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Added RDS on a Windows 2016 Azure VM - Domain Controller Required Now?

Iron Contributor

Greetings all,

 

We currently have one Azure VM running Windows 2008 R2 - hosting QuickBooks Enterprise - with 10 users accessing via RemoteApp or Session-Based Desktops - server is set-up just in "workgroup" - no DC - local accounts.

 

An upgrade is available for QuickBooks so I figured now is a good time to provision a new VM running Windows Server 2016.

 

I see that the server needs to be part of a domain to add RDS services - wasn't required in 2008 - so my question is this - can I provision an Azure Windows Server 2016 VM and promote it to a DC - to fulfill the RDS requirements or do I actually need a separate VM?  Also came across this article that mentions 3 VM's: 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remote-desktop-services/rds-prepare-vms

 

Just trying to keep things as simple as possible and to keep costs down.

 

Any advice would be most appreciated - I mostly work with Office 365.

 

Cheers!

Tammy

 

 

4 Replies
best response confirmed by Tammy Schwark (Iron Contributor)
Solution

I would have a look at Azure Active Directory Domain Services. Set that up and then create your new 2016 VM and join it to this domain. You should then be able to use that new server for your remote apps.

 

I hope that helps.

 

Let me know if I can help anymore.

 

Thanks

 

Richard

Well look at that - this definitely helps - thank you so very much Richard!  

 

2017 was all about Office 365 - been working with for quite some time - wrote some exams again just for fun - been many years!  2018 will be the year of digging into Azure - outside of VM's - it is amazing what can be done!  

 

Thanks again and have a wonderful Christmas - cheers!

Any idea of cost for AADDS vs running a VM for it? 10 users max.
1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Tammy Schwark (Iron Contributor)
Solution

I would have a look at Azure Active Directory Domain Services. Set that up and then create your new 2016 VM and join it to this domain. You should then be able to use that new server for your remote apps.

 

I hope that helps.

 

Let me know if I can help anymore.

 

Thanks

 

Richard

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