VDI and RDS Interaction

A Windows-based virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) requires significant interaction of Remote Desktop Services (RDS) and Windows Server Hyper-V (or Hyper-V Server).

Providing a user desktop via VDI requires three major steps, as follows:

Discover available VMs. A user has a device that is running the Remote Desktop client (RDC) 7.0. The RDC allows the user to connect to the organization’s RD Web Access Server (the light grey arrows represent communications between the client and the VDI infrastructure). Based on the user’s Active Directory credentials, the RD Web Access role queries the RD Connection Broker role for a list of VMs (or desktop sessions and applications) available for this user (the black arrows represent communications between VDI components). The VMs can be either personalized (dedicated to a user) or pooled (available to any user). The list of available VMs, which may include one or several entries, is presented back to the user by the RD Web Access role.

Connect the user to the VM. The user selects the desired VM, session, or application from the list. If the user wants a VM, a connection is made from the RDC through the RD Web Gateway, which secures and manages user connections coming across the Internet (by HTTPS), and the RD Connection Broker to the RD Session Host, which is running in a redirection mode to interact with the RD Virtualization Host rather than provide desktop sessions. The RD Session Host works with the RD Connection Broker to get the appropriate VM started on the RD Virtualization Host, and (when the VM is running) get the IP address of the user’s VM.