Remote Desktop Services (RDS)
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      How to Create a RDS Deployment with a new Domain Controller

      Overview of setting up a Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) deployment via the MyCloudIT platform.

      This is a quick start guide for creating a RDS Deployment in the platform. This RDS deployment will be running in the Azure Cloud. The MyCloudIT platform will look after the complexity of load balancer, share, subnet, Active Directory, profile disks, DNS, gateway configuration etc so you do not have to.

      This guide covers the following scenarios:

      • You want a brand new Microsoft Active Directory domain and RDS deployment (you may wish to migrate 'data only' from another system, if required).

      This guide currently does not cover the following scenarios:

      • You have an on-premises, Azure or other existing Microsoft Active Directory domain that you need to keep.
      • You want to migrate from a MyCloudIT v2 or other RDS deployment without starting new.

      Acronyms used in this document:

      • AAD - Azure Active Directory (Microsoft cloud hosted as a service)
      • AD - Active Directory (An instance of an Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services install on a physical server, VM in azure, etc)
      • RDS - Remote Desktop Services (Microsoft's suite of services for delivering thin clients with a full desktop or 'remote apps' via the Windows server operating system)

      What you will need:

      • A Microsoft Azure tenant and subscription
      • A login to the above Azure tenant with owner or contributor access to the subscription
      • About 1-2 hours free time (the setup wizard is quick, the majority of the time is waiting for Azure resources to be created and to install the agent after completion)

      Process Overview

      The process is a 4-step wizard: Basic, Collection, Services, and Confirmation. To create your RDS deployment:

      1. Log in to the MyCloudIT portal and, if applicable, navigate to the correct customer.
      2. Navigate to Deploy > Cloud Workspace and then click Remote Desktops > Deploy.
      3. Follow the wizard to completion.

      Below are some specific considerations to help you make choices on the various pages of the wizard.

      Step 1 - Basic

      Machine generated alternative text: RDS Deployment Basic Basic Subscription:*O Resource Group.o Azure subscription 1 Spa rks-Solar Resource Location:*O Deployment Name.0C) Deployment Prefix:*@ East US Spa rks-Solar sparks Time Zone:*O Advanced Mode: US/Pacific (UTC -07:00) CANCEL x NEXT

      • We generally suggest that Resource Group and Deployment Name are the same for simplicity. An example might be "Sparks-Solar".
      • The Resource Location generally should be the closest to where the majority of your actual end users will connect from. For example, if most of your users operate out of Los Angeles you may select "West US" location.
      • The Advanced Mode has network/subnet settings. Most customers should not need to edit this. The uncommon scenario where you might is if you need to create a site-to-site VPN from Azure to your head office, where your head office already uses the 10.10.0.0/16 address space. In this case you may need to change all the values to be in the 192.168.0.0/16 address space.

      Step 2 - Collection

      Machine generated alternative text: RDS Deployment Basic Collection Collection Number of Session Hosts:*O x 4 session Host(s) SPARKS-ROSH-I. SPARKS-ROSH-2 SPARKS-RDSH-3 User Config Workload.0 Heavy (1 vCPIJ per user) Session Host Operating System.o Windows Server 2016 Datacenter - Gen 1 Advanced Mode: Collection Session Host Size.0(D Default Collection standard E32 vs Session Host Disk Performance: Diagnostics Storage Account Name:* standard SSD mcitdgt51gj6dSdy CANCEL BACK NEXT

      • Choose the initial Number of Session Hosts you wish to deploy. Do not worry as you can always add more later. We suggest one extra session host that you will leave turned off as an emergency spare. The max number is 10 Session Hosts during deployment. After deployment, you can add additional Session Hosts.
      • The User Config Workload is just an initial estimate used for the autoscaling graph. Do not worry if you are not sure or this is not correct as this can be tuned later. If unsure, just select 'Heavy' for now.
      • You can choose a Collection Name for your initial RDS collection here. You will be able to make more collection post deployment. Many customers use Collections for the type of work users will be doing and often this aligns with departments for example "Sales-Collection. If your company is under 50 RDS users you likely will have one collection.
      • We suggest you choose a Session Host Size with at least a D2_v3 or higher specification to start with. This is to avoid Azure creation timeout issues we see with smaller sizes like B2 and A2. The size can then be changed easily post deployment under the "Virtual Machines" menu. This should later be optimized based on various factory including:
          • Number of session hosts in a collection
          • Average number of concurrent users per session host
          • Session host CPU/RAM/Disk-IO/Network use
          • Session host Autoscaling
          • Going 'wide' or 'deep' in regards to redundancy vs performance vs number of session hosts
          • Note: If you would like advice on the above factors for your environment please reach out to MyCloudIT senior support and we can have a discussion
      • The 'Standard SSD' option for Session Host Disk Performance is the general recommendation as they are the cost effective option, optimized for workloads that need consistent performance at mid IOPS levels. This tier will be used for the operating system disk (performance) attached to the RDS Session hosts.
        • Premium SSDs offer high-performance and low-latency for I/O-intensive applications. If you do not see the option for "Premium SSD," this is because you have selected a size that does not support premium disks. Generally sizes that include an "s," support premium storage, for example: D4s_v3.
        • Use Standard HDDs for Test scenarios or low I/O workloads.

      Step 3 - Services

      RDS Deployment Basic Collection Services Services Active Directory Domain Name:' New Active Directory Domein (DC VV) sparkssolar.local Domain Admin Username Domain Admin Password:' Infrastructure Operating System:• Advanced Mode: johnc Windows Server 2016 Datacenter - Gen I Domain Controller Standard 04 v3 Domain Controller Disk Performance O Gateway Size-O Standard 04 v3 Diagnostics Storage Account Name:• Share & Profile Data Disk Size: C) 1 Ta Standard SSD User Profile Disk Size-O 32 G3 Pubic Subdomain (autords.com) sparks-solar Gateway Azure DNS Broker Azure DNS mcitgw-sawnr6hmm9 mcitdc-mx180e4w9d CANCEL BACK NEXT

      • Choose a Domain Name for your Microsoft AD root forest domain. This AD instance will be hosted on one domain controller virtual machine initially named MSDC. Generally if you do not have a reason to do otherwise we suggest using a '.local' top level domain. An example is sparkssolar.local. This does not have to match in any way to your publicly resolvable domain names but if you have reason this is also a valid option. You are welcome to contact MyCloudIT senior support for advice on your choice here.
      • The Domain Admin Username should be specified as a username only, example: 'johnc'. It should not be specified as johnc@company.com or company\johnc. This is a new user (domain admin) account that we will create for you on initial deployment.
      • We suggest you choose a Domain Controller Size with at least a D2_v3 or higher specification to start with. This is to avoid Azure creation timeout issues we see with smaller sizes like B2 and A2. The size can then be changed easily post deployment under the "Virtual Machines" menu. If you choose to resize the MSDC virtual machine later on we recommend at least 4GB RAM and two vCPU. More may be required if you run extra services like management software or antivirus server on the domain controller.
      • 'Standard SSD' for Domain Controller Disk Performance is the general recommendation as they are a cost effective option optimized for workloads that need consistent performance at mid IOPS levels. The reason for this advice is that user profiles will be loaded from this disk thus affecting their experience. This tier will be used for the operating system disk (performance) attached to the RDSBroker/Domain Controller/File Server.
        • 'Premium SSDs' offer high-performance and low-latency for I/O-intensive applications. If you do not see the option for "Premium SSD," this is because you have selected a size that does not support premium disks. Generally sizes that include an "s," support premium storage, for example: D4s_v3. Most customers choose to create their company file share and home drives on this data disk as well.
        • Use 'Standard HDDs' for Test scenarios or low I/O workloads.
      • We suggest you choose a Gateway Size with at least a D2_v3 or higher specification to start with. This is to avoid Azure creation timeout issues we see with smaller sizes like B2 and A2. The size can then be changed easily post deployment under the "Virtual Machines" menu. The gateway server site in a DMZ subnet and runs the RDWebAccess and RDGateway roles. Making your gateway too small will effect user experience for RDS connections. Generally the more concurrent users you have the larger the gateway will need to be.
      • The Share & Profile Disk Size is the space in GB of the data disk we attach to the MSDC virtual machine. This will be used for all RDS user profiles and also company shares and home drives if required.
      • The User Profile Disk Size is the maximum size that user profile disks can grow to. User profile disks will start out small (usually under 1 GB) and grow depending on what the user saves in the profile and what applications store data there. We recommend that most of users data is stored in home drives and company shares as opposed to in their profile for management and performance benefits.
      • The Public Subdomain will be a public facing DNS name we create for your users to access RDS from. An example entry for this field is: 'sparks-solar'. See the "User Access to RDS" below for more information on this.

      Step 4 - Confirmation

      • Review your RDS deployment settings and click on the Create button to start the process.
      • Note: The process may take up to 90 minutes to complete. To check the status, navigate to Manage > Deployments.

      Post Deployment

      After waiting for 30-90 minutes your deployment will have completed, please complete the following:

        1. Install the RDS Agent. Most MyCloudIT RDS features require the agent installed on the MSDC virtual machine.  For instructions: RDS Agent Installation

          A few examples of features that use the agent to perform tasks are:
          • Delete Session Host
          • RDS session host autoscaling
          • Send message to RDS users
        2. We strongly recommend you configure backups now via the MyCloudIT portal. For additional information, see KB - Creating a New Backup Vault with Policies.
        3. You will now want to add RDS users. This can be done via the MyCloudIT portal under "Active Directory". Important: You will need to add the users who you want to allow access to the collection to the AD group named: CollectionName-Group where CollectionName is the name of your collection that you specified in the collection form. If you did not specify a collection name this will be called "DefaultCollection-Group".
          For instructions: KB - Active Directory User Management
        4. Other General IT related tasks should now be completed, such as security implementations, windows updates, software installation, peripheral integration, application server creation, documentation, etc.
          1. It is suggested that you make use of MyCloudIT golden images feature to customize and deploy session hosts.
          2. We encourage you to use MyCloudIT autoscale to switch on and off session hosts based on 'capacity' or time based such as turn off session hosts over-night or weekends to save on Azure compute costs. For instructions: KB - Autoscaler Overview

        User Access to RDS

        After users are added to the collection AD group as described above, they can use a web browser to visit https://sparks-solar.autords.com/rdweb where "sparks-solar" is replaced with your "Public Subdomain" from the services form of the deployment wizard.

        The user will then login with their AD username and password. An example is 'sparkssolar\dwilliams'.

        Appendix

        Appendix A: Infrastructure Overview

        A basic overview of the infrastructure we create.

        • Virtual Machine prefix-MSDC-001
          • Operating System: Microsoft Windows Server Datacentre 2016 x64
          • Roles: RDS Connection Broker, RDS Licence Server, Active Directory Domain Services, DNS Server, File Server
          • Domain Configuration: Domain Controller
          • Disks: 1 operating system disk and 1 data disk
          • Subnet: Core with network security group
          • Default IP Address: 10.10.10.10
          • Other: Public DNS address, public IP address
        • Virtual Machine prefix-RDGW-001
          • Operating System: Microsoft Windows Server Datacentre 2016 x64
          • Roles: RDS Gateway, RDS Web Access
          • Domain Configuration: Domain Joined
          • Disks: 1 operating system disk
          • Subnet: DMZ with network security group
          • Default IP Address: 10.10.99.4
          • Other: Network load balancer with Public DNS address & public IP address
        • Virtual Machine prefix-RDSH-n (where is 0 to 999)
          • Operating System: Microsoft Windows Server Datacentre 2016 x64
          • Roles: RDS Session Host
          • Domain Configuration: Domain Joined
          • Disks: 1 operating system disk
          • Subnet: Workload with network security group
          • Default IP Address: 10.10.20.n (where n is 4 to 253)