VMware Horizon Adapter

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

The VMware Horizon virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) adapter, provided by Flexera, allows you to collect data from VMware Horizon non-persistent VDIs and import it into IT Asset Management.

Imported VDI data and application evidence collected by the FlexNet Inventory Agent will give you full IT visibility of inventory running on VMware Horizon platform, and provide licensing capabilities for all applications used by end-users on non-persistent VDIs.

Note: Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is a technology that refers to the use of virtual machines to provide and manage virtual desktops. VDI hosts desktop environments on a centralized server and deploys them to end-users on request.

The difference between non-persistent and persistent VDIs

Once a user logs off a virtual machine (VM), that VM and associated data is destroyed. This is referred to as a non-persistent VDI. Any changes made on the VM will not persist when the VM is destroyed. Because of this, non-persistent VMs are very difficult to license. This is the problem that the VDI adapters provided by Flexera solve.

Unlike non-persistent VMs, persistent VMs are not destroyed once a user logs off. Persistent VMs are similar to that of a standard VM, and when set up, administrators can give access to groups/users who can continue to use it until the administrator deletes it.

What will you see in the UI

In IT Asset Management, you can view a VDI template for each gold image that has been configured in VMware Horizon. This template allows you to see the full list of applications on all VDIs deployed from that template.

Tip: The "VDI template" terminology is used in the IT Asset Management UI. For customers not familiar with this terminology, the "VDI template" can also be referred to as the "golden image virtual machine".

For each user who has access to any of the VDIs that were deployed from a VDI template, the application evidence is mapped over to any inventory device for which that user is the primary user.

For any end-user who can access a VDI template who is not a primary user of any inventory device, a remote device will be created for them, and the application evidence will be mapped.

Supported versions

• VMware Horizon version 8.0.0 or higher, if you are not using Cloud Pod Architecture
• If you are using Cloud Pod Architecture, version 2012 or higher
• The VMware Horizon adapter is supported by version 2022 R1 of IT Asset Management onwards.

What's not supported

• Layered Images in VMware Horizon is currently not supported. This technology allows you to dynamically assign applications to a specific VDI instance outside of the VDI template.