To RDS or Not to RDS? That is the question!
October 12, 2015
To RDS or Not to RDS? That is the question!
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Windows 2012 R2 Remote Desktop Services
Modules Used
- VDI
- Session Based
- Connection Broker
- RDS Gateway
Overall Satisfaction with Remote Desktop Services
We currently use Microsoft's Windows 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services to provide a centralized interface from which to access data in our data center. The entire company uses this to access our accounting and project management software. This keeps us from having duplicate systems in different locations from which disparaged information must be combined. Additionally, since the Remote Desktop Services is in the same data center and network segment as the backend systems, access to data is much faster and more reliable.
- While it is not to the level of Citrix, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services does a good job with video compression.
- Universal printing works very well.
- Management via group policy allows me to lockdown our environment to keep users from making changes that might affect the entire system.
- I think that while the compression rate it good, there is always room for improvement. I would like to see the RDP protocol skinned down even further and made more efficient.
- Dynamic screen scaling would be a nice way to utilize the most screen real estate when switching from an undocked connection to a docked connection with larger monitors.
- Increase Employee efficiency
- Reduced bandwidth requirements
- Reduced hardware requirements
We have reviewed Citrix Xen Desktop and VMware's VDI solutions. For the cost, when compared to what Remote Desktop Services can provide us there was no contest. Remote Desktop Services can provide us all the features we require with little to no cost since we are an EA customer with grandfathered eCALs! If we were going greenfield and having to buy licensing from scratch, we would look at the Citrix Xen product. Just remember that Microsoft's Remote Desktop Service is licensed from Citrix and if you can wait a few years for a current Xen feature, you can have it for free in Remote Desktop Services.