New! Windows Server 2012 R2 RRAS Multitenant Gateway Deployment Guide

This new guide is available in HTML format on the Web at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn641937.aspx. It is also available for download in Word format from TechNet Gallery at https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Windows-Server-2012-R2-37eb8e17.

If you work for a Cloud Service Provider (CSP) or an organization that's planning on deploying cloud technologies, you might be interested in the new Windows Server 2012 R2 RRAS Multitenant Gateway Deployment Guide.

You may already know that in Windows Server® 2012 R2, the Remote Access server role includes the Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) role service. (It also includes DirectAccess and Web Application Proxy, however those role services will not be discussed in this article.)

The new RRAS Multitenant Gateway Deployment Guide demonstrates how to use Windows PowerShell to deploy RRAS as a virtual machine (VM)-based multitenant software gateway and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) router that allows CSPs and Enterprises to enable datacenter and cloud network traffic routing between virtual and physical networks, including the Internet.

You can use the gateway with VM networks by using either Hyper-V Network Virtualization or Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) - but using Network Virtualization is recommended due to VLAN limitations such as difficult management and a limited number of available VLAN IDs.

If you're using System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SC VMM), you can use SC VMM to deploy Windows Server Gateway; however even if you are using SC VMM, you can manage the gateway with the same Windows PowerShell commands that are used for the RRAS Multitenant Gateway. (Some Windows Server Gateway features are configurable only with Windows PowerShell.)

For information on deploying Windows Server Gateway with SCVMM, see the Test Lab Guide: Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V Network Virtualization with System Center 2012 R2 VMM, at https://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=39284.

With the RRAS Multitenant Gateway, you can create site-to-site VPN connections between your tenants' physical locations and your cloud datacenter. You can also provide tenants with point-to-site VPN connections that allow tenant Administrators to access and manage their VM resources from anywhere. The RRAS Multitenant Gateway also allows you to configure Network Address Translation (NAT), so that tenant VMs can access the Internet, and you can deploy dynamic routing by configuring the gateway and tenant gateways with BGP.