RDS 2008 R2 and F5 Load Balancing

Hi fox, in Windows 2008 R2 F5 cannot be used to load balance the connection broker servers. This guidance is only applicable to Windows 2012 connection broker using the new HA feature.

 

 

You can deploy RD Gateway, RD Web Access, and RD Session Host load balancing on the same BIG-IP at the same time.

 

Thanks

 

Mike

thanks for the reply.

 

 

I have to use 2008 r2, not allowed to use nice new HA in 2012 RDS yet.

 

 

So Lets assume I use F5 on my internal network to host the name of my RDS Gateway farm, the name of my web servers (dns alias).

 

 

Are you saying with F5 I don't need a broker server or that with 2008 R2 I can only use 1 of them. I really don't want to use native MS clustering to have 2 broker servers.

 

 

I always thought the broker server was needed to manage your connections and to reconnect to existing connections ETC.

 

 

many thanks

 

You do need the Connection Broker set up in your environment. BIG-IP will honor the broker token, assuming you have selected the MSRDP persistence profile on your RD Session Host virtual server; however, no connections from Session Host to Connection Broker will pass through the LTM. The Session Host servers will simply talk directly to the Connection Broker, however you have that set up. I think you will need clustering to have multiple CB servers in 2008, though.

ah ok that is a shame that I need MS clustering on the brokers.

 

 

on the broker token I assume you mean the connection broker redirection mode, select "token redirection" ?

 

 

If I select two session host servers, put them in drain mode to make them dedicated redirectors, then put them in as the servers the gateways go to I assume I get the following client to server flow.

 

 

RDP client to RD Gateway farm name--->443 through Firewall-->F5--> selected RD Gateway---> Gateway RDP to one of the Dedicated Redirectors--->Broker to check for best server or alreay connected session --------- then back the same way to the client within the token

 

 

Is that how you see it?

 

 

really appreciate this

 

 

 

Yes, that should work. In the case where you are only connecting to the RD Gateway servers through the BIG-IP, you don't even need to use the MSRDP persistence profile. The RD Gateway servers, not BIG-IP, will use the token to send the client to the correct RD Session Host server.

Hi, I just wanted to confirm whether you can load balance RDS 2012 HA Connection brokers using the F5LTM ? Best Regards,