RDS with Office 365 Email and Outlook Online Mode Setup

Question

I have a client that we are considering moving to Office 365 (Exchange Online) from our locally hosted Exchange server and are using a Microsoft Remote Desktop Server for a branch office location. The main office has about 20 users and the branch office has about 40 users.  The branch office remotes into the RDS through a point-to-point VPN and runs everything inside the RDS for their day, Office apps, Acrobat, Case Management Application…(ect.).  The branch office runs Outlook in online mode without any caching. We are looking to upgrade their server this year and have a Hyper V Host and a separate Exchange server and would like to offload the Exchange Server to Office 365. Here is our current setup:

• (1) Windows 2012 R2 Hyper V Host Servers running a Fileserver and RDS VM
• (1) Windows 2012 R2 Server running Exchange 2013
• (20) Local User and (40) Remote Users
• Office 2013 ProPlus (Not the version from Office 365) on the RDS
• Currently using Traditional Profiles
• Main Location and Branch Location using a 1GB Internet connection (Up and Down)
• Both locations have their own 1GB network switch and SonicWall TZ470 firewall My question is – With the current number of remote users that will be needing to use Outlook desktop in the RDS environment, because of their case management software, is there going to be a performance issue? What recommendations would you suggest, I have not had to run a RDS with this many users that would be using Office 365 and Outlook Desktop in online mode. Obviously when we upgrade the server it will be running Windows Server 2022 and Office will be either 2019 or we will get an Office 365 license that supports being installed on RDS. Thanks Ryan.

Answer 1

Just my opinion but I would steer clear of running Outlook - Exchange Online without caching. Even if you only cache 1 month of history and do not cache other mailboxes, only the primary. It will make Outlook so much faster to work with. You may have to tweak a few things around search functionality. This is still causing issues in server 2022 Remote Desktop and you are better off with it disabled. If you look at FSLogix or UPDs you can cache into those, otherwise, you could cache to a network share. I used to do that before moving to FSLogix and it was a whole lot better than trying to run Outlook in online mode.