Remote Desktop Services

RDS

Purpose

• Documentation and quick setup of a Remote Desktop Services Deployment
• In Windows server 2008 this used to be called Terminal Services, it is now called Remote Desktop Services
• In RDS session based deployment and VDI are setup with the same tools, we are doing a session based deployment
• In our setup we are using one RD Connection Broker to split up the workload between two Servers(RD Session hosts)
• We do not need web access so we will not be installing or including the RD Gateway server in this setup

Overview

• Below gives a quick definition of all 5 roles that an RDS server incorporates, depending on your deployment you may not need all of them, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Desktop_Services#Remote_Desktop_Server_Roles
• RD Connection Broker: Connects or reconnects a client device to RemoteApp programs, session-based desktops and virtual desktops
  • You generally speaking only need one RD Connection Broker with a small deployment of a session based deployment, with larger setups and depending if you want high availability this may not be true
  • If your RD Connection Broker goes down this would be your single point of failure, have a backup or if uptime is of upmost importance consider high availability
• RD Web Access: Enables users to connect to resources provided by session collections and virtual desktop collections by using the Start menu or a web browser.
  • A little confusing because it has Web Access in the name, you still need this role installed if you want your clients to be able to use the RDP protocol to connect to your deployment
  • RD Web access takes up a small footprint, we will be installing this role along with our RD Connection Broker
• RD Session Host: Enables a server to host RemoteApp programs or session-based desktops.
  • Computing has to happen somewhere, thats what these are for, we will be using 2 RD session hosts in our deployment
• RD Licensing: Gotta have the CALs for your users to connect
• RD Gateway: We're note suing this in our setup, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Desktop_Services#Remote_Desktop_Gateway

Setup

• The following assumes you have two Windows 2012 or higher(R2) Servers and that they are joined to the same domain, you can manage these servers from any domain joined computer which you have sufficient access to and the correct tools
• Two servers: RD_SERVER_1 and RD_SERVER_2
• Roles by server:
  • RD_SERVER_1: RD Connection Broker, RD Web Access, RD Session Host
  • RD_SERVER_2: RD Session Host, RD Licensing

• Open up Server Manager in Windows and add the servers you want to manage if you have not done so all ready, you can create an RDS group if you are deploying with a lot of servers
• Once your servers have been added to Server Manager go to the Add Roles and Features Wizard under Manage
• We are doing a "Remote Desktop Services Installation" not a Role-Based one so check that
• We want to do a

References

• http://thewolfblog.com/2014/02/08/deploying-a-2012-2012r2-remote-desktop-services-farm/
• http://thewolfblog.com/2014/02/10/collections-publishing-remoteapp-programs-and-session-desktops-on-rds-2012-2012-r2/
• http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/vdi-articles/general/session-based-desktop-deployment-windows-server-2012-experiences-so-far-part1.html