Setting up Terminal Services

[pooley]

I am looking to get away from Staff taking documents home due to the risks of loss etc, although memory sticks are encrypted I can't guarantee staff are using them correctly.

 

We currently use WebDav, which has been ok, but I would prefer a full solution.

 

So I am considering terminal services, so if I have this correct, Terminal services is a RDP connection?

What are the licensing implications?

Do I need anything other than a Server 2003/08 box for the users to hit?

 

This will only be available to staff, so only looking at 30 or so users.

 

Any caveats or issues I'm likely to come up against?

 

Thanks

 

Si

[wesleyw]

Well for only 30 users a decent machine twin dual core 3gb ram will probably run those. TS is RDP yes you should look at some sort of ISA box or Linux reverse proxy to keep it more secure. You'll need to look at TS Cals and Win Cals for each concurrent user however don't install MS office as you'll need a license for every potential user (not concurrent).

 

Wes

[pooley]

Well for only 30 users a decent machine twin dual core 3gb ram will probably run those. TS is RDP yes you should look at some sort of ISA box or Linux reverse proxy to keep it more secure. You'll need to look at TS Cals and Win Cals for each concurrent user however don't install MS office as you'll need a license for every potential user (not concurrent).

 

Wes

 

Thanks Wes,

 

Access will be via County ISA bos so should be ok there, the Office license is a bit of a stinger

 

Ta

 

Si

[wesleyw]

Yeah tell me about it however open office is fine so you can use that easily enough it'll only be an issue for certain things like SIMS .Net but only if they use Assessment Manager -> Interim Reports or Profiles -> Template. Other than that you'll be fine.

 

Wes

[mattstevenson2005]

Hi

 

we are looking at a very similar thing, in the research I have been doing you would need two servers, one for the terminal service gateway and one for the actual terminal application server. With regards to licensing as i understand it (please correct me if im wrong) if you use the microsoft volume license agreement and buy the desktop package for your workstations then you are covered for pupil access through terminal server as these are classed as non employees but staff need a separate license and we found it cheaper to purchase the terminal server external internet connector (around £500 per year) instead of individual staff licenses, bear in mind that you have to have a license CAL for each staff member its not based on concurrent users thats why the external connector worked out cheaper for us. Hope that helps

 

Matt

[wesleyw]

I'd use 2008 R2 though as if and when you add to the system you'll have a decent TS gateway option to play with .

 

Wes

[wesleyw]

@Matt: I'd say that covers it but I'd look at a per user basis instead for small volumes I believe the TS gateway and TS services can be on the same server for Si's implementation this would be alright. You can use TS Web as well which could be setup via 443 and work without TS Gateway.

 

Wes

[joe90bass]

Si,

You're welcome to come up and have a look/chat at our setup if you want? We have a 3 server farm with external access to one box via RDP.

[sted]

Hi

 

we are looking at a very similar thing, in the research I have been doing you would need two servers, one for the terminal service gateway and one for the actual terminal application server. With regards to licensing as i understand it (please correct me if im wrong) if you use the microsoft volume license agreement and buy the desktop package for your workstations then you are covered for pupil access through terminal server as these are classed as non employees but staff need a separate license and we found it cheaper to purchase the terminal server external internet connector (around £500 per year) instead of individual staff licenses, bear in mind that you have to have a license CAL for each staff member its not based on concurrent users thats why the external connector worked out cheaper for us. Hope that helps

 

Matt

 

you can run ts gateway on the main ts server. Ive currently got a test setup running i n a school its running as a hyper v on 2008 given it a gig of ram and its own nic (granted its a cruddy nic dfe 530tx but i was having trouble finding a card the server liked it liked that so its staying). Currentlyport 443 is forwarded to the ts gateway server nic from the outside world and it seems to work ok (though its not fast but as its on an adsl connection with 1.5mb up its not terrible). Ive used my own certificate but i have had to make changes to the hosts file as it needs to talk by name to ts2008.school.local. ive not stress tested it yet (or 100% finished polices) but it does appear to be quite usable though someone else at work wants to use tweb as well which seems to work to a point then deny all knowledge of the server im assuming ts gateway needs changes. Licensing atm ive not looked into that much server 08 gives 60 datys before needing owt done and ts lic gives you 120 enough to test with