Agreed.How many users is this? I wouldn't put more than 50 on one RDS Host
They don't do calls with it on the servers, but it's still a PITA for ballooning the FSLogix profiles, we have to have a script to shrink them. Web app works pretty slick, so I wish we just didn't have it installed at all.You are going to have a nightmare with Teams running on RDSH. I advise some thorough testing before rolling that out into production.
Video calling will simultaneously eat all your bandwidth and cripple your CPU with video encoding/rendering demands. You can use GPU accelerated VM's to alleviate the hardware strain but that's going to get expensive fast with 7 RDSH
Even with just voice calling it's not suited to sending such latency sensitive traffic over an RDP session. You are adding an extra hop which is never great.
Unfortunately, solutions for this are lacking at the moment.
- You have Citrix & Horizon with their Teams Optimizations to offload encoding to the workstation/thin client and initiate the session directly. But they cost mega $$$ if you only need this one feature
- You have WVD which does a similar thing, this essentially requires a full move into Azure.
- You can run Teams locally on the users workstation/thin client. This is what we do currently. Bit annoying to be minimizing windows whenever you want to make a call but we don't have any feasible alternative. Our "VIP" users were given a 3rd monitor so RDP session is fixed to 2 monitors and Teams runs locally on the 3rd.
I'm praying Microsoft filter down the optimisations from WVD into Server 2022 when that arrives. Can't see it happening though, think they like the added selling point for WVD to push people into the cloud.
How come M365 E3 and not M365 Business Premium?If the client does decide to go this way, we'll probably have between 15 and 20 remote users at maximum. They currently have 38 employees, I think, and everyone has an office and a computer and a printer. They will be likely be moving to a smaller office next year with the thought that 40% or so of their employees will be WFH at any one time. There will be shared offices used by whoever is onsite for the day. I don't know if they intend to support fulltime WFH for anyone, but I suppose that's possible.
I'm guessing they could make this work with half the square footage they have now, a huge savings, maybe enough to pay for the technology.
This means we'll be looking primarily at creating "Full Desktop Experience" users, as opposed to remote app users. I *love* the maintenance-friendly setup of having at least 2 RDSHs so you could take one offline for updates without causing downtime, then when that was done, swapping so you can update the other.
I'm guessing from @SAFCasper 's comments that some training will be necessary to make sure remote workers run Skype, Zoom, etc., on their local computer, NOT on the remote session.
Also, part of the cost of doing this for this client would be switching from Exchange Online Plan 1 to E3 licenses for Microsoft365. That isn't insubstantial. Currently, they buy perpetual licenses for Office H&B with each new computer, and they replace workstations on an individual 5-year cycle. On average, we do 1 per month, sometimes 2. I've tried to convert them before, but they have always been more comfortable with the capital expense per computer than adding to their monthly expenses. At 38 licenses, right now they are paying (38 * $5) = $190 plus $250 for the single Office license they purchase per month = $440/mo. If I switch them to E3, it becomes (38 * $35) = $1,330/mo.
How come M365 E3 and not M365 Business Premium?
For example, O365 must be the ProPlus edition and users will need E3 licences.
I was just following @Moltuae 's statement earlier in this thread
- I'll admit I'm not at the point where the details need to be verified yet.
Also, part of the cost of doing this for this client would be switching from Exchange Online Plan 1 to E3 licenses for Microsoft365. That isn't insubstantial. Currently, they buy perpetual licenses for Office H&B with each new computer, and they replace workstations on an individual 5-year cycle. On average, we do 1 per month, sometimes 2. I've tried to convert them before, but they have always been more comfortable with the capital expense per computer than adding to their monthly expenses. At 38 licenses, right now they are paying (38 * $5) = $190 plus $250 for the single Office license they purchase per month = $440/mo. If I switch them to E3, it becomes (38 * $35) = $1,330/mo.
Welcome to the world of Microsoft's cloud services branding...
Here's a new question - every employee has dual monitors, and almost everyone who is working part-time remotely now has dual monitors setup on their home computer so they can continue that experience with RDP. Can we provide dual monitors on the "desktop experience" for each user with the RDSH?
I'm not an MSP, so I bill for my time, but I would certainly prefer any simplification possible. I have presented the switch to O365 to them at least twice before, but each time they chose to keep going with their purchase of perpetual Office licenses. Yes, it's a pain to keep track of, but not impossible. I have a spreadsheet - it works. I will welcome this "forced" move to E3 licenses, though, for the reasons already stated.
Just going to point out that Microsoft added shared activation rights to M365 Business Premium.
And probably a reason why they're not interesting in making Exchange Online fully multi-tenant compatible. Once you hit that 300 user mark, it becomes quite a bit more expensive to get the same features.Ahh, and incredibly, it's the same price as O365 E3. Probably not a coincidence. Thanks.
Ahh, and incredibly, it's the same price as O365 E3. Probably not a coincidence. Thanks.