Farm / Load Balancing

Objective of the Farm

The objective of the Farm is to:

• Distribute the load of the users among multiple AADS Terminal Servers. The load is distributed, based on the number of users, cpu load, memory load and number of processes on each server.
• Give the users always the same desktop, their own data, etc, independent of the AADS Terminal Server they are working on.

Central Repository

The Farm solution assumes that a central repository is used for the user data. An example of a central repository is Domain Authorization and Roaming Profiles. For the remaining of this manual such is assumed. The whole concept of the Farm is based on:

• An user can work on any of the AADS Terminal Servers in the Farm.

And,

• An user always expects his / her own desktop, own files, the known applications, etc.

In order to be able to give the user his / her own desktop, independent of the AADS Terminal Server in the Farm, roaming profiles are required.

Definition: Preferred server

The preferred server is the server with the least load. Which server this is, is automatically determined. Clients will get a Remote Desktop from the preferred server.

Clients

Use of the Farm does not requires the use of specific client software or client devices. Any default RDP client or PC can connect to an AADS Farm, and benefit from the Load Balancing.
Our AADS Client Software offers some benefits compared to default RDP client software or devices. It will, for example, connect quicker to an available server in the AADS Farm.

Mirror AADS Terminal Servers

The System Administrator should install every application on all AADS servers. Our Maintenance Program does not install Office, Firefox, email software, etc.
However, Application Control settings done using our Maintenance Program can be distributed among the Farm:

Doing so makes sure that Application Control settings are identical on each server in the Farm.