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In today’s Ask the Admin, I’ll show you how to quickly deploy a Remote Desktop Services (RDS) farm in Microsoft Azure.
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One of the great benefits of cloud computing is that all the required components of an app can be automatically deployed simply by providing Azure with a template, no matter how large, small, or complex the solution. So, although deploying an RDS farm in Azure seems like it should be a very complex task, with the help of a template, we can get a farm up and running in a matter of minutes, and that’s what I’m going to show you how to do in this article.
For more information on Azure Resource Manager and resource groups, see What are Microsoft Azure Resource Groups? on the Petri IT Knowledgebase. And for further details on RDS deployment models, see Remote Desktop Services Deployment Options in Windows Server 2012 R2.
Microsoft provides a series of templates for deploying RDS farms on GitHub. I’m going to use the Basic RDS farm deployment template, which you can find here. The template deploys virtual machines (VMs) with Active Directory domain controller and DNS roles, an RD Connection Broker and RD Licensing Server with per-user licensing, an RD Gateway, and a customizable number of RD Session Hosts.
Before you can complete the steps below, you’ll need to have an active Azure subscription. If you don’t have one, you can sign up for a free trial here.
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Azure quickstart templates (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
Now you’ll need to fill in some details for the template’s parameters.
RDS farm template parameters (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
Let’s continue to configure the farm with some additional options under SETTINGS.
RDS farm template parameters (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
The template parameters will be validated, and if successful, you’ll see a message appear in the notification center that the deployment has been submitted. Be prepared to wait an hour or more for the deployment to complete. Another notification will appear in the notification center when it’s ready for use.
To connect to the RDS farm, follow the instructions below:
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In the real world, you would create users with standard user privileges in AD to connect to the farm.
In this article, I showed you how to deploy a basic RDS farm in Microsoft Azure.
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