Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Terminal Server setup

Hello,

Recently we have started hosting AC at our datacenter and I was wondering if someone can share their experience or have a "best practices" document. We have it working well but there are something which shortcomings as compared to other EMR we host.
- Can you have one RDP username and have the entire practice use the same via RemoteApp or 2X application server. I understand the security implications but will AC work this way?
- When you create a new TS user, it goes through complete AC install and a reboot.
- Every practice will need a separate instance of Windows. AC support was categorical about not supporting shared installs.

Thank You

AC is wrong again. What you are describing is basically normal when you are setting up apps on a TS. As to your shared RDP (which is not a good idea), are you on a domain? Because if so, you would have signle sign-on, and everyone would be using their own RDP anyway. Plus, the TS would need to recognize the authentication. Most of this stuff needs to be done on Windows Server 2012 or newer.

An instance consists of a database (in your instance Amazing Charts) where the databases and the SQL Server engine work together. This is an instance. You can only have one of any particular instance. You can have multiple, multiple instances. So, in any situation in an office, you could not have more than once instance. What they are likely talking about are multiple ACs on the TS. Again, this is wrong. You are connecting from a client without AC on it to an app on TS which is using the database on the server. Each app requires a license and can be accessed by a certain user. Think of it as having unique AC apps on each computer client. You can have hundreds, although some would be for the same user on different computers. So, AC, although they use SQL do not seem to have IT support that knows SQL Server. It is kind of like if you call Microsoft about Exchange or Active Directory, they will route your support to that department. AND, they will answer the phone.

Edit: You could consider each user's running of AC on the Remote Desktop an instance. So, I am not completely sure how AC is looking at it. And, applications have to be able to be licensed to an RDP. I would have to guess that AC is.

I think in your situation using Remote Apps, which is a feature of Remote Desktop server (aka in the past as Terminal Server). Each user could download the app from the server and just click on it which would open an RDP session with Amazing Charts only.

PLUS, this would solve the problem of using MACs with AC. Or iPad with AC.

Sandeep can correct everything I just said. LOL.

You could certainly look at some sites on the Internet. One great resource, which changed a few years ago from purchasing DVDs to a subscription streaming service is Train Signal. There are many courses on all different topics in computing, mainly Microsoft.

There is a rather good Remote Desktop Course at Train Signal.

You could use a trial membership and check it out. This one is an intermediate course. I haven't looked through the whole thing, but it may apply. If it does, then it would be the way to go. If you were to get a subscription, you could watch it over and over I believe. If you do watch it, please let me know if it helped and how good the instructor is. Many of these instructors have over 20 years of experience in one particular field.

One thing to stress:

DO NOT install SQL Server on a Remote Desktop server.

JamesNT

Hi Bert and James,

Thanks for the detailed reply. A couple of follow up questions:
- MS RDP/RDS licensing allows per user license so if I can have one rdp user created and have the entire office connect to AC TS using that user, it would save us on TS CAL's
- What I meant with multiple instances was running multiple customers (each having a different database) on same Windows 2008R2 server.

We do hosting for a different EMR which runs on sybase and it allows us to do both of above. Basically we have multiple customers, each with their own database running on one windows 2008r2 machine (sybase shows each client running as a service and we can turn on/off/restart each of them individually). There is another machine which is "Apps server" running terminal services and that is where the clients connect to. All employees of each customer (Dr ABC MD LLC., Healthy Hearts LLC etc) will have one unique RDP username/password (which really they are not aware of since it is stored in the 2X application server file). This way we only use 1 TSCAL for each customer.

Thanks James. I don't think anyone was advocating that.

@nid15

This would seem like a total violation of Microsoft licensing. You can use one user account but then you would need to use one license per device. Generally, you would choose that in the beginning depending on which is more beneficial. I may be reading your post wrong, because it got a little confusing (for me anyway).

Bert,

For something that is never advocated, I continue to be utterly shocked at how often it happens.

nid15,

You MUST purchase one user CAL for each person connecting to your terminal server. Having everyone use the same account doesn't cut it.

You'll have to set up a different SQL Server for each client you have using Amazing Charts. The SQL Server instance name (Amazing Charts) is hard coded if memory serves. You can change server name, but not instance name. And each server can contain one and only one SQL Server instance of the same name.

JamesNT

AC runs a per-user install process, so you have to provision, then run each user.

If the users have RDP access and there are any non-encrypted files on the server, it would be a HIPAA violation to have shared access.

Indy --

This is all so confusing.
Are you talking "users" like each office staff member is a "user"
Or are you talking about some organization that hosts multiple different installations of AC for different practices -- and each practice is a "user"?

We have one practice, 2 doctors, about 10 full-and part time staff members and SBS-Essentials.
Essentials doesn't use CALS. There are probably 14 or 15 client terminals

The doctors use RDP to get to their office desktops for remote access from home or on the road.
No staff members use RDP

Is this legal, or are the HIPAA police on the way?

It shouldn't be confusing. The only reason it is confusing, is due to the original question asked. We are talking about terminal servers, which Microsoft now refers to as the Remote Desktop Services. You use RDP to access an app on the server hosting Remote Desktop Services.

Remote Desktop Services cannot be hosted on a server which has the domain controller so you will need two servers.

So you have Windows Server 2012 R2 or Essentials. You purchase a license which allows the Domain controller, Hyper-V host and remote services. (again remote services must be on a separate server).

OK, so now you have your regular server which contains the SQL databases and domain controller, etc. Remote Desktop Services is on a separate server (Remote Desktop Server) and hosts Amazing Charts application. Now each USER (no matter what type of user) can access an instance of Amazing Charts on the Remote Desktop Server using RDP. Each user must have a license to access that app. Simply think of AC on the Remote Desktop Services located on the separate server as a client except an unlimited amount of users can access the app. The beauty of this, like Sandeep pointed out) is if you set up your office like this and then one day set up another office (instead of getting another thread on how best to set this up), you simply set up the other office with thin clients or computers and Internet. They then use RDP on their computer to access the AC app. It is like AC is on their computer. But, the user at the other office must have a license. Each user which accesses any app on the Remote Desktop Services computer (aka Terminal Server in the past), MUST have a license. If, as the author states, you use one RDP for more than one user, this is considered abuse of the Microsoft EULA and Microsoft could potentially take your server OS and all the data. They likely wouldn't. They would likely send a very strong letter telling you to purchase licenses.

FORGET ABOUT RDP FROM HOME OR YOUR PHONE OR TABLET. THAT DOES NOT REQUIRE A LICENSE. IF YOU USE RDP TO ACCESS THE APP ON THE REMOTE DESKTOP SERVER, YOU WOULD NEED A LICENSE.

YOU CAN ALSO USE REMOTE APPS, VERY MUCH LIKE ACCESSING AN INSTANCE OF AC.

Remote Apps is a feature of Remote Desktop server. You need to set up a Remote Desktop environment and then you create a very tiny app for something like Amazing Charts and publish on a Remote Desktop Web page so people can download it, or just put it on their desktop. It is not much more than an icon. They click on it and it automatically starts an RDP session with that app (Amazing charts) It appears just like running the application locally except it is in a window. They have no access to anything else on the remote desktop server.

And begging for an audit. RDS Licensing works one of two ways: Per User or Per Device.
Per Device licenses are "checked out" in 90 day increments and will max out on the RDS license server and prevent more connections. Per Device is useful when multiple users (several shifts, etc, like a hospital floor computer) use the same computer. When the device doesn't check-in the license then becomes available again.
Per User licensing is not managed in the license server and relies on honesty to own the correct number of licenses. Per User licenses is more useful when one active directory user logs in from multiple devices, i.e. a doctor that does his notes in the office, on his laptop, and at home.
In any case, in a RD environment, I don't believe you can have multiple AC users simultaneously sharing an AD profile in Remote Desktop/Remote App because the Session Broker would connect all the users to the same AC session.