Getting Started

This guide overviews the general components of your DaaS environment.

For the complete administrator guide that provides in-depth documentation for all setup, configuration, and features of DaaS 3.1 see the Release Notes section at the bottom of this guide.

Main Menu

The Main Menu contains all the options to configure and monitor your environment. The main menu is divided into the following sections:

Dashboard 

This section provides the at-a glance overview of the desktop Connections, the Connection State and the Capacity Allocation of your deployed desktops

Monitor 

This section provides the dashboard view of the environment, an activity view that displays the last 24 or 48 hours, the previous week, and the previous 30 days of activity for  Admin and Users alike.

Assignments 

This section is where you assign or place your new desktops into users and groups.  For instance, a new helpdesk user can be placed into a helpdesk group within this section.

Inventory 

This section lists the Applications and Images available for your desktops. Your Preloaded XTIUM desktop image will appear in this section.

Capacity 

This section lists how many desktops are available for them to provision.

Settings 

This section provides the General Settings, Active Directory, Roles and Permissions, File Share, Getting Started, Utility VMs, and 2 Factor Authentication and Identity  Management settings for your organization. 

The Getting Started Tool

The Getting Started tool provides an overview of the DaaS setup processes that you need to complete and allows you to visualize your setup progress. 

Getting Started can be reached from within the Settings section of the Horizon Cloud dashboard: 

Active Directory Preparation

Authentication in the XTIUM DaaS product is handled via Microsoft Active Directory.  There are two accounts that need to be configured prior to the DaaS install.  First, an LDAP bind account / service account is required for read only access to the AD.  Second, a domain join account should be setup to automatically join new DaaS desktops to your corporate domain. Questions about this process can be discussed during the DaaS Implementation process.  Go to Settings->Active Directory to access this configuration screen.

When you click the Register button under the Active Directory option, the Register Active Directory screen (shown below) will open:

Gather the information below to register an existing domain.  Make sure you have created the needed accounts & groups before registering the domain.

Domain Registration

Step 1 - Refer to your XTIUM Account Access QRG for your specific log-in credentials. Ask your project manager if you need this information.

Step 2 - Open browser, load the provided URL for the DaaS Admin Portal / Enterprise Center and enter your log-in credentials. A dialog box with the Terms of Service will pop up, click I agree and Submit to accept. *It will only come up the first time and only if your system admin configured a Terms of Service URL.

Step 3 - The Domain Bind section is the first field under the Active Directory view. Enter the needed information. Click Domain Bind. If you need to access this information in the future, go to Settings -> Active Directory. 

Step 4- The Domain Join section is directly underneath Domain Bind. Enter required information and Click Save. A message will display confirming that your domain registration was successful.  After saving, all future access will be handled via the DaaS admin portal login screen.

General Settings - Configuration

General Settings contains the settings to control session timeouts.  All of the defaults can be accepted on this page. 

The Domain Security Settings page is the most frequently used function as it controls the groups that are seen by the DaaS system.

Definitions of the configuration options can be found below:

Using and Updating Images

To create desktop pools, you first create an image and then deploy the image into the pool.  Images help define different desktop configurations. 

Two images are included with every account and one image will be preloaded for you during installation. 

If you need additional images beyond the two that are included and the one that is initially deployed for you, please contact your CTA.

Begin by clicking on Inventory then Images.

Step 1 – You will already have an image in your inventory that you will use to customize the desktop.  Under status you will see Offline or Published:

Offline means that the image is powered on, not available to provision desktops, and is able to be customized as your desktop image by logging into it. 

Published means the image is powered off, sealed, and ready to be used to provision desktops.

While the image is in a Published status, before you convert it to Offline status you have the option to take a backup.  To do this click on the image name. This will take you to the options specific to the image.  Click the MORE dropdown and select Backup Now.

This will generate a vCenter snapshot of the image in its present state that you can use as your original image or rollback to in the event your image stops functioning as intended. 

Step 2 – If the status is Offline, click the PUBLISH button. 

When the image is accessible to you, you will see an IP address listed under the Properties section of the Image.  Once you see the IP address listed, as long as you are in a location that has connectivity to your VDC in XTIUM’s datacenter, you can select the IP address which will download an RDP session.

Note: When you power up the image to make your customizations it can take up to 15 minutes before the IP address is presented.  This is normal and a function of the Sysprep process.

Open the RDP session download and Click the connect button.

You will be prompted for a username and PW.  Use the credentials provide to you by XTIUM to access the desktop.

Step 2 (cont’d) - If the status is Published click Take Offline and then click OK.

Then follow steps above to download the RDP session, open it and access the desktop.

You will connect to a Windows 10 desktop.  You can now install applications and configure the desktop as needed.

Step 3 – Once complete with the image customization you can now publish your image.
To publish the image from the images page, select the image and select publish.

A new window will open.  Check to ensure that the Agent Status is active.  If it is active you may continue.    If the agent status is not active, open a support ticket with XTIUM for assistance. 

Under OS Properties:

Instance Clone must be set to No.

Image name will be pre-populated.

Do not change the Company Name and Timezone fields.

Under Admin credentials for the desktop:

Use the credentials provided by XTIUM to populate the Username and Password fields.  You need to enter the PW twice, once in the Password field and again the Verify Password field.  Then click Publish:

That will kick off the Publish process. 

You can follow the publishing process progress under Monitor and Activity:

Once the process is completed, you will see you image back in the image inventory with a status of published. 

Deploying Desktops

Step 1 - Begin by selecting the Assign tile. Next click New under Assignments.

Step 2 - The New Assignment screen will appear. This allows you to deploy desktops or applications, choose the desktop option.

You will be taken to the Assign Desktops screen. There you will define both fixed and flexible attrubutes for your desktop. Fixed attributes include the type (standard, premium, ultimate) and domain.
Flexible attributes include the image type, name, connection protocol, client type and capacity.

Step 3 - Begin by selecting the desktop type. Unless otherwise instructed, select Dedicated:

Step 4 - Input the details for your organization’s domain and leave the green “Join Domain” toggle set to Yes.

Under flexible attributes, the Assignment Name is the group or pool that you want this desktop to join. You can create a new assignment or add the desktop to an existing assignment.
The Default Protocol will be set to Blast Extreme. For PCoIP desktops, change the default protocol to ‘PCOIP’ and change the Preferred Client Type to ‘Horizon Client’.

Step 5 - Once you populate the capacity, click ‘Next’ and you will be taken to the Users step:

Adding a User to the Desktop

Step 1 -  In Active Directory search and populate the name of the user that you want to assign to the desktop. If you cannot locate the user try the Search Active Directory which will list your organizations entire AD list.

Step 2 -. Select the user that you want to assign by clicking on their name. Click Next and you will be taken to the Summary Screen.

Step 3 - Click Submit and your desktop will begin to build within the assignment.

Editing Desktop Assignments to Add Desktops

Step 1 - On the Assignments page, select the assignment to edit and click Edit.

Step 2 - To change the number of users in the assignment, enter desired number of desktops:

Step 3 - Click Save and Exit.

Step 4 - Your assignment will expand.

Step 5 - Assign a user to the new desktop following the same procedure described earlier in the guide.

Creating a New Assignment (Pool) of Desktops

Step 1 - Click on the Assign tile. Directly under Assignments click the New button.
Step 2 - You will be taken to the Assign Desktops screen. Select the desktop type (dedicated), model, and select your domain. Select the image for the desktop that you want to deploy.
Step 3 - The Assignment Name field is where you will give your pool a name. It is a good idea to have the name reflect the type of users in the assignment, for instance: Light User, Heavy User, Corporate, Sales, and Accounting.

Step 4 - Set the capacity of your assignment. The Default Protocol will be Blast Extreme.  You can change this to PCOIP if you are suing this connection protocol.  The Preferred Client Type will be set to Horizon Client. 

Step 5 - Once you populate the capacity, click Next and you will be taken to the add user’s step. Follow the same process to add users described earlier in the guide and this will complete the process of configuring your assignment.

Step 6 - Click Submit and your assignment will be deployed and visible within the Assign tile.

Deleting Desktops, Assignments, and Images        

Step 1 - Select the Assignment that you want to delete by selecting the checkbox by the desktop name.

Step 2 - This will delete the assignment. Click Delete:

Monitoring

Use the Monitor icon to access desktop information, administrator and user activity, view reports detailing user and desktop mapping, and view notifications.
There are four selections available from the Monitor tile:

View System and User Activity

Step 1 - Click the name of an assignment of the list. The assignments detail page displays:

Step 2 - Click System Activity or User Activity at the top of the page:

The activity tab displays, showing a list of recent activity for the assignment.

You can select from the Shown drop-down menu to adjust the time frame for the list, or filter, refresh, and export the list using the controls on the top right of the page.

IT Admin Guide

Release Notes

To see the complete list of new features, please see the Horizon DaaS 9.0 Release Notes.