[THIN] Licensing TS on large WAN

From: Steve Parr <sparr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 13:19:53 -0500
I am still new to this company where the Citrix servers are distributed at
diff. locations across the WAN. All sites connected via T1.
At old job all Citrix servers were centralized at one location so this
question never came up. There are about 15 applications support/developers
here that need to connect to all Citrix servers at the diff. locations thus
requiring a Terminal Server CAL since they all use MAC's. User base are all
on Win2k Pro so TS Licensing not a $$ issue with Citrix running mostly on
Win2k TS platform.
I have read that it is possible to hard code the Terminal Server Licensing
Server via a registry hack so that all the other Terminal Servers look to
the one licensing server. The documentation from Microsoft says the registry
hack can be netbios name or IP address or the TS server will send a
broadcast out. Because the Terminal Servers are separated by routers across
the WAN chances are high that the broadcasts will not fit into layer 3
passable packets so must rely on IP as netbios name will not work either
most likely.
Has anyone tried this? Is it reliable?
I am trying to save on TS licensing costs however if this type of licensing
setup is unreliable that would not be good.
Because the 15 MAC app support people need to connect to the Citrix servers
at all the sites it would save money to have one master TS licensing server.
Have also read though from Microsoft that if using the registry hack
mentioned above a TS user is out of luck if the Master TS Licensing server
was unavailable. Normally if licensing server was down would try to contact
other available TS Licensing servers and if that fails a temporary license
could be assigned until the Licensing server is again contacted.
Also if the Master Licensing server is unavailable how does this affect the
majority of our users who run Win2k Pro and are exempt from having to have a
TS CAL? In other words does a TS Licensing server still have to process the
logon/authentication for a Win2k TS device/user to be able to logon to a
Terminal Server? Stated differently does the Master server running the
License service need to be up and running for the Win2k Pro users with the
freebie license to be able to logon? If it does need to be up the Master
licensing way of doing things may be too risky for a more distributed
Citrx/TS Farm setup even if it may save some money.
 
 
Steve Parr
Systems Analyst, Citrix and Terminal Services
Network Services, Infrastructure Support, IT
Metroland Printing, Publishing and Distributing Ltd.
phone 905-279-0440 ext.221
cell 416-219-3016
[THIN] Licensing TS on large WAN

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