Microsoft has always had success with RDS from the days of terminal services on Windows NT through to RDS on Server 2012 often supported with Citrix XenApp for Enterprise deployments.
In the latest edition of Windows Server 2012 Microsoft has added a raft of updates that are sure to make your deployments even easier. This post will highlight some of those advancements:
Windows Server 2012 has improved RemoteFX over a WAN as well as balancing between scale and reduced bandwidth. Specific improvements include:
Adaptive Graphics
Microsoft support a mix and match approach, determining and using the right codec for the right content instead of one size fits all. Progressive rendering allows RemoteFX to provide a responsive experience over a highly constrained network.
Intelligent Transport
Microsoft support UDP as well as TCP. UDP provides a better experience over a lossy WAN network but, is not always possible dependent on the routers, and firewalls involved. RDP will automatically use TCP when UDP cannot be used to ensure connectivity and the best possible experience.
Optimised Media Streaming
Microsoft have a new codec to reduce bandwidth consumption for media content
Adaptive Network Auto Detect
In this release, the end user no longer has to set the network in the Remote Desktop Connection client: the client auto-detects the network type and, also adapts as the network changes.
Single Sign-On
In Windows Server 2012 Microsoft has simplified this by eliminating the need to use multiple certificates. Microsoft has also made it possible to use locally logged on domain credentials so that users connecting from managed devices can connect seamlessly without any credential prompts.
In the app store Microsoft has added a new Metro-style application to provide a simple touch-first remoting experience. Discovering of remote resources, touch optimisation, easy reconnect to your favourites, are just some of the specific features added.
Email and web discovery of Remote Applications and desktops
Users now can find the correct remote workspace to connect to by just providing their email address. This removes the requirement to remember a long website URL. In addition, Remote Desktop Web Access now supports other browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
Multi Touch
Microsoft support full remoting of gestures (e.g. pinch and zoom) between the client and host with up to 256 touch points. This provides for a consistent experience when using a touch enabled device locally or, over RemoteFX.
Robust Pooled Virtual Desktop Collection model
Virtual machines can be created in batch from a virtual desktop template, patched by only modifying that virtual desktop template, and recreated/refreshed automatically by the RD Connection Broker. This reduces the cost and complexity of supporting a large number of users.
User Profile Disk
A major blocker for the “pooled virtual desktop collection” model has been lack of personalisation: Since the pooled virtual desktop collection is based on a common virtual desktop template, the user’s personal documents, settings, and configurations would normally not be present. User Profile Disk was added to solve this problem for either virtual machine-based or session based desktop deployments. As the user logs on to different virtual machines within the pool or different RD Session Hosts within the session collection, his/her User Profile Disk gets mounted, providing access to the user’s complete profile. Since User Profile Disk operates at a lower layer, it works seamlessly with existing user state technologies such as Roaming User Profiles and Folder Redirection.
Fair share of resources in RD Session Host
In Windows Server 2012, RD Session Host server allocates CPU, Disk I/O, and Network I/O such that a single user cannot consume resources that would negatively impact other users on the same host. Each user will get a “fair share”. This is done with minimum overhead so the CPU, disk, and network resources are used to maximum capacity.
RDS Management Interface integrated into Server Manager
RDS now includes a single management interface through which you can deploy RDS end to end, monitor the deployment, configure options, and manage all your RDS components and servers. This management interface is built into the new Server Manager, taking advantage of many new Windows Server 2012 management capabilities such as multi-server deployments, remote configuration, and orchestrated configuration workflows.
Scenario-Focused Deployment
The new Server Manager provides a scenario-focused wizard that dramatically simplifies the task of bringing up a complete RDS deployment. This wizard sets up all the roles needed for an RDS deployment, configures each server role correctly to communicate with the other roles:
Quick Start is optimised for deploying Remote Desktop Services on one server, and creates a collection and publishes RemoteApp programs.
Standard Deployment allows you to deploy Remote Desktop Services across multiple servers, allowing for a more customised deployment.
Active/Active RD Connection Broker
In previous releases the RD Connection Broker role service has supported an active/passive clustering model. This provided high availability in the case of component failure, but it did not address high scale requirements. In this release, Microsoft have eliminated the need for clustering and switched to an active/active model. With this model, two or more RD Connection Brokers can be combined as a farm to provide both fault tolerance and load balancing. This prevents the broker from being a single point of failure and also allows ‘scale out’ as load demands.
We think that this is a great set of capabilities for users reliant on session based virtualisation. VDI is a great concept and has relevance in many organisations but for costs alone we typically see a hybrid of the two and the set of features added by Microsoft provide a great hybrid approach.
Looking to Windows 2012, Windows 8 and RDS? Then contact us to see how it works in our innovation centre. Want to see and hear the technology first hand then register for this in person event.
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