Lesson 1: Introducing Terminal Services | MCSE Training Kit(c) Microsoft Windows 2000 Accelerated 2000

Terminal Services provides access to Windows 2000 and the latest Windows-based applications for client computers. It also provides access to your desktop and installed applications anywhere, from any supported client. Terminal Services is a built-in feature of Windows 2000 that allows IT managers and system administrators who want to increase flexibility in application deployment, control computer management costs, and remotely administer network resources.

After this lesson, you will be able to

Describe Terminal Services
Explain the advantages of remote administration for Terminal Services
Describe the uses of Application Server

Estimated lesson time: 5 minutes

Overview of Terminal Services

Terminal Services running on a Windows 2000 Server enables all client application execution, data processing, and data storage to occur on the server. It provides remote access to a server desktop through terminal emulation software. The terminal emulation software can run on a number of client hardware devices, such as a personal computer, a Windows CE-based Handheld PC (H/PC), or a terminal.

With Terminal Services, the terminal emulation software sends keystrokes and mouse movements to the server. Terminal Services does all the data manipulation locally and passes back the display. This approach allows remote control of servers and centralized application management, which minimizes network bandwidth requirements between the server and client.

Users can gain access to Terminal Services over any Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection including Remote Access, Ethernet, the Internet, wireless, wide area network (WAN), or virtual private network (VPN). The user experience is limited only by the slowest link in the connection, and the security of the link is governed by the TCP/IP deployment in the data center.

Terminal Services provides remote administration of network resources, a uniform experience to users in branch offices in remote locations, or a graphical interface to line of business applications on text-based computers.

Terminal Services is a built-in feature of Windows 2000. You can enable Terminal Services in one of two modes: Remote Administration and Application Server.

Remote Administration

Remote Administration gives system administrators a powerful method for remotely administering every computer running Windows 2000 Server over any TCP/IP connection. You can administer file and print sharing, edit the registry from another computer on the network, or perform any task as if you were sitting at the console. You can use Remote Administration mode to manage servers not normally compatible with the Application Server mode of Terminal Services, such as servers running the Cluster service.

Remote Administration mode installs only the remote access components of Terminal Services. It does not install application-sharing components. This means that you can use Remote Administration with very little overhead on mission-critical servers. Terminal Services allows a maximum of two concurrent Remote Administration connections. No additional licensing is required for those connections, and you do not need a license server.

Application Server

In Application Server mode, you can deploy and manage applications from a central location, saving administrators development and deployment time as well as the time and effort required for maintenance and upgrade. After an application is deployed in Terminal Services, many clients can connect—through a Remote Access connection, LAN, or WAN, and from many different types of clients.

You can install applications directly at the Terminal server, or you can use remote installation. For example, you can use Group Policy and Active Directory service to publish Windows Installer application packages to a Terminal server or a group of Terminal servers. Applications can be installed only by an Administrator on a per-server basis and only if the appropriate Group Policy setting is enabled.

Client licensing is required when deploying a Terminal server as an application server. Each client computer, regardless of what protocol it uses to connect to Terminal server, must have the Terminal Services Client Access License as well as the Windows 2000 Client Access License.

Lesson Summary

Terminal Services running on a Windows 2000 Server enables all client application execution, data processing, and data storage to take place on the server. It provides remote access to a server desktop through terminal emulation software.

You can enable Terminal Services in one of two modes: Remote Administration and Application Server. Remote Administration gives system administrators a powerful method for remotely administering each Windows 2000 server over any TCP/IP connection. In Application Server mode, you can deploy and manage applications from a central location, saving administrators development and deployment time as well as the time and effort required for maintenance and upgrade.