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Windows Server 2008: Improvements for Thin Client Remote Desktop Services

1/14/2011 2:25:58 PM
Windows Server 2008 R2 has seen significant improvements in the Terminal Services (now called Remote Desktop Services [RDS]) capabilities for thin client access for remote users and managed users in the enterprise. What used to require third-party add-ons to make the basic Windows 2000 or 2003 Terminal Services functional, Microsoft included those technologies into Windows Server 2008 and further enhanced them in Windows Server 2008 R2. These technologies include things such as the ability to access Remote Desktop Services using a standard Port 443 SSL port rather than the proprietary Port 3389, or the ability to publish just specific programs instead of the entire desktop, and improvements in allowing a client to have a larger remote access screen, multiple screens, or to more easily print to remote print devices.

These improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services have made RDS one of the easiest components to add to an existing Windows 2003 Active Directory to test out the new Windows Server 2008 R2 capabilities, especially because the installation of a Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services system is just the addition of a member server to the domain and can easily be removed at any time.

Improvements in RDP v6.x for Better Client Capabilities

The first area of significant improvement in Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services was addressed in the update to the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) v6.x client, shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Remote Desktop Protocol client for Remote Desktop Services.


The RDP client with Windows Server 2008 provided the following:

  • Video support up to 4,096 × 2,048— Users can now use very large monitors across an RDP connection to view data off a Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services system. With Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services, the latest support has been extended to support DirectX 9, 10, and 11 redirection.

  • Multimonitor support— Users can also have multiple (up to 10) monitors supported off a single RDP connection. For applications like computer-aided design (CAD), graphical arts, or publishing, users can view graphical information on one screen and text information on another screen at the same time.

  • Secured connections— The new RDP client now provides for a highly encrypted remote connection to a Remote Desktop Services system through the use of Windows Server 2008 R2 security. Organizations that need to ensure their data is protected and employee privacy is ensured can implement a highly secured encrypted connection between a Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services system and the remote client.

Remote Desktop Services Web Access

Also new to Windows Server 2008 and extended in Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services is a new role called Remote Desktop Services Web Access. Remote Desktop Services Web Access allows a remote client to access a Remote Desktop Services session without having to launch the RDP 6.x client, but instead connect to a web page that then allows the user to log on and access their session off the web page. This simplifies the access method for users where they can just set a browser favorite to link them to a web URL that provides them with Terminal Services access.

Note

Remote Desktop Services Web Access still requires the client system to be a Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 2003, Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 R2 server system to connect to a Remote Desktop Services session. A browser user cannot be running from an Apple Macintosh or Linux system and access Remote Desktop Services Web Access. For non-Windows-based web clients, third-party vendors like Citrix Systems provide connector support for these types of devices.


Remote Desktop Services Gateway

Remote Desktop Services Gateway is an update to Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services and provides the connectivity to a Remote Desktop Services session over a standard Port 443 SSL connection. In the past, users could only connect to Windows Remote Desktop Services using a proprietary Port 3389 connection. Unfortunately, most organizations block nonstandard port connections for security purposes, and, thus, if a user was connected to an Internet connection at a hotel, airport, coffee shop, or other location that blocked nonstandard ports, the user could not access Terminal Services.

Now with Remote Desktop Services Gateway, the remote user to the Remote Desktop Services Gateway connection goes over Port 443 just like surfing a secured web page. Because of the use of SSL in web page access (anytime someone accesses a web page with https://), effectively now a user can access Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services from any location.

Remote Desktop Services RemoteApps

Another new server role added to Windows Server 2008 and updated in Windows Server 2008 R2 is called Remote Desktop Services RemoteApps. Remote Desktop Services RemoteApps allows administrators to “publish” certain applications for users to access. These applications could be things like Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, the company’s time sheet tracking software, or a customer relationship management (CRM) program. Instead of giving users full access to a full desktop session complete with a Start button and access to all applications on the session, an organization can just publish a handful of applications that it allows for access.

Leveraging group policies and Network Policy Server, along with Remote Desktop Services RemoteApps, the administrators of a network can publish different groups of applications for different users. So, some users might get just Outlook and Word, whereas other users would get Outlook, Word, and the CRM application. Add in to the policy component the ability to leverage network location awareness, the administrators of the network can allow different applications to be available to users depending on whether the user is logging on to the network on the LAN or from a remote location.

Beyond just limiting users to only the programs they should have access to by policy, Remote Desktop Services RemoteApps minimizes the overhead for each user connection because the user no longer has a full desktop running, but only a handful of applications deemed necessary for the remote user’s access.

Remote Desktop Services Connection Broker

Formerly called the Session Broker in Windows Terminal Services, the Remote Desktop Services Connection Broker is a system that manages Remote Desktop sessions to ensure that if users are disconnected from a Remote Desktop server, the users can reestablish a connection to their session without loss of the session state. Without a Connection Broker, users who attempt to reconnect to Remote Desktop Services after a session disconnect might end up logging on to a completely different Remote Desktop server and have to go back to where they last saved data to pick up where they left off.

Other than the name change from Session Broker to Connection Broker, new to Windows Server 2008 R2 Connection Broker is the ability to cluster this role. In the past, this role was a single server instance. In the event that this server session was down, the connection states would not be preserved and the Session Broker would not do its job. By clustering the Connection Broker role, an organization can now add redundancy to a critical role for an organization that has several Remote Desktop servers and wants to provide users with the ability to reconnect back to their session after a temporary disconnect.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Lastly, a completely new role added to Windows Server 2008 R2 is the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, or VDI role. Instead of Remote Desktop Services that provides a one-to-many experience, where effectively a single server instance is shared across multiple users, VDI provides a one-to-one virtual guest session relationship between the server and remote client. When a VDI client user logs on to a guest session, a dedicated guest session is made available to the user with a separate client boot-up shell, separate memory pool allocated, and complete isolation of the guest session from other guest sessions on the host server.

Windows Server 2008 R2 VDI provides two different VDI modes. One mode is a personalized desktop and the other is a pooled desktop. The personalized desktop is a dedicated guest session that users have access to each and every time they log on to the VDI server. It is basically a dedicated guest session where the image the guest uses is the same every time. A pooled desktop is a guest session where the user settings (favorites, background, and application configuration settings) are saved and reloaded on logon to a standard template. Actual guest session resources are not permanently allocated but rather allocated and dedicated at the time of logon.

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