Ms Rds

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From your Windows PC, access the Microsoft Remote Desktop assistant to configure it for remote access from another device using the Remote Desktop apps for Windows, macOS, iOS or Android. Email myself a link to the Microsoft Remote Desktop Assistant. Citrix vs RDS: Underlying Protocols. Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Services uses Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol, or RDP, naturally. The only thing you need for a remotely controlled Windows desktop is a PC running an RDP-capable version of windows, an RDP client software on your device, and a stable internet connection.

#VirtualDesktop trends and business demands

Microsoft RDS – The desire to work remotely has become more widespread than ever before, with recent research by Global Workplace Analytics showing that 80-90% of the US workforce now wishes to telework at least part-time. At the same time, we’re seeing once-nascent technologies gain maturity and wider adoption due to their ability to meet these new workforce preferences.

One of these technologies is virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). In this post, we use the term VDI to refer to any desktop virtualization technology where applications, desktops, and data are hosted in a central location—whether in an on-premises datacenter or a cloud infrastructure—and delivered to endpoint devices. The global VDI market is expected to reach $25.5 billion USD by 2025, with a 16.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2018-2025.

Businesses are especially drawn to the session-based desktop deployment form of VDI, a major capability offered by Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS). 70% of all customers that explore Microsoft RDS choose it because of this capability. Basically, the session-based desktop deployment capability of RDS enables businesses:

  • Save on costs – Multiple users can share computing resources. Also, Microsoft RDS is already part of Windows Server—so it’s essentially free of charge.
  • Reduce complexity – IT only needs to administer one operating system (OS), i.e. Windows Server.

Why organizations are evaluating Microsoft Remote Desktop Services

Because a large majority of the incoming workforce—younger Millennials and Gen Zers—prefer to telecommute or work remotely, businesses who want to retain top talent are compelled to adapt. To prevent valuable employees from getting poached, companies are finding ways to provide secure remote working tools. Fortunately, there are several technologies that can help them achieve this. One of them is Microsoft RDS.

Microsoft RDS’s centralized architecture makes it possible for businesses to support telecommuting and remote work practices in a secure and cost-effective manner. Because it brings applications, desktops, and data into a central location, RDS makes it much easier for IT admins to manage, secure and maintain all these digital assets compared to when those assets had to be managed on the endpoint devices themselves.

When businesses turn to RDS, they initially have very high expectations—without considering the actual challenges. For instance, most businesses expect effortless administration of the backend servers and seamless user experience on the client-side, regardless of the device being used. Alas, once they try it out, they realize RDS has some serious limitations.

Benefits of Microsoft RDS

Out of the box, Microsoft RDS provides several benefits over traditional VDI solutions, including the following:

  • Easy administration and management: Applications are only installed once on the server. Thus, application patches, updates, and failures can only happen on the server. This means that only the server needs major maintenance, translating to lower support costs and more convenience for both administrators and users.
  • Ease of deployment: Windows applications are easier to deploy to thin client PCs, and Android, Windows, and iOS devices.
  • Leverage the benefits of Bring your Own Device (BYOD): Since applications are installed on the server, even less powerful devices that are not capable of running native Windows applications can be used without the need for potentially costly upgrades.
  • Reduced licensing costs: With RDS, applications are run on-demand, minimizing software license costs. As RDS also allows quick analysis of application usage, administrators can immediately determine when and where to add more licenses when required.
  • Lower equipment spending: Dedicated machines for processing-intensive applications do not need to be acquired, since compute power is allotted on demand to devices accessing the applications on the server.
  • Convenient disaster recovery: The data of your organization and users are safe in the cloud, even in cases of device failure or theft.

Challenges organizations face implementing Microsoft RDS

Like all other technologies, Microsoft RDS also has some weak points. One is the interoperability limitations that prohibit IT teams from combining different versions of Windows Server (the OS that runs RDS) into one group.

Supposedly, RDS allows you to create groups of Windows Servers—more specifically, Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) servers, one of the architectural components of the RDS server framework—in a Session Collection, which is meant for load balancing purposes.

However, because different versions can’t interoperate in this configuration, you can’t just migrate applications from one server version to another. Rather, you have to create a new server group and publish the same application from there. Consequently, this means you have to perform updates, upgrades, troubleshooting, and so on in (at least) two separate places.

These challenges are further aggravated by the fact that setting up network load balancing (NLB) for Microsoft RDS is, even by itself, a nightmare.

Another major limitation of Microsoft RDS is its lack of support for some client platforms. For example, the Remote Desktop client can be installed on Windows, Android, iOS, and macOS®, but not Linux. Although Linux currently has a small market share, that share is steadily growing, especially with the rising popularity of Google Chromebook™ (which runs on Chrome OS™, a Linux-based operating system).

Businesses also need to support legacy applications. In order to do this with Microsoft RDS, you need to deploy Microsoft App-V, which is an entirely separate solution. This leads to additional integration complexity and costs. In addition, Microsoft RDS limits the application delivery by OS, making configuration and delivery complex to configure.

Manage cloud services through Parallels RAS

Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) offers a multitude of features that allows you to reap the benefit of managing several cloud services with ease.

Parallels RAS integrates with Windows Virtual Desktop to simplify and enhance its capabilities. It extends the capabilities of Windows Virtual Desktop by providing resource and unified workload management.Parallels RAS supports multi-cloud, privateand public deployments. This improves end-user productivity, simplifies deployment, optimizes workspacesand enhances business mobility.

Remote Desktop Services Windows Server

Yet another feature offered by Parallels RAS is flexible cloud deployment. It offers the ability to mix and match different workloads like hypervisors, virtual desktop infrastructure, Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH), cloud providers, and hyper-converged infrastructures. This offers the benefit of managing and unifying virtual workloads and meeting business requirements.

Parallels RAS on-premises deployments are suitable for organizations requiring end-to-end control of data, backup and restore facilities and better provisioning. Parallels RAS also simplifies public cloud deployment and enhances the delivery of applications and virtual desktops in Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS). It also simplifies Desktop as a Service (DaaS) offerings like Windows Virtual Desktop. Also supported by Parallels RAS is hybrid deployment which enhances failover and workload distribution and flexible utilization of cloud services.

Parallels RAS has been designed to deploy hyper-converged solutions, allowing rapid cloning of hundreds of virtual desktops. It can also be deployed on Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) thus freeing organizations from worrying about server hardware, scaling up development and testing, and allowing affordable disaster recovery.

RDSH Hardware Selection

A remote desktop session host (RDSH) serves applications and desktops to multiple clients, so you need to build a powerful server. Processing power, random access memory(RAM), storage, and network configurations are vital components when sizing up an RDSH server.

1. Processing power

You need a faster CPU to support multiple sessions. For effective CPU configuration, you need to multiply the CPU required to support one session by the number of sessions you expect to support. While determining CPU usage, you should also maintain a buffer zone to handle unexpected spikes that are likely to occur.

2. RAM

Most RDSHs are memory-intensive tasks. As such, getting high-speed and error-correcting RAMs can help you add more users and applications to the RDS server without affecting the performance. You can estimate the amount of memory you need to support multiple sessions using the formula below:

Total Memory = OS Memory + Session Memory * Number of Sessions

In the above equation, OS memory is the memory required to run the operating system (OS), Session Memory is the memory that one session requires to execute. Number of Sessions is the total number of active sessions that you are targeting.

3. Storage

Besides the CPU and RAM, you should also consider disk configuration. In this regard, you should monitor the following disk activities:

  • System files
  • Page files
  • User profiles and data

Ideally, you need distinct storage devices to back up all the disk activities. Leveraging serial computer system interface (SCSI) disks can help you achieve higher performance. Using RAID configuration and other high-performance storage devices can enhance the performance of RDSHs.

4. Network

There are two ways to determine network usage in RDSHs:

  • RDSH connection traffic. You can determine this traffic by monitoring how apps run inside the sessions, and the redirected I/O traffic. For example, text processing-based apps usually consume less bandwidth (typically in the range of 10 to 100Kbps) than rich graphics-based applications.
  • Backend connections. You can determine this traffic by monitoring backend applications such as database servers, HTTP servers, and email servers.

How Parallels RAS helps organizations overcome Microsoft RDS challenges

Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) is a versatile and easy-to-use application and VDI solution that builds on the capabilities of Microsoft RDS but avoids all its shortcomings. It provides seamless access from anywhere and on any device, including HTML5 browsers. One great thing about Parallels RAS is that it allows you to publish the same application from different server versions. There’s no need to publish and manage multiple instances of the same application. This can save time and minimize administrative overhead.

Parallels RAS supports a wide range of Windows Server versions, from the latest 64-bit, Windows Server 2019, all the way back to Windows Server 2008. This means your organization will have no problem publishing applications whether they’re the latest or legacy.

Rds

Load balancing in Parallels RAS is much easier to set up and readily available out of the box, right after installation. There’s no need to perform complex network configurations or purchase expensive add-ons.

In a multi-tenancy environment, Parallels RAS allows you to effortlessly segregate resources (applications, desktops, and data) into sites and create an unlimited number of independent sites inside the same farm, all managed from a single Parallels RAS Console. Not only does this improve data security, but it also reduces the complexity of managing multi-tenant environments.

Parallels RAS supports all client platforms, even Linux-based ones like Chrome OS. You can use a Parallels RAS client that’s native to a given platform—or for wider compatibility, the HTML 5 web client.

Ms rds licensing

Legacy applications are readily supported from the get-go. That’s because Parallels RAS seamlessly integrates with Turbo.net and Microsoft App-V.

Lastly, you can avoid vendor lock-ins because Parallels RAS can be deployed in all major public clouds—including Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services™ (AWS) and Google Cloud—as well as on-premises private clouds and hyper-converged infrastructures (HCIs). This also means you can adopt multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud strategies.

Ms Rds Ports

These are just a few of the many Microsoft RDS limitations that can be addressed by using Parallels RAS. If you wish to learn more about the limitations of Microsoft RDS and how Parallels RAS solves them, read the whitepaper How Parallels RAS Enhances Microsoft RDS.

Better yet, you can try Parallels RAS and see for yourself just how well it augments Microsoft RDS. Download the 30-day trial.

References

GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics | https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/telecommuting-statistics

Reuters | https://www.reuters.com/brandfeatures/venture-capital/article?id=110301

WMUG | http://wmug.co.uk/wmug/b/peter_egerton/posts/microsoft-vdi-and-rds-in-server-2012-r2

TechTarget | https://searchvirtualdesktop.techtarget.com/definition/Remote-Desktop-Session-Host-RDSH

Microsoft | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remote-desktop-services/clients/remote-desktop-clients

Parallels RAS on Microsoft RDS | https://www.parallels.com/products/ras/resources/remote-desktop-services/

Aka/ms/rdsetup

SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. Amazon RDS for SQL Server makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale SQL Server deployments in the cloud. With Amazon RDS, you can deploy multiple editions of SQL Server (2012, 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019) including Express, Web, Standard and Enterprise, in minutes with cost-efficient and re-sizable compute capacity. Amazon RDS frees you up to focus on application development by managing time-consuming database administration tasks including provisioning, backups, software patching, monitoring, and hardware scaling.

Amazon RDS for SQL Server supports the “License Included” licensing model. You do not need separately purchased Microsoft SQL Server licenses. 'License Included' pricing is inclusive of software, underlying hardware resources, and Amazon RDS management capabilities.

You can take advantage of hourly pricing with no upfront fees or long-term commitments. In addition, you also have the option to purchase Reserved DB Instances under one or three year reservation terms. With Reserved DB Instances, you can make low, one-time, upfront payment for each DB Instance and then pay a significantly discounted hourly usage rate, achieving up to 65% net cost savings.

Amazon RDS for SQL Server DB Instances can be provisioned with either standard storage or Provisioned IOPS storage. Amazon RDS Provisioned IOPS is a storage option designed to deliver fast, predictable, and consistent I/O performance, and is optimized for I/O-intensive, transactional (OLTP) database workloads.