New Article: Disaster recovery options for the RD Connection Broker 2012 (HA)

My new article “Disaster recovery options for the RD Connection Broker 2012 (HA)” is now published on VirtualizationAdmin.com

“…Since the role of the RD Connection Broker is so important, a big improvement has been made in the ability to create an active-active highly available (HA) solution. However, since all RD Connection Brokers in a HA solution use the same central SQL Server database, this database (and the instance it’s running on) suddenly become your Single Point of Failure. To overcome this, it’s important to also take a close look at options to setup a High Available SQL Server environment for your RD Connection Brokers. Besides that, regular backups of your RD Connection Broker database are obviously also strongly advised and will save you a lot of trouble in case of a serious SQL Server outage.

In case you do have to recover from a loss of the RD Connection Broker Database, there are several ways to perform this recovery based on what exactly got lost. In this article we will discuss several recovery scenarios.…”

Source: http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/vdi-articles/microsoft-hyper-v/disaster-recovery-options-rd-connection-broker-2012-ha.html

KB: Authenticated users are removed from the Remote Desktop Users group after you set the drain mode on a Windows Server 2008 R2-based RDS server (2834976)

A new KB was just released (2834976 ) for Windows Server 2008 R2 running RD Session Host. Where putting the server in Drain Mode causes the removal of the authenticated users group in the Remote Desktop Users group are removed.

“…Consider the following scenario:

• You have the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) role installed on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2.
• You set the user logon mode to drain mode on the computer. For example, you run the following command on the computer:

  chglogon /drain

  In this scenario, the authenticated users in the Remote Desktop Users group are removed…”

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2834976/

KB: RDS client cannot connect to RD Session Host server after the server IP address is changed (2844958)

A new KB article (KB2844958) was released last week regarding changing IP addresses of RD Session Host servers part of a Windows Server 2012 deployment. Apparently the SessionDirectoryRedirectionIP registry entry stores the IP address of an RD Session Host server that was assigned when the RDS deployment was created. Although the IP address of the RD Session Host server is changed, the IP address in the RD Connection Broker setting is not updated. Therefore, RDS clients cannot connect to the session collection.

“…Considering the following scenario:

• You set up a standard deployment of Remote Desktop Services (RDS) in Windows Server 2012. The deployment contains Remote Desktop (RD) Session Host servers, an RD Connection Broker server, and an RD Web Access server.
• You create a session collection that can be accessed by RDS clients through the RD Web Access website.
• The IP addresses of all RD Session Host servers in the session collection are changed.

In this scenario, the RDS clients cannot connect to the session collection, and you receive the following error message during the connection:

Your credentials did not work...”

“…Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.
To resolve this problem, delete the SessionDirectoryRedirectionIP registry entry of the following registry subkey from each RD Session Host server in the session collection:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\ClusterSettings…”

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2844958/en-us?sd=rss&spid=16526

Release of LoginVSI 4

 

LoginVSI version 4 will be officially released soon!. Through the LoginVSI VIP program the new release was already send to me last week. I upgraded my lab running version 3.7 to 4 and I must say the installation went very smooth.

The management console has been completely restyled and looks very “modern UI”

You now have the ability to create several phases per test.

During the test the management console shows an overview of the running test.

And also new is a Session Monitor containing information on the session currently running.

If error occur during the test the management console immediately informs you about this with a link to a log file that contains a detailed description.

The Analyser now shows more details about the test which improves the readability.

Besides these changes, the test image footprint of Login VSI has been reduced, a new benchmarking mode enforces strict testing standards and the workloads have been improved to better reflect real world user behavior

The new version obviously requires some more testing to do more a detailed review, but so far the changes in version 4 are impressive!

Watch http://www.loginvsi.com/ for the official launch !

Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles (Jump Start series)

A few days ago a series of jumpstart video’s has been published on Channel9 related to Microsoft VDI in Windows Server 2012 Windows 8 presented by Joey Snow, Corey Hynes and Adam carter.

“…This Jump Start covers the latest approaches to desktop virtualization, the business cases for each, guidance for choosing appropriate virtual desktop types according to requirements and architectural guidance for building a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with appropriate sizing, scalability and fault tolerance. In addition to VDI this training session will cover session virtualization, application and user state virtualization, and scenarios for desktop virtualization vs. traditional desktops, the Microsoft-Citrix v-Alliance program and provide context and scope for understanding when Microsoft only desktop virtualization makes sense and when a Citrix v-Alliance solution is appropriate…”

Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles: (01) Introduction to Desktop Virtualization

 

 

 

Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles: (02) Optimizing the User Experience

 

 

 

Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles: (03) Deploying Virtual Desktops with Windows Server…

 

 

 

Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles: (04) Hyper-V for VDI

 

 

 

Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles: (05) Capacity Planning and Architecture

 

 

 

Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles: (06) Leveraging Citrix

 

 

 

Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles: (07) Microsoft VDI Licensing

RD Connection Broker 2012 Performance and Scalability

Microsoft releases a performance document on RD Connection Broker in Windows Server 2012.

“…In Windows Server 2012, RD Connection Broker provides the following functionality:

• Allows users to reconnect to their existing virtual desktops, RemoteApp programs, and session-based desktops.
• Enables you to evenly distribute the load among RD Session Host servers in a session collection, or pooled virtual desktops in a pooled virtual desktop collection.
• Provides access to virtual desktops in a virtual desktop collection.

In Windows Server 2012, RD Connection Broker functionality is extended so that you can easily create collections. Connection routing and load-balancing capabilities are also improved. This document presents performance and scalability testing results for RD Connection Broker. It describes the most relevant factors that influence the performance of the component…”

The document also contains some recommendations regarding the RD Connection Broker role:

“…Recommendations for the RD Connection Broker setup:

· Highly Available RD Connection Broker. Use High Availability configuration for the RD Connection Broker. High availability provides increased reliability and availability at the same time, allowing the processing of a larger number of concurrent connections.

· Hardware for RD Connection Broker. We recommend server hardware with at least 4 cores and 4 GB of RAM. In the testing environment HP Z400 servers were used for benchmarking.

· SQL Server configuration. Quad-core machine with at least 4 GB of RAM, Standard or Enterprise SQL Server ver. 2008 R8 and newer…”

Source and download:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38779

Guidelines for installing the Remote Desktop Session Host role service on a computer running Windows Server 2012 without the Remote Desktop Connection Broker role service (2833839)

Microsoft has releases a FAST PUBLISH KB (2833839) regarding installing the Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) role without the Remote Desktop Connection Broker (RDCB) role. This server can be part of a workgroup or may even be configured as a Domain Controller.

Why is this important? With RDS/VDI in Windows Server 2012, the RD Connection Broker is more or less a mandatory component. I believe deploying RDS/VDI 2012 within an Active Directory Domain where the Domain Controller is not combined with RDS roles and where the RD Connection Broker is part of the deployment, is always the recommended way to go. However, I’ve seen many, many questions arise on TechNet Forum where people ask for deployments on a single server where the all RDS roles (including Active Directory) are installed on a single server and accepting all the downsides. Obviously intended for very small scenarios, where only 1 server is available. Second, many have asked for a deployment of RD Session Host without even using a Active Directory domain, and thus a workgroup. Third, many have asked for deployments where only the RD Session Host role is deployed (role based).

So here’s Microsoft's answer:
Guidelines for installing the Remote Desktop Session Host role service on a computer running Windows Server 2012 without the Remote Desktop Connection Broker role service

“…This article provides the guidelines to install and configure the Remote Desktop Session Host  role service on a computer running Windows Server 2012 without the Remote Desktop Connection Broker role service installed.
This configuration should only be used when it is the only option as the recommended configuration includes the Remote Desktop Connection Broker to provide access to the complete functionality with Remote Desktop Services. If a Domain Controller is available on a separate server, it is recommended to use the Standard Remote Desktop Services deployment wizard. This configuration is appropriate when there is only one server on the network. This server can be part of a workgroup or may be configured as a Domain Controller.
This configuration, will provide desktop sessions to users based on the number of Remote Desktop Services client access license (RDS CALs) installed on the server, but will not provide access to RemoteApp programs or the RDWeb site…”

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2833839/
(KB2833839)