Published Apps on Demand in Horizon version 2212: A Game Changer!

In the latest version of Horizon, version 2212, Published Apps on Demand have been released as GA. This feature allows you to publish applications on demand, making it possible to provide users with a more flexible and efficient way of accessing applications. In this blog, I will guide you through the steps required to configure this new feature in the Horizon Management console and test a brand new On-demand Published App.

Prerequisites:

* A Horizon environment up and running together with an App Volumes manager.

* At least one “on-demand” package created in App Volumes.

Configuring Published Apps on Demand:

1. Open the Horizon management console.

2. Navigate to Servers, App Volumes Managers, and click Add.

3. Enter the App Volumes manager FQDN, port number, and credentials. Click OK.

4. Important: Your App Volumes manager needs to have a valid SSL certificate signed by a trusted CA. The default, a self-signed certificate will not work unless it’s added to the trust store. However, I don’t recommend doing that in a production environment.

5. Repeat the steps if necessary.

6. Associate the App Volumes manager with a Farm in Horizon. If you don’t have a farm ready, follow the steps here.

7. Navigate to the Applications tab, select Add, and Add from App Volumes Manager.

8. Select the applications you want to add as published apps, and click Next.

9. Review the ID and Display Name of the apps, and click Submit.

10. Select the added applications, click Entitlements, and select Add Entitlements. Click on Add, enter and select the group or user(s) you want to entitle, and click OK.

Testing Published Apps on Demand:

1. Log in on the RDSH server to show that none of the applications I’ve just added is installed or attached to the host. It’s called Published Apps on Demand for a reason ;-).

2. In the App Volumes Manager, you can see that there is not a single package attached to a machine.

3. Open the Horizon HTML5 client, and you will see the three applications I’ve added to the Horizon management console as published apps. When I start Notepad++, I don’t see a virtual desktop, just the application running in the browser.

4. When I go back to my RDP session, I’m refreshing the programs and features windows I had open, and there you go! It looks like Notepad++ is installed on this machine.

5. When I refresh my App Volumes management console, I now see one attachment of Notepad++ to my RDS host.

Conclusion:

Published Apps on Demand in Horizon version 2212 is a real game changer! It provides users with a more flexible and efficient way of accessing applications, and it’s easy to configure in the Horizon Management console. I have a great use case for it, which I’ll explain in another blog. Thank you for reading, and if you have any questions, feel free to contact me.