RDS - Student owned devices

[CAWJames]

Morning all,

 

Still trying to get my head around RDS licencing after playing with a simple setup. I have set up a couple of virtuals one with RD Web Access and RD Gateway in the DMZ, pin holed it back to the LAN so it can be domain joined and then set up the rest of the roles on another virtual in the LAN connected to our 2012R2 Hyper-V cluster. I have then setup a pooled W10 virtual collection, and it works very well just opening 3391 and 443 in the firewall.

 

Now the question, we licence the enterprise desktop in EES, and from what I can work out we need FTE for RDS/TS licenses to cover the connection to the server, we are going to use normal OEM licenced desktops for client connection, so I don't think we need VDA for them, but what is the best way to license for student devices on-premise, ie if a student wants to use their ipad to get a VM? Do we need an external connector or do we need a VDA for that device, or does the student need a VDA as it wouldn't be organisation owned(can of worms springs to mind, "for your course, you need to pay our fee, then the royal college fees, oh and don't forget to contact a microsoft rep to get your VDA licence!!")? If its EC vs VDA, what's the best option? and what does an EC cover in this scenario?

 

If we go with this, we would be looking at 2 pretty hefty servers, one in our HQ and one at another centre to load balance and DR over a 100MB line, multiple procs, 256GB of RAM, dual Grid cards for RemoteFX, fully SSD, etc as we need video to work(or are we beating a worn drum with this and its never going to work?)

 

Apparently Server 2016 updates RDS quite a way, anyone tried it yet on the technical preview?

 

I am trying to find an alternative to paying for a very expensive extra broker(Citrix,VMWare, etc) and putting the money in hardware instead, and EES and a flat MS RDVH approach could work for us. It's not about the cost savings(if any)that this type of VDI would give us, but the extra benefits like for our homeworkers to be able to work on something local rather than SSL VPN, and the ease of updating the template for updates. And if I can strip out fees and licences we don't need, then all the better.

 

Sorry for all the background to go with a basic question, but it all helps!

 

Thanks

 

James

[Steve21]

Might want to flick through this: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/licensing-questions/170237-rds-licensing-3.html#post1457545

 

Steve

[CAWJames]

Hmm yes, I did see that, and it was still clear as mud, it says "they must purchase a user CAL", then says we purchase the CAL or buy an external connector.

 

So do we FTE count for student CAL's, or really one per physical student, or do they pick one up at Tesco? I assume external connector is the way to go, but does that cover all devices connecting, and is it hellishly expensive as it sounds?

 

Thanks

 

James

[Steve21]

If you look at the bold bit I summarised

 

Student's needing off-site access - They need to purchase a CAL per user or External Connector License per Server

Student's needing on-site access on a personal device - They need to purchase a CAL per user

Student's needing on-site access on a shared device - If FTE Staff number is covered they can access this (If you have fewer licenses than FTE student's need to purchase CAL licenses)

 

So if as you said it's a student's "personal" ipad internally, it's 1 cal per user. If it's student's using "shared" ipads internally, it's already covered by the Staff FTE (RDS CAL) if you bought them.

 

If you wanted to do the external connector route it's per server, and doesn't work out well normally, as it's only for external use unless it changed.

 

Steve

[CAWJames]

Thanks Steve, wasn't expecting any replies till tomorrow!!

 

The thing I don't get is "They need to", that does make it sound like they should be purchasing it, or is it something we can purchase on our EES to cover them, and if so can we pool them or is it really every student who is going to BYOD needs one?

 

Sorry for the questions, just trying to get my head around this, to see if its worth pitching an RDS environment.

[Steve21]

Sorry that's just my phrasing As was two parts students vs staff. They need, just means for the student a license is needed In longer terms.

 

You as a school can buy them for everyone ("should" be buying ), If you want a full coverage "on their own devices" it's 1:1 licensing. If you want them fully coverage for your school devices as long as Staff are fully covered via FTE they need nothing

 

No pooling allowed though, so 10 licenses = 10 students that's it.

 

Steve

[CAWJames]

Ok in that case it makes BYOD using students own device prohibitive due to cost of purchasing a licence for each and every student, potentially £thousands, when only maybe a hundred will used at any one time.

 

We will just have to look at this for shared devices, and for student's own devices they can install the O365 apps and use their own browser for the VLE and research.

 

Thanks anyway, bit of a downer really, was hoping to lock our student wi-fi down to RDS only, so they are forced to use a sanitized desktop, putting a tick in our safeguarding policy.

 

James