Upgrading VMware Horizon view to Horizon View 6 – Part1: Composer

In this blog I will show you how you upgrade your VMware Horizon View environment to Horizon View 6. I will break up the blog in a few parts so that you are not overwhelmed with one big blog.

Upgrading a VMware Horizon View environment starts with the Composer, it’s the first component you need to upgrade. Before you start upgrading the composer you need to make sure you disable provisioning of the desktop pools and switch of refresh of the desktops. Make sure you read the compatibility matrix before upgrading for Composer might be co-hosted on a vCenter server.

To make the blog posts more readable I’ll split it up into;

• Upgrading the Composer;
• Upgrading the Connection server;
• Installing the agent;
• Upgrading the client (actually it was a new install);
• Upgrading the security server;
• Installing a RDS host
• Publish applications.

Architecture

Upgrading the composer

This blog article will handle the upgrading of the Composer, the very heart of the VMware view environment.
Why not a new install you might wonder, I had a 5.3 environment running and I thought that many customers out there will be at that point. I get the question a lot on how much time and effort it takes to upgrade environments. A new installation is easier and has less impact, so I chose to write about the upgrade.

Still this upgrade was done is a lab environment with a nearly clean database, so to compare this with a live environment would be a bit too much I know but at least you will see the steps it requires and be able to make a plan for your own environment.

Requirements for the Composer with Horizon View 6 are;

• Microsoft Windows 2008R2 STD/ENT
• Microsoft Windows 2008R2 SP1 STD/ENT
• Microsoft Windows 2012 R2

• 4GB Memory required, 8GB with 50 vm’s or more.
• 40GB Disk space minimum, 60GB recommended

• Microsoft SQL server 2008 Express R2 SP2
• Microsoft SQL server 2008 R2 SP2 STD/ENT
• Microsoft SQL server 2012 R2 STD/ENT

The upgrade is fair and simple, start the installer and follow the wizard will do just fine.

Before you do the upgrade make sure you disabled refreshes on the pools and disabled provisioning at all. If you don’t do that your desktop might be in error after you finished the upgrade.

When you received no errors the upgrade has gone well, next step is the connection server.

You can now enable provisioning again and switch on the refresh of the pools but I would wait a few minutes if you are going to upgrade the connection server also.

Conclusion

Upgrading Composer is a fairly simple process that doesn’t take much time. Make sure you disable provisioning and refresh on the pools for that would cause issues while upgrading. Next step in upgrading is the connection server.