Chapter 27. Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services

In This Chapter

• Why Implement Terminal Services?

• How Terminal Services Works

• Leveraging Terminal Services Features

• Planning for Terminal Services

• Deploying Terminal Services

• Configuring Terminal Services

• Installing a Terminal Services License Server

• Installing and Configuring Fault-Tolerant Terminal Services

• Securing Terminal Services

• Sizing and Optimizing Terminal Services Environments

• Supporting Terminal Services

• Accessing a Terminal Server

Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services is a client/server system that enables clients to remotely run applications or manage a server from any node with a Terminal Server client and network access. In a Terminal Server session, whether a client requires a complete remote desktop environment or just needs to run a single application, the Terminal Server performs all the processing and uses its hardware resources. In a basic Terminal Server session, the client sends out only keyboard and mouse signals and receives video images, which requires only a small amount of bandwidth on the network. For a more robust multimedia-intensive session, Terminal Services provides true-color video support along with audio, local printer, COM port, and local disk redirection to provide ease of data transfer between the client and server through a single network port. Terminal Services also provides local time zone redirection, which allows users to view time stamps of email and files relative to their location.

A Terminal Services implementation can provide remote administration services, but also can be used as a centralized application server, thus reducing the need to deploy high-end workstations to end users who rarely need high performance on their local workstations. A Terminal Services implementation can also improve network performance for enterprise messaging, database applications, and other multitiered applications by reducing the amount of network traffic each backend server and network device needs to process. Costs in desktop application support can also be reduced as a result of a Terminal Services implementation by limiting application upgrades and security patch installations to the Terminal Server instead of the administrator having to visit every workstation.

In this chapter, planning, implementation, management, and support of Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services systems are covered. This chapter addresses not only the new features added in Windows Server 2003, but also how these new technologies can be leveraged to improve remote access services by users, as well as administration and management by network administrators.