All,
I'm working on a network with four physical sites and currently using a single pool of 15 RDS servers with one broker. We're having a lot of issues with the current deployment, and are rethinking our strategy. I've read a lot of conflicting information on how
to best deploy such a service, so I'd love some input.
Features and concerns:
- Users connect to the pool from intranet only.
- There are four sites, each with a somewhat different local infrastructure. Many users are connecting to the RDS pool via thin clients, although some locations have workstations in place.
- Total user count that needs to be supported is ~400, but it is not evenly distributed - some sites have more than others.
- Some of the users travel from one site to another, so that would need to be accounted for with any plans that involve carving up the existing pool into smaller groups.
- We are looking for a load-balanced solution - using a different pool for each site would be acceptable as long as it takes #4 and #7,8 into account.
- User profile data needs to be consistent throughout: My Docs, Outlook, IE favorites, etc.
- Things such as cached IE passwords (for sharepoint), Outlook settings and other user customization needs to be carried over as well.
- As such, something needs to account for the information in AppData/localroaming, /locallow and /local between these RDS servers.
- Ideally the less you have to cache during each logon the better, in order to reduce login times.
I've almost never heard anything positive about using roaming profiles, but is this one of those rare exceptions? Even if we do that, I don't believe that covers the information in <User>/AppData/* (or does it?), so what would be the best way to make sure that gets carried over between sessions inside the pool or pools?
The current solution involves using 3rd party apps, registry hacks, GPOs and a mashup of other things and is generally considered to be a poor fit for the environment. A significant rework is expected and acceptable. Thinking outside the box is fine!
I would relish any advice on the best solutions for deployment! Thank you!