Microsoft has released two papers related to Desktop Hosting. The first is called: "Desktop Hosting Reference Architecture Guide" and the second is called: "Windows Azure Desktop Hosting Reference Architecture Guide". Both documents provide a blueprint for creating secure, scalable, multi-tenant desktop hosting solutions using Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 SP1 Virtual Machine Manager or using Windows Azure Infrastructure Services.
The documents are targeted to hosting providers which deliver desktop hosting via the Microsoft Service Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA). Desktop hosting in this case is based on Windows Server with the Windows Desktop Experience feature enabled, and not Microsoft’s client Operating Systems like Windows 7 or Windows 8.
For some reason, Microsoft still doesn’t want service providers to provide Desktops as a Service (DaaS) running on top of a Microsoft Client OS, as outlined in the "Decoding Microsoft’s VDI Licensing Arcanum" paper which virtualization.info covered in September this year.
The Desktop Hosting Reference Architecture Guide provides the following sections:
- Desktop Hosting Service Logical Architecture
- Service Layer
- Tenant Environment
- Provider Management and Perimeter Environments
- Virtualization Layer
- Hyper-V and Virtual Machine Manager
- Scale-Out File Server
- Physical Layer
- Servers
- Network
- Tenant On-Premises Components
- Clients
- Active Directory Domain Services
The Windows Azure Desktop Hosting Reference Architecture covers the following topics:
- Desktop Hosting Service Logical Architecture
- Desktop Hosting Service
- Tenant Environment
- Remote Desktop Web Access
- Remote Desktop Gateway
- Active Directory Domain Services
- Remote Desktop Connection Broker
- RD Licensing
- Remote Desktop Session Host
- File Server
- Azure Infrastructure Services
- Azure Management Portal
- Azure Load Balancer
- Azure Virtual Private Networking
- Security Considerations
- Design Considerations
- Tenant On-Premises Components
- Clients
- Active Directory Domain Services
