First Glance at Ericom AccessNow for Microsoft RD Connection Broker (RDCB)

I’ve had the honor and pleasure of test-driving Ericom AccessNow for RDCB during the private beta, and providing Ericom with some early feedback. In this blog post I’d like to share some of my experiences with the beta.

A little background info
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services has evolved a lot over the past few years. The release of Windows Server 2012 (and later R2) represented a huge step forward, with major improvements in both user experience, by way of the RemoteFX (RDP8) Protocol, and in central management via Server Manager. On the RDP client side, previously Microsoft’s statement had always been, “we’ll deliver a great RDP client for Windows based devices and leave space for partners to do so for RDP clients for non-Windows based devices”. That all changed in October of 2013 when Microsoft launched their own RDP clients for iOS, Android and Mac OS X, available as a free download in the various App Stores, making it possible to run a Microsoft RDP client on various operating systems.

Where does AccessNow for RDCB step in?
Microsoft however does currently not provide their own HTML5 client for Remote Desktop Services. So what’s the use case for an HTML5 solution, with the availability of a Microsoft RDP client for most major operating systems? I personally don’t see an HTML5 client being the primary client in all scenarios. However, supporting HTML5 in a Microsoft RDS environment can help organizations that are implementing BYOD initiatives to simplify their client software management. It also makes a great second or backup option in specific  scenarios where a user cannot install an RDP client, or only needs to connect real quickly to review a document without having to install and configure a client first. This is where AccessNow for RDCB steps in.

What I personally like about this approach is that you can integrate this with your current Microsoft RDS environment without having to replace or reconfigure anything. That way, you can offer the option to connect via HTML5 and have that be a backup or secondary way of connecting.

Installing AccessNow Beta in the lab
I’ve been test-driving AccessNow for RDCB in my lab. I cannot go into too much detail about the installation process and the architecture itself, because Ericom is not disclosing that information at this time. What I can say, however, is that I’m impressed by the ease of install and the smooth way of incorporating it with an existing RDS deployment. I did provide some feedback on the chosen backend architecture, installation process and the deployment guide, so hopefully some of that feedback makes it into the General Availability version.

End user experience
As an end user, you log in via a Web Access Portal that is created during installation. Obviously this can (and should) be HTTPS, but for the sake of this demo I used HTTP.

After logging in with your domain credentials, you are presented with the remote applications and desktops that have been assigned to you. The Ericom Portal retrieves those using your existing RDS deployment.

Thus, you will see the same applications that are available to you when logging in with the same user account using, say, RD Web Access.

As an end user, you simply click on a remote application (RemoteApp) to trigger the login process. Basically, this launches an RDP session with the RD Connection Broker as the initial connection, which then directs users to an RD Session Host, similar to a regular RDS session.

After the login process, users can begin using the RemoteApp from within the browser, without the need to install any agent, fully based on HTML5. Of course, you can also publish a full desktop session in the same way.

In conclusion, integration of AccessNow for RDCB in the existing environment makes it really easy to set up and provide HTML5 browser based access to your end users as a secondary means of connection as well as for supporting BYOD scenarios, fulfilling the needs of various use cases. I’m looking forward to the GA of AccessNow for RDCB as well as the accompanying licensing models!

Ericom plans to announce the GA release of AccessNow for RDCB soon! To learn more about Ericom AccessNow for RDCB visit:http://www.ericom.com/AccessNowForRDCB.asp

Update: some people asked for this, here is an overview of the other options in the portal

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

Customizing the RDCB HA client Access DNS name using PowerShell on Windows Server 2012

After setting on High Availability for the RD Connection Broker role the RDCB HA client Access DNS name can be viewed using the Server Manager, however, this value is read-only.


In order to change this value we can use PowerShell and make use of the command
Set-RDClientAccessName
Parameter Set: __AllParameterSets
Set-RDClientAccessName [[-ConnectionBroker] <String> ] [-ClientAccessName] <String> [ <CommonParameters>]

For an example how to view the current name and change it, see the powershell commands below. Note that all RD Connection broker servers have to be running in order to change this value.


The value is now successfully changed and visible in the Remote Desktop Management Service (RDMS) Server Manager Console;

New Article: Remote Apps and the Metro RDP client

My new article titled “Remote Apps and the Metro RDP client" on virtualizationadmin.com just got published. The article is about the integration of RemoteApps running on Windows Server 2012 (8 Beta) launched from a Windows 8 client.

“…Introduction

Remote applications that run seamlessly on a client desktop have been around for some time now. With Windows Server 8 Beta, Microsoft has put in a good effort to make the RemoteApps on the Windows 8 desktop interact and integrate better than before. In this article, we will look at the integration of RemoteApps running on Windows Server 8 Beta launched from a Windows 8 client...”

Read the complete article here:
http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/vdi-articles/general/remote-apps-and-the-metro-rdp-client.html

RDS in WIN8 Feature highlight no. 6 Demo environment within just a few minutes

RDS in WIN8 Feature highlight no. 6  Demo environment within just a few minutes

Setting up a RDS demo environment on a server or VM running Windows Server 8 (Beta) literally takes you a few mouse clicks and a few minutes. If you read my Feature Spotlight no. 4 (http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/2012/03/rds-in-win8-feature-highlight-no-4.html) you know that installing the RDSH role as a prerequisite prior to the Scenario Based Deployment was a bug in the pre-beta release and is now fixed. This means that setting up a lab for demo-environments using the quick deployment only takes a few minutes. If you’ve ever setup a RDS lab or environment on Windows Server 2008 (R2) you’ll remember that it was always a hassle because you had to add the roles manually, add computers to the correct groups etc. The steps have not changed much compared to the pre-beta release, but I added them below to give you the complete story.

Open up the Server Manager Console and choose option 2, “Add roles and features”:

Choose next to start the deployment

Select the “Remote Desktop Services scenario-based installation”

As we want all the roles to be running on the same server, we choose the Quick Deployment option.

As we are going to be deploying sessions, not Virtual Desktops, we choose Session Virtualization.

We select the server where we want to install the roles

We confirm that we allow the deployment to reboot the server (needed for the RDSH role)

And that it! The Scenario Based Deployment will now install the RD Session Host, RD Connection Broker and RD WebAccess role, create a first Session Collection and add computer to the Active Directory Groups as needed.

To make the lab even more complete, several applications are already added to the Remote App sections and published on RD WebAccess to give you an environment that can be used for demo’s instantly!

RDS in WIN8 Feature highlight no. 4 Installing RDSH prior to a scenario based deployment, no requirement anymore

RDS in WIN8 Feature highlight no. 4  Installing RDSH prior to a scenario based deployment, no requirement anymore

This is more of a bug fix then a feature highlight of course, but if you have read one of my previous blog posts back in October 2011, I wrote that having the RD Session Host role installed was a prerequisite for being able to successfully walk through the new the Scenario Based deployment. Described here: http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/2011/10/take-rds-management-to-higher-level.html

Since the Beta release of Windows Server 8, this is no longer necessary. Therefore, the deployment of the scenario is now even faster than before.

I tested the quick scenario based deployment on a single server on the Beta Edition of Windows Server 8, within a few mouse clicks and an automatic reboot afterwards all the roles (RD Session Host, RD WebAccess and RD Connection Broker) are installed and the first Session Collection (QuickSessionCollection) is created. The scenario deployment runs very smooth.