VMware View – Objective 1.2 Install View Standard & Replica Connection Server

Knowledge

Identify minimum hardware and software requirements for installation
Identify required firewall rules
Navigate the View Connection Server installation wizard

Hardware Requirements

Processor Pentium IV 2.0GHz or higher. Recommended 4 CPU

Networking One or more 10/100Mpbs NIC’s. Recommended 1Gbps NIC

Memory 4GB RAM. Recommended 10GB RAM for 50 or more desktops

Operating System – Software Requirements

Windows Server 2008 R2 64 Bit Standard or Enterprise

Windows Server 2003 R2 32 Bit Standard or Enterprise

Note, to use PCoIP Secure Gateway component, the OS must be Windows Server 2008 R2 64 Bit.

Virtualization – Software Requirements

The following version of vSphere are supported:

vSphere 4.0 Update 3 or higher

vSphere 4.1 Update 1 or higher

vSphere 5.0 or higher

Note, both ESX and ESXi hosts are supported.

Firewall Rules

To allow communication to the View Connection Server, certain ports are required to be opened, as follows:

View Connection Server Installation

The first server in our View environment is going to be the ‘View Connection Server’.

The Connection Server as we mentioned in the first VMware View – Overview Architecture is responsible for centralised management and handles all authentication requests via Active Directory to access a desktop. It’s the first server in the ‘View’ infrastructure.

With this in mind, I have created a VM called VMF-CON01 with the following specifications:

1 x vCPU

4 GB RAM

1 x vNIC

I have then downloaded the VMware View Connection Server from here. As at the time of this blog post, the most recent version is VMware-viewconnectionserver-x86_64-5.1.2-928164.exe

Launch the installer and click Next

Accept the EULA and click Next

Choose the installation location, in most setups I tend to leave this as the default.

We are going to install a View Standard Server, click Next

Next we have to enter a password, which essentially protects any backups that View makes.

Good old Windows Firewall makes an entrance, select ‘Configure Windows Firewall Automatically’

Next we need to specify an Active Directory Security Group who can perform initial configuration tasks. In my case, I’m rolling with ViewAdministrators

To access the Active Directory Domain, we need to specify a users credentials with appropriate access. I like to use a service account for these purposes.