Creating a RDS farm in Win2012 R2

rdsremote desktopwindows-server-2012windows-server-2012-r2

My setup:

  • Domain Controler (name: SVDC1)
  • Three RDS servers (name: SVRDS1, SVRDS2 and SVRDS3)

I'm setting up the RDS servers in a farm – never tried it before and I need your help.

My task is, that if a server goes down, all users must be able to log onto another server.

I've set up round robin DNS, so all 3 servers have the same DNS name (name:RD).

My first question…

Should I install Broker role on all three servers? If I install Broker
on SVRDS1, what will happen if this server goes down? How will
loadbalancing happen on SVRDS2 and SVRDS3?

I've tried setting up broker role on two servers. I can log on one server fine, but when I try to log onto the other server, I get this error:

Your computer can't connect to the remote computer because the
connection broker couldn't validate the settings specified in your RDP file.

Any idea why I get this error?

Next question…

Should I install Licensing role on all three servers? If I install Licensing
on SVRDS1, what will happen if this server goes down? Will people still be able to connect to the other servers? Should I place Licensing role on the SVDC1?

Any step-by-step tutorial (on the net) on setting up an RDS farm on Win2012R2?

Thanks for any feedback/suggestions!

Best Answer

The licensing and broker roles generally are installed to a server that is not one of the servers providing the Remote Desktop sessions to users. I have often seen these two roles put together on a single box. In a small 3 server farm the broker/license box will probably be idle most of the time. These roles seem to work perfectly fine in a VM, so also take advantage of Hypervisor HA features.

Neither the broker or the license role is critical. In the case of a failure Incoming connections will still work just fine, existing users will be able to connect.

Your load between the farm members will not be perfectly balanced if the broker fails, but it really doesn't have to be. Often you just need it to be balanced enough so that people can work comfortably. If round robin DNS happens to put 10 users on one server and 7 on another, does it really matter if the servers can each handle 25 users?

The one thing that noticeably fails if when your session broker is that a user will not be able to re-connect to an existing session, if the round robin DNS happens to direct them at a new server. But this is rarely a critical issue. The user can often continue working just fine completely unaware of the dead session left on the other server.

In any case let me direct you to this article about RD Connection Broker High Availability. To get true HA for the connection broker it appears like you need server(s) running Microsoft SQL server. Then you configure the multiple session brokers to use the SQL server as the storage back end.

Related Topic