Technical Overview¶
Anyware Manager Enterprise is available from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. You'll need an active Azure subscription to sign up. The product page includes a link that will redirect you to the Anyware Manager Enterprise sign up page.
Tip
Unless otherwise mentioned, the term "tenant" refers to the tenant entity created within Anyware Manager Enterprise.
Understanding the Anyware Manager Enterprise Hierarchy¶
The diagram below represents the underlying hierarchical control within Anyware Manager Enterprise:
Organization & Organization Account¶
Anyware Manager Enterprise assigns accounts per organization or vendor. An organization account, therefore, corresponds to a distinct business. In a production environment, a vendor will typically have multiple organization accounts, with each account mapping to a separate customer. Thus an organization represents the highest level of hierarchy within the customer plane.
To use Anyware Manager Enterprise, you will require a valid Microsoft Entra ID. During onboarding, your first organization account will be created, which can be used to create tenants, as well as other user accounts.
Tenants¶
A tenant refers to a dedicated instance of Anyware Manager Enterprise resources such as configuration, user management, and tenant properties. A tenant is associated with an organization, and a single organization can have multiple tenants, such that each tenant is a unique and distinct entity.
A tenant includes the following types of sites:
- Windows 365
- VMware vSphere
- Registered devices
Info
When you create a new tenant, you can select the type of site you'd like to create as a part of the onboarding process. You can create any other type of site within this tenant later, regardless of the site type you chose during the initial onboarding.
To onboard a tenant, preconditions as described in System Requirements must be met.
Sites¶
Tenants can have multiple sites, with each site representing a different geographical region. For example, a single organization can have multiple tenants, with each site representing a different geographical region.
Sites also represent the "type" of compute resources. Machine deployment and provisioning, therefore, depend on the site. For example, a site of the type "Windows 365" located in the "US East" area will contain Windows 365 VMs.
Info
Once a site is configured, pools are associated with it, which in turn, control resources, users, and assignment rules.
The following types of sites are currently supported:
- Window 365
- VMware vSphere
- Registered devices
Pools¶
Tenants can also have multiple pools assigned to it. Pools control the compute resources, user groups, and user—machine assignment rules. VM creation and user assignment occur after a pool is established.
The concept of pools differs slightly, depending on the tenants.
Windows 365 Pools
For Windows 365 tenants, a pool refers to a group of users who share compute resources, such as machines. Using a pool, you can grant access and permissions to a group, instead of individual users, simplifying user access management.
In Windows 365 deployments, a pool is assigned during tenant creation or after. Pool assignment in this case involves associating Microsoft Entra groups with the pool. Machine assignment (one-to-one relationship) in the pool depends on two factors: the Entra group configuration, and the available Windows 365 licenses purchased by their organization.
VMware Pools
For VMware tenants, a pool refers to a set of shared compute resources, such as machines that are assigned to users in a one-to-one relationship.
In VMware deployments, a vSphere resource pool is created and assigned to the tenant after the tenant is set up. During pool creation, users are assigned to the pool. User—machine assignment is managed by VMware.
Registered Device Pools
For registered devices, a pool refers to a set of workstations that are already set up in customer environments, and are assigned to users in a one-to-one relationship. Anyware Manager Enterprise does not provision these resources, but instead, only manages remote access using Anyware Agents.
Once Anyware agents are installed on the devices in the pool, they are populated in the machines list of the pool page, from where user—workstation assignment is controlled.
User—Machine Assignment for Windows 365 Tenants¶
At the time of creating a tenant in Anyware Manager Enterprise, pools and Entra groups are assigned to it. A pool is a collection of virtual machines, while an Entra group is a set of users that requires identical access and permissions to resources.
User—machine assignment is handled by Microsoft Windows 365. For example, consider a tenant "ACME" that has a group called “Engineering” with 5 users, and a pool containing 10 VMs. At the time of assignment, machines will be persistently assigned to users, which means that only 5 VMs will be used from the pool.
User—Machine Assignment for VMware Tenants¶
In VMware deployments, pools are assigned at the time of creating a tenant. Once this is done, user assignment is handled automatically. For example, if a pool containing 10 machines is assigned to a VMware tenant, the machines are shared by user groups defined on VMware deployments. User—machine assignment is persistent, which means users belonging to group have a 1-on-1 assignment with machines.
User—Machine Assignment for Registered Devices¶
For registered devices, existing workstations are enrolled in pools and users are assigned to them either manually or automatically at first login.
The following types of assignment are supported:
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Persistent - Manual
Users will not be able to connect to pools unless administrators have assigned them workstations that belong to pools.
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Persistent - Automated
Users are automatically assigned to machines when they attempt to connect to pools.
For example, if 10 registered devices belong to a pool, user—machine assignment is either controlled by Anyware Manager Enterprise, or by the administrator of the tenant. Users will have a 1-on-1 assignment with their machines.
Monitoring¶
Anyware Manager Enterprise contains detailed tenant pages that provide real-time insights for comprehensive monitoring of tenants. Tenant detail pages help identify key performance metrics, as well as quickly diagnose and troubleshoot issues.
Info
Tenant dashboards are still under development. In future releases, a wider range of metrics will be available for deeper insights.
The following tenant details are available as tabs for each tenant:
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| User Sessions | Provides the following information on user sessions:
|
| Machines | Provides the following information on user machines:
|
| Logs | Provides the following details about tenants as logs:
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| Pools | Provides the following details about pools:
|
Each tab shows up-to-date data. You can click specific items within the dashboards to view detailed information on sessions, machines, pools, and logs.
Management¶
Anyware Manager Enterprise supports the ability to remotely control machines, user sessions, and pools. The following remote operations can be performed from the dashboard:
- Powering machines on or off
- Terminating user sessions
- (VMware and Registered devices only) User assignment to pools
By automating repetitive, high-value tasks, management of HP deployments is streamlined, while reducing the operational burden on IT.