All of them have multiple components that all talk, so that's never going to be easy. But I think it's complex because of what it's doing. And if you use it all the time, that complexity just becomes familiar.

We implemented in-house.

Test it. You can't just listen to a consultant. You have to test it yourself and set up a proof of concept.

I would rate VMware Horizon a seven out of ten. 

We are continuing to use Horizon 8 for remote work. Our company data, along with customer data, is stored in the private data center. Horizon is used for accessing the data center and data.

If you configure Horizon well and limit access solely through Horizon 8, it enhances security by reducing the entry points for accessing data.

I find the security of Horizon to be most valuable. The Vue protocol, which is VMware BaaS, and the new BaaS codec feature of this protocol are particularly beneficial. The implementation of Instant Clone Technology also provides utility.

It would be beneficial to see improvements in client-side functionalities, especially for some Linux clients. A better in-built multi-factor authentication solution would also be advantageous. While there are ways to achieve this through Microsoft Azure and Google, a more integrated approach within Horizon would be ideal.

We have been working with Horizon 8 for a long time and have continued with each version since its release.

Stability is becoming a bigger issue for many software products these days, not just Horizon 8. Security issues can sometimes arise, which impacts stability.

In terms of scalability, it is not a significant problem, suggesting that Horizon scales effectively.

Our experience with VMware's customer service is limited. I would rate it a six out of ten due to possible transitions and product changes over recent years.

Neutral

We cater to small companies, typically around 50 to 100 users. For these sizes, the setup is manageable and not overly complex. However, implementing a high-level solution for larger companies can be more complicated.

I primarily have experience with Horizon 8, without reference to other specific solutions.

I can recommend Horizon to other users based on its security features and effective management processes.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use the solution for deployed applications.

The solution’s stability and pricing could be improved.

I have been using VMware Horizon View for one and a half years.

The product is stable.

It will be difficult to manage or to scale if the deployment is complex.

We have the product countrywide.

We always use the tech support and health check. Everything is excellent.

The initial setup is complex. Depending on the project, it can take one year, one and a half year to deploy. We have to take a lot of things in the configuration.

We do the deployment in-house. We too have many vendors onboard like Dell.

VMware Horizon has been changing a lot in the past years. It is a good option. The company should adopt more technology as it went on cloud.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

My use case is to try from the customer experience because right now, we work from home and anywhere. So, and also the power consumption of the desktop and IT security are concerns. 

I find the virtual desktop and its spacious capacity to be the most valuable aspect of VMware Horizon View in my experience.

There is room for improvement in security features. In the next release, perhaps they could add some 3D features to Horizon View, especially considering the concerns around ransomware and security. 

I have been using this solution for two years. 

It's stable; we haven't experienced any major issues or glitches.

We can scale it easily. There are around 200 users in my company who use Horizon View. 

In terms of technical support, it's easier to contact the support team with Horizon View.

The initial setup is very simple. 

The solution has a higher price than competitors. The price could be more flexible for clients.

In my experience, the deployment process is better with Horizon View than with other solutions. The GUI is also better and it's easier to operate. And in terms of technical support, it's easier to contact the support team with Horizon View.

I would definitely recommend using this solution. Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We use this solution for virtual desktop infrastructure and remote desktop connections on client sites with 18 clients or end-user devices.

It is stable and easily scalable. 

The remote connection, bandwidth usage, and error connection can be improved. Working with the load balancer sites should also be improved. For example, with Horizon, we can use two clients with a one megabit connection, but with Citrix, we can use four or five clients with the same bandwidth through ICA protocol. VMware must improve remote connection, connection stability, and load balancing.

I have been using this solution for five or six years. 

VMware is stable. We don't need to switch after installation, but for one area, the connection stability is currently lower than other solutions. We tested it, and one connection from the load balancer or the firewall needs to be improved.

It is easily and quickly scalable and expandable. 

We are also Citrix Platinum partners. We are using Citrix solutions and desktop. When we create a project, we give our clients options and considerations between Citrix and VMWare. They choose after that.

For one building or two buildings that are nearby, or one local site, we prefer Horizon Seven. If end users are connected to VDI desktops or other Citrix services or if they are using a load balancer like NetScaler, for coming from outside to the inside of corporate, we are using Citrix VDI because of the ITA protocol.

The initial setup is quick and easy, but after that, you must configure user groups, machine groups, and delivery groups. It also requires some scripting and other tweaks, but the initial setup is easy for VMware Horizon.

The deployment duration depends on the number of users. For example, for 1,000 end users, you need redundancy servers for VMWare Horizon, and you need other servers for connecting to vCenter. Load balancing depends upon the client's sites. For example, for 10 users, I can make a connection locally in 45 minutes to one hour, but for 1,000 end users from different sites, it can take two to four days. If the complexity is high, it can take one month.

In terms of the staff required for deployment and maintenance, it depends on the end users and requirements on the customer site. I can complete installation myself, for example, of up to 100 users on one site. If more sites and more configurations are needs, it is a team job. It depends on the end users and customer expectations.

I would rate VMware Horizon 7 a seven out of ten. If it becomes stronger like the Citrix ICA protocol, it would easily be a ten.