6. Working with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
One of the new, key aspects
you can take advantage of when using all the RDS components available to
your Windows Server 2008 R2 server is the virtual desktop
infrastructure. What this allows you to do, in a nutshell, is take a
virtual machine created in Hyper-V on your server and enable remote
desktop connections to the virtual machine. This provides a flexible
desktop access solution for you and your users, as well as giving you
centralized management of the desktop sessions. Since the sessions are
stored in a virtual machine, you can quickly manage these systems.
What happens under the
covers is the user using the VDI to connect to the desktop will initiate
the connection with either RD Web Access or a Remote Desktop Connection
file. This connection will be routed through the RD Connection Broker,
with verification to AD and the RD Session Host, and then the client
will be able to access the Remote Desktop Virtualization Host. As you
may recall, the Remote Desktop Virtualization Host role service requires
Hyper-V configured on the server. It is the Hyper-V virtual machines
loaded on the Remote Desktop Virtualization Host that will provide the
desktop to your users. In Figure 12, you can see a diagram on how this works.
There are numerous services
to make this work from end to end. However, the RDS tools make this as
straightforward as possible. After you have created the virtual client
machine to be used for VDI, then you need to configure the various
components to properly handle the requests. A majority of your
configurations will be completed in the RD Connection Manager.
6.1. Configure Virtualization Hosts
One of the first steps is to configure the Remote Desktop Virtualization Host to use the virtual machine you have chosen:
To open Connection Manager, select Start => Administrative Tools => Remote Desktop Services => Remote Desktop Connection Manager.
In RD Connection Manager, click Add RD Virtualization Host Server in either the middle pane or the Actions pane on the right.
Type
in the FQDN of the server you installed the Remote Desktop
Virtualization Host service on, and click Add; you will see a screen
similar to Figure 13. You will then need to configure how you will connect to the virtual desktops.
Click Configure Virtual Desktops in the right Actions pane.
Review the welcome screen, and click Next.
You should see the name of your RD Virtualization Host server; if you do not, type in the name, and click Next.
You
may need to configure your RD Session Host server. This may also
already have been configured; if you do not see the RD Session Host
server specified, type in the FQDN of the server, and click Next.
You
may need to configure your RD Web Access Server; this may also already
have been configured. If you do not see the RD Web Access server
specified, type in the FQDN of the server, and click Next.
Review
your summary information. You will also notice a check mark in the
check box Assign Personal Virtual Desktop. Leave the box selected, and
click Finish.
To
assign a virtual machine, you need to select a user from your AD
environment and a virtual machine that exists on the RD Virtualization
Host server. It is required that your virtual machines have been named
with an FQDN in Hyper-V. If they have not been, you will see an error
message, as shown in Figure 14. After you have entered your username and assigned a virtual machine, click Next.
Review the confirmation screen, and click Assign.
Review
the assignment summary; you will also notice a check box if you need to
assign another virtual machine that is checked by default; if you need
to assign more users or groups, click Continue. Otherwise, clear the
check box, and click Finish.
One last configuration you
will need to make is to the RD Session Host server. You will need to set
the connection broker's server purpose to Virtual Machine Redirection.
This is necessary so the server redirects the requests properly to the
Remote Desktop Virtualization Host server.
To open RD Session Host Configuration, select Start => Administrative Tools => Remote Desktop Services => Remote Desktop Session Host configuration.
Double-click the setting under the heading RD Connection Broker.
Select the radio button Virtual Machine Redirection under the Remote Desktop Virtualization heading.
Enter
the server name of your RD Connection Broker server. The server will
need to be in the Session Broker Computers group in your Active
Directory. Your screen should look similar to Figure 15.
Click OK, and you will see a notification similar to Figure 16.
Review the message, and if you accept the changes, click Yes.
Click OK to exit the settings dialog box.
