[THIN] W2K8 TS Licensing - Separate TS License Servers for Separate Farms

  • From: Adam Haas <ctxrulez@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:12:14 -0400

How can we maintain separate TS license servers with W2K8 for different 
divisions/locations?  Is trying to restructure budgeting and installing a 
centralized license server our only option?  

 

We have several IT independent divisions/locations, but we have a single AD 
domain.  Many of these divisions have their own Citrix farms.  With Windows 
Server 2003, they each had their own TS licensing server and configured 
terminal servers to manually discover their local TS license server.  This has 
been the ideal situation given division independence in both IT functions and 
budgets.

With Server 2008, however, how can we maintain this situation?  Budgeting is 
decentralized and Corporate does not have the budget to buy TS CAL's for the 
entire corporation.  We need each division to continue to maintain their own 
licensing servers and licenses.  With that in mind, we do not want to make all 
the TS licensing servers discoverable in the domain and do not want all of them 
writing to the user objects in the domain if using user CAL's  (so the TS 
license servers will not be added to the 'Terminal Server License Servers' 
group).

 

There are occasions when the same user may connect to terminal servers in the 
different farms at the different divisions.  (It is rare, but it does occur.)  
We realize that the current scenario results in purchasing multiple TS CAL's 
for that user for the different farms, but this is our ideal situation with 
decentralized budgeting.  This is yet another reason for not adding all of the 
multiple TS license servers to the 'Terminal Server License Servers' group with 
Server 2008.  We do not want all of these different division TS license servers 
modifying the same user object.  We suspect that would be a problematic 
scenario.

 

Divisions have been told that we will not support Server 2008 for terminal 
services--specifically because of these licensing issues.  However, we now have 
a division that has not gotten that message.  They've purchased 2008 CAL's and 
installed Server 2008 terminal servers and a licensing server.  They now want 
Corporate to add it to the 'Terminal Server License Servers' group in the 
domain, and Corporate is refusing as they have been directed.  The division, 
however, wants to use what they've purchased.  How do we support this given our 
political and budgeting structure?

_________________________________________________________________
Get quick access to your favorite MSN content with Internet Explorer 8. 
http://ie8.msn.com/microsoft/internet-explorer-8/en-us/ie8.aspx?ocid=B037MSN55C0701A

Other related posts: