VMware vSphere and Horizon View test plans

As you know its common scenario in the consulting world, you need to create test plans or scripts (whatever you call it :-)) as part of the project delivery.

Recently I was working for one of the customers to design and implement VMware vSphere and Horizon View. I thought it’s worth share some vSphere and Horizon View test cases (plans) here for other fellow consultants.

( Optional tools to run and validate the vSphere and View implementation against VMware best practices: VMware Health Check Analyzer - ThinApp or VMware Health Analyzer 5- Java-based)

Testing requirements:

-          VMware vSphere and Horizon View completely implemented without any Single Point Of Failure (SPOF) in the design

-          A couple of test user accounts which has required access to vSphere and View environments.

-          Physical or virtual desktop with guest operating system like Windows 7 or Windows 8.

-          vSphere client installed

-          VMware View client installed ( View client with local mode is required if transfer server is implemented as part of the solution)

-          The browser on the client system with one of the following: Chrome 28 or later, Internet Explorer 9 or later, Safari 6 or later, Mobile Safari on iOS devices running iOS 6 or later, Firefox 21 or later ( These are  Horizon View HTML 5 requirements)

-          iPAD with Horizon View client installed

-          Android smartphone with Horizon View client installed

VMware vSphere Test Plan

Test name	Description	Pass/ Fail	Comments
vCenter and WebClient access	Login to vCenter Server using vSphere Client and WebClient using SSO user name and normal user to confirm they are working as expected
SSL Certificates	Login to vSphere client and confirm that no certificates errors presented. Then login to vCenter server using Webclient and confirm there is no certificate error on the browser as per following screenshot.
vCenter Health Check	Login to vCenter client and Web client and ensure there are no errors reported in "vCenter Service status" page. You can access Service Status page via Home page of vSphere Client
Alarms	Makes sure that there are no Alarms generated for vSphere hosts
Physical NICs failover	Unplug or logically disconnect physical NICs from ESXi host and make sure that there is no impact on ESXi host, IP storage and VMs connectivity
HBA failover	Unplug or logically disconnect HBAs from ESXi host and make sure that there is no impact on  datastores connectivity and VMs connectivity
Vmotion / DRS	Enter one of the ESXi  host into maintenance mode and make sure that VMs can migrate to another ESXi host without errors and try vmotion one of the running VMs.  As part of the same test, ensure VMs are moving to ESXi host which is just exit from maintenance mode
HA	Shutdown or disconnect one of the ESXi host and make sure that VMs running on particular host restarts on other host in the cluster
Resource Utilization	Login to individual components like vCenter server, database server, ESXi host and make sure that CPU, memory, disk utilisation is within an acceptable level
Host Profiles	As part of the design/ implementation, if you have configured Host Profiles, make sure that all Host Profiles are complaint

VMware Horizon View Test Plan

Test name	Description	Pass/ Fail	Comments
Horizon View Health check	Login to Horizon View manager and make sure that no errors in logs/ events page. In other words, no red signals :-)
Horizon View Connection Server failover	Assuming that you have at least 2 Horizon View connection servers in the environment and configured with load balanced IP or host name using load-balanced technologies like Citrix Netscaler, DNS Round Robin, F5 etc..., shutdown or disconnect Standard connection server from the network  and make sure that end user can connect to Virtual desktop and perform the same step by disconnecting Replica server from the network. One at a time. Note: If you have more than 2 View connection servers, perform the same steps by keeping only one server active at any given time
Horizon View Security Server failover	Assuming that you have at least 2 Horizon View connection servers in the environment and configured with load balanced IP or hostname using load-balanced technologies like Citrix Netscaler, DNS Round Robin, F5 etc..., shutdown or disconnect first View security server from the network  and make sure that end user can connect to Virtual desktop and perform the same step by disconnecting second security server from the network. One at a time. Note: If you have more than 2 View Security servers, perform the same steps by keeping only one server active at any given time
Horizon View Client connection from iPAD	Login to a virtual desktop from iPad over the internet and make sure that connection is successful
Horizon View Client connection from  Android smart phone	Login to a virtual desktop from  Android smartphone over the internet and make sure that connection is successful
HTML 5 Access	Make sure that Horizon View desktop is accessible on Browser like Internet explorer without using  Horizon View client
Persona management	Login to Virtual desktop via Horizon View Client and make sure that the user profile folder has been created in Persona manager profile repository and other configured features are working as expected as per design.
Transfer Server	Login to Horizon View client with Local mode and test check-in and check out. Make sure that you can access virtual desktop in both scenarios without any issues
Resource Utilization	Login to individual components like Horizon connection Server, database server, Transfer server and make sure that CPU, memory, disk utilisation is within acceptable level

If you have already implemented VMware vSphere or View environment and want to make sure that design satisfies all VMware Best Practices, run VMware Health Analyzer tool - VMware Health Analyzer 5 download, install and usage steps

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