Remote Work Ready with VMC Horizon

This global law firm enlisted Arraya to retire its old data center and hardware and move to a new colocation data center with new hardware. This process included supporting VMware Horizon desktops.

CHALLENGE

Supporting disaster recovery for VMware Horizon was going to require many more ESXi hosts and additional rack space in the colocation facility. At the time of the move in March 2020, remote work became a business-critical requirement overnight due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Robust disaster recovery for Horizon was a necessity. However, the cost of over a dozen physical servers and the infrastructure required to support them would be significant.

Due to the pandemic, there were several logistic challenges they faced. Obtaining servers was a lengthy process due to supply chain issues and it was difficult for IT staff to travel out of state to install the equipment. Overcoming these challenges in a timely manner seemed almost impossible.

SOLUTION

Arraya architected and deployed a disaster recovery environment for VMware Horizon using VMware Cloud on AWS. The client’s Horizon licensing was upgraded to the Horizon Universal Subscription to allow for public cloud deployment.

Within a matter of hours, the VMware Cloud cluster was deployed and ready for the configuration of the Horizon infrastructure. There were many advantages to moving forward with the VMC solution:

• Ability to scale on demand: After deployment of the initial 3-host cluster, they were able to scale in a matter of minutes. Now, if they have a disaster recovery event, they can scale to over a dozen hosts or even multiple clusters to support their users. In the meantime, they’re only paying for their 3-host cluster monthly.
• Reduced capital costs: Hardware purchases are eliminated as hardware is included with the service.
• Simplicity of configuration: All servers, storage, and networking are automatically provisioned and configured by VMware.
• Low maintenance: The vSphere, vCenter, vSAN, and NSX software in the environment are all managed by VMware and the hardware is managed by AWS. All upgrades and security patches are automatically installed during scheduled maintenance. Any hardware issues are resolved without customer intervention.
• Predictable costs: This client no longer needs to overspend on extra hosts that they don’t regularly use. They pay a flat monthly fee based on the number of hosts in use as long as the relatively rare disaster recovery event does not occur. Small-scale testing can still be conducted without increasing costs.

RESULTS

Once Horizon was successfully deployed on VMC, all their users could work remotely from the Horizon disaster recovery environment, if necessary. Disaster recovery protection for the now business-critical VMware Horizon was accomplished with zero hardware infrastructure purchased. Their IT staff did not have to be involved in the majority of the installation configuration of the infrastructure; the entire process was automated by VMware and managed by Arraya.

Both environments can now be centrally managed and monitored through the Horizon Universal Console, which was included in their universal licensing subscription upgrade.

To learn more about our disaster recovery services, contact one of our experts at info@arrayasolutions.com.