Delivering Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) can often be a complimentary offering to tenants that already host server workloads with a service provider. DaaS has traditionally been associated with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and not the digital workspace that brings a full suite of applications (Windows, SaaS, and mobile) to the end-user. However, it is important to distinguish that the VMware vision of the “digital workspace” is not exclusive with Horizon 7. To make the digital workspace possible, products such as VMware Identity Manager, App Volumes and User Environment Manager are all able to co-exist with either Horizon 7 or Horizon DaaS and even other desktop platform offerings.

The digital workspace represents a consumer orientated, self-service platform that can be used on any device, delivering an organizations portfolio of applications. It addresses a new generation of end-user computing that is no longer confined to the virtual desktop.

Horizon 7 combined with Identity Manager, App Volumes and User Environment Manager marks a suite of products targeted at delivering the digital workspace for enterprises. The benefit to service providers is an enterprise scale platform that can finally be offered to enterprise cloud tenants, bridging the gap between existing “VDI” desktop offerings and on-premises deployments.

For service providers, it is important to take a “bird’s eye” view of the entire solution stack that serves the digital workspace with Horizon 7. This document breaks down the digital workspace into five distinct layers, which have a direct correlation to tenant-facing functionality, service provider boundaries (for instance, firewall ports, user portal integration), core and management infrastructure.

 

 

This layer decouples datacenter constructs into the software-defined data center (SDDC) and provides virtual infrastructure compute resources, networking, and storage. This also includes tenant infrastructure: Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, and customer networks.

This layer contains the individual components from Horizon 7, including the virtual desktop and Remote Desktop Session Host (RDS Host) infrastructure that hosts applications and desktops.

For the scope of this document, the digital workspace layer consists of identity management and application delivery.

Management of the platform requires access to these components.

This layer consists of the client-facing user interface (UI) and protocols that provide access to the digital workspace.