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Remote Desktop Services (RDS) 2012 session deployment scenarios “Quick Start”

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Good morning AskPerf! Jason here to continue our mini-series on RDS Session Deployment.

Please see RDS 2012 Session Host deployment scenarios for an overview of the different ways to deploy RDS on Windows 2012 for additional information.

When would I use Quick Start? Typically you would not. It’s similar to a Standard Deployment which is the current best practice, except that it will only deploy the RDS components to a single server. All components (Connection Broker, RDWeb, and RDSH) will be installed with no option to modify. This would be good if setting up a quick POC, or maybe a lab environment, or if you are only going to deploy one server with all the components for example for a small office. If you want to split the components out to different machines, then chose Standard Deployment.

DEPLOYING “QUICK START”:

1. On the server that will become the Connection Broker, logon with a domain account that is an administrator and start Server Manager. From Manage menu item, select Add Roles and Features.

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2. Select Remote Desktop Services installation.

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3. Select Quick Start.

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4. Select Session-based desktop deployment.

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5. Add your local server to the Selected list for Specify RD Connection Broker server.

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6. On the Confirm Selections dialog, check Restart the destination server automatically if required.

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7. The RDS session deployment will now begin the install to all the servers and components selected. A progress dialog will be shown and the server will reboot.

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8. After reboot, log in and the progress dialog will be shown again and installation will continue.

9. After installation is complete, in the Server Manager Dashboard, there will be a Remote Desktop Services role listed in the left navigation pane.

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10. Selecting Remote Desktop Services will display the Overview of the new deployment. From this page, the next steps would be to add / specify both the license server and RD Gateway if needed.

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LICENSING:

There are multiple ways to configure licensing in RDS 2012 and this can be confusing. Group Policy always takes precedence and will NOT show in the Connection Broker console if configured, however the settings will show in the RD Licensing Diagnoser console. Do not mix methods of setting licensing. For example, do not set in GPO and also in Server Manager Gui as this may result in errors. A more detailed post about licensing methods will be following this post series.

1. To add a new license server through Gui, simply click on ‘RD Licensing’ node. The Add RD Licensing Servers dialog will be displayed. See next step to add an existing license server.

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2. To add an existing license server, in Deployment Overview, click on TASKS, and select Edit Deployment Properties.

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3. In Configure the deployment, select RD Licensing. Best practice is to use Per User mode as it provides better resiliency in case of a license server outage. Enter the license server and select Add.

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Not covered in this post, but is the next step after deployment is to configure the QuickStart Session Collection. Simply right click on QuickStart in Deployment Overview to get started.

Congratulations! You now have a new 2012 RDS session deployment.

-Jason

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 09, 2015
    Good morning AskPerf! Jason here to continue our mini-series on RDS Session Deployment. Please see RDS