VMware Horizon licensing

VMware Horizon offers four different license levels: Standard, Linux, Advanced, and Enterprise. Additionally, the Advanced and Enterprise licenses may be purchased as Named User (NU) or Concurrent Connection User (CCU) as needed. Named user licenses are recommended when your staff needs dedicated access to Horizon; concurrent connection user licenses are recommended when access to Horizon will be shared among many users, but only a portion of them will be connected at any one time.

The license levels are differentiated by several factors, as outlined in the following section. The licenses themselves are sold in packs of 10 or 100:

• All VMware Horizon license levels include VMware Horizon, vCenter, and vSphere Desktop Edition:
  • vSphere Desktop Edition is similar to vSphere Enterprise Plus in terms of functionality, but allows an unlimited number of CPU sockets for the desktop ESXi servers.
• VMware ThinApp is included with all versions, except the Linux edition
• Standard and Linux offer similar features, the only difference is the desktop OS that they are licensed for:
  • Horizon Enterprise edition supports both Windows and Linux desktop OSes under the same license
• Advanced and Enterprise includes licenses for Fusion Pro, Workspace ONE Identity Manager, application publishing using Windows RDSH servers, VMware Virtual SAN Advanced, and Virtualization pack for Skype for Business.
• Enterprise includes licenses for Horizon Instant Clones, Horizon Help Desk Tool, VMware App Volumes Enterprise, User Environment Manager, vRealize Operations for Horizon, and the vRealize Orchestrator Plugin for VMware Horizon.

Visit the VMware Horizon website (https://www.vmware.com/products/horizon.html) for the most recent information concerning licensing options and their costs.

It is important to note that many of the components, particularly those included with either the Advanced or Enterprise licenses, can be licensed separately. When determining which licenses to buy, it may be that you don't need all of the features, for all of your users, and that buying a smaller standalone license for those users makes sense from a cost perspective. Consult with VMware or your VMware system integrator to determine the optimal licensing strategy for your organization.

When listing the different components included with each VMware Horizon license level, you may have noticed that not all of them will be discussed in this book. The primary focus of this book is on VMware Horizon View itself, and those components of VMware Horizon that are most commonly used to extend its capabilities and potential use cases. For more information regarding those components, consult the following VMware resources:

• VMware Fusion (https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion.html)
• VMware Horizon Cloud (https://www.vmware.com/products/horizon-cloud-virtual-desktops.html)
• VMware Workspace ONE Identity Manager (https://www.vmware.com/products/workspace-one/identity-manager.html)
• VMware ThinApp (https://www.vmware.com/products/thinapp.html)
• VMware vRealize Orchestrator Plugin for VMware Horizon (https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon-7/7.6/using-horizon-vro-plugin/GUID-90269DBE-7760-4FF7-9F7D-E42F19A2270C.html)
• VMware vRealize Operations for Horizon (https://www.vmware.com/products/vrealize-operations-horizon.html)