So far in this book, we have concentrated on the delivery of virtual desktop machines, but Horizon View also has the ability to deliver remote applications, or published applications, as they're more commonly known, as well as session-based desktops, all from the same platform. In this chapter, we are going to dive deeper into this feature, which is part of the Horizon Advanced Edition and above, and look at how Horizon View publishes an application directly into the Horizon View Client, without the need to launch a full virtual desktop machine.

A use case for this could be a call center worker who uses just a couple of different applications. It's far easier from a management perspective to just give them the applications they require rather than a full-blown virtual desktop. Another use case is the ability to launch applications using the View Client running on a device that wouldn't normally be able to run that application. For example, you could run the "real" version of Microsoft Word on your iPad using the Horizon View Client for iOS.

The infrastructure required for this is based on Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) running at the backend, with Horizon View acting as the broker to connect users with the applications or desktop sessions. As it's View-based, it uses the View protocols, such as PCoIP and Blast, as the delivery protocols, taking advantage of all the features the protocols have to offer, as we have discussed previously.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Architectural overview
• RDSH sizing guidelines
• Installing and configuring View-hosted apps
• Installing the Horizon View Agent for RDSH
• Configuring published apps in the View Administrator
• Load-balancing published apps in Horizon View