Forum Discussion
I think I'm starting to see the confusion. I do NOT have "Use RD Connection Broker load balancing" configured in Group Policy, which means (according to the GP help) that "you can configure the RD Session Host server to participate in RD Connection Broker load balancing by using the Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration tool".
However, this tool no longer exists in Windows 2012! Supposedly the setting to enable RDCB LB is now part of the Session Collection properties, but I don't see anything there about RDCB. The "Load Balancing" widget in the collection properties only contains the server names, which I think are added by default when you create the collection. So I think with High Availability RDCB enabled, we must be participating in RDCB LB by default unless we explicitly disable it (as you did).
That bit about not using RDCB LB was carried over from the 2008 section. I think we'll need to update the guide, but I will do some more research on it first.
The answer to your second question is "it depends". For example, if I point my RDP desktop client at the FQDN for the RDSH virtual server and specify the RD Gateway in the "Connect from anywhere" settings, the gateway servers will connect via that virtual and then find the correct RDSH server. You can also point at an individual RDSH server via the gateway and it will work.
- Brendan_Fusco_1Jun 24, 2014NimbostratusThanks for your continued work on this, Mike - it's much appreciated! That makes sense, as it was only when we disabled the "Use RD Connection Broker load balancing" setting that connectivity ceased to function. We assumed that was the appropriate setting as it's the only way to disable RDCB load balancing in 2012 since (as you mentioned) the RDSH configuration tool no longer exists. I think what we'll do is have F5 virtual servers for the RDCB, RDGW, and RDWA roles, but not for the RDSH servers. We'll have the RDCB load-balancing enabled to direct users to the RDSH servers, and we'll publish the RDCB HA FQDN as the address to connect to the farm. Let us know if you have any additional findings or if you're planning to update the F5 deployment guide. Thanks again!
- dzedlerNov 16, 2015NimbostratusJust stumbled across this post. First of all, RDS with Server 2012 R2 is very poorly documented by Microsoft as if no one would implement on-premise solutions nowadays. The F5 deployment guide and iApp just continue to deploy RDS as if it still were 2008 or 2012 R1. We ended up doing exactly what you wrote. TCP 3389 load balancing for RDCB HA, which should be an option in the iApp, HTTPS and UDP 3391 balancing for the RDGW as configured by the iApp, and HTTPS load balancing for the RDWA, which should also be available in the iApp. You do not need anything else, running RDS without RDCB is not possible in 2012 R2, therefore load balancing the RDSH farm (which now is a collection) with F5 is no longer possible. RDWA is also necessary for seemless integration into Windows 8.1 or higher to be able to configure work resources which integrate with the start menu.