In most cases, you would install some of your CAL's on one license server and install the rest of them on another license server. With that in mind, some people will still want to setup a backup license server in case their main license server fails.Ĭonfiguration for Multiple License Servers (Per User Licensing)Īs before, you setup two license servers.

What that means is that in most environments, the failure of a license server does not mean that all of your clients that try to connect will be unable to connect. A new license will not be requested unless a new client tries to connect or a license has expired on a specific client. So in most cases, even if your license server fails, most clients should still be able to connect to your session hosts. It's important to keep in mind that the session host checks to see if a license is even needed before making a request to the license server for a CAL. By design, you tell your session hosts how to find your license server via RD Licensing Manager, GPO, or the registry (

For example, the Auto Discovery feature that helped TS servers find the license server is no longer available in 2008 R2 ( Server 2008 R2 is similar, but there are some features that work differently. This, however could be complicated depending how you have your session hosts discover your license servers. In the scenario where you place all licenses on a single license server, when that license server goes down, the secondary server will hand out temporary licenses until you are able to build another license server or install licenses on the secondary server.

Typically you would install all licenses on a single license server in the case of a user-mode license scenario.Įnsure that both license servers are discoverable In Termial Services (2003) the recommended way of setting up highly available license servers was as follows:Įither place all active licenses on single server or split between two servers. Anyone setting up a RDS infrastructure wants to ensure that it will keep working if a license server goes down.

Hello AskPerf! My name is Matt Graham and today I want to address some questions surrounding the setup of highly available licensing servers. First published on TECHNET on Feb 23, 2015

Rds license server registry