upgrade or coexistence of rds licensing server

Question

dears,

i have an rds deployment, licensing server,broker server, web access server running 2012R2 server.
2008 R2 and 2012 cal are installed on the licensing server to activate my session hosts (2008r2,2012r2).
i am using per user cal, gpos configured to point to the licensing server.
recently, we added a new host server 2016 but we could not activate it using the 2012r2 licensing server noting that we have 2016rds cal.
but maybe we can;t install 2016 rds cal on a 2012 r2 licensing server.
my question is what can i do to be able to activate 2016 host servers.
do i have to replace my 2012r2 licensing server with a 2016 licensing server?
or i can have a coexistence of both.
if i have to replace it, do i have to reconfigure my gpos my collection session hosts? do i have to upgrade any other component to be able to use a 2016 rds licensing server if all the components are on 2012r2?

your help is appreciated
regards,

Answer 1

Hi,

For licensing server, it should be better to use 2016 licensing server to issue 2008, 2012 and 2016 cal. You do not need both licensing servers. All 2008, 2012, 2016 cal can be installed on the 2016 licensing server.

You can follow below steps to replace the old 2012 licensing server with the new 2016 one.

On your broker, open the "server manager" and navigate to "remote desktop services", then click "Collections" -> "Edit Deployment Properties" ->"RD Licensing", add the new licensing server and remove the old one.

Since you add new 2016 session host server, you will need to upgrade RD Connection Broker server to 2016.

Upgrading your Remote Desktop Services deployments to Windows Server 2016
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remote-desktop-services/upgrade-to-rds

Hope the information helps.

Thanks,
Eleven

Answer 2

thank you
one more thing, what will happen if i keep my broker server 2012 r2?
will i not be able to install licenses or not to access hosts running 2016?

thanks again

Answer 3

Hi,

It will not be able to access hosts running 2016.

You can see the notes in below link.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remote-desktop-services/upgrade-to-rds

Thanks,
Eleven