ACS running as a RemoteApp through Terminal Services? What?
Well, this is a nerdy topic… there’s no if’s, and’s, or but’s about it. These words make absolutely no sense to the general public. Terminal services to most people would be something to do with an airline, and RemoteApp just sounds weird.
So, allow me to link to Jason Lee’s post about this topic. He gives the run down on how to actually make ACS run as a RemoteApp on Terminal Services. In layman’s terms… well, not exactly… this means that ACS is running entirely off of a server and that each of the users is basically just seeing a picture of what’s happening on the server at their workstation. There’s nothing to install on their workstation, and they’ll never need to run an ACS update.
So, why would you want to do this? I think there’s a number of reasons, and Jason might have different motives than I do. Here’s what I’ve got:
- It’s faster. Since users are directly connecting to the server, it’s just faster. See the video below where I ran the conventional ACS workstation (top) and the RemoteApp (bottom). The RemoteApp finishes WAY faster… about 9 seconds for it, versus 19 seconds for the other. Less waiting makes for happier days.
- Users never need to run updates. This is a support issue for me. A lot of times the ACS installer has problems that force a user to fill out a help ticket. If I can manage updates for them, it saves both of us time.
- Backups and Restores. While not directly related to Terminal Services, an upside for me having everything on one machine is easier backups of that machine and ACS. I won’t go into details on that, but it’s way easier.
So, here’s my little video to prove to you that I’m not making up this speed thing.
