Best practice for upgrading Remote Desktop Services 2016 (Azure 2016 datacenter VM) to 2019 (Azure 2019 datacenter VM)

Question

Hi,

Our RDS solution is in Azure 2016 datacenter VMs, we need to upgrade to 2019 to be able to create a new collection for 2019 RDSH/VMs.

Since these RDS infrastructure VMs are in azure, in-place-system upgrade is not supported to upgrade the servers from 2016 to 2019.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/in-place-system-upgrade

our options are :

1) Create new Windows 2019 datacenter VMs and migrate RDS set to these. If this is the best option, are there any best practices to follow other than the ones in the URL below (which is to upgrade to 2016).
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remote-desktop-services/upgrade-to-rds

2) Use Azure virtual desktop service

Please suggest Microsoft's recommended approach.

Answer 1

@Kumar, Rupesh Thank you for your query!!

You can follow the steps that are described for 2016, they haven't changed.

The better option for you might be to move to Windows Virtual Desktop and use either Windows Server 2019 in a new host pool there, or switch over to Windows 10 Multi-Session assuming, you already have the necessary licenses.

You can refer to this article as well for more info on wvd.

Hope it helps.

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Answer 2

Hey @Kumar, Rupesh

RDS is the ideal on-premises desktop and application virtualization solution, with a Windows Server operating system to provide a multi-session desktop experience. When deployed on Azure, you can scale your deployment and manage RD infrastructure roles in your own subscription. Windows Virtual Desktop enables customers to deliver a brand-new multi-session capability with a full Windows 10 experience, with the scale and flexibility of Azure. With this new service, Microsoft manages the infrastructure roles.

Here is an article about the difference between RDS and WVD for your reference:

RDS or WVD, What to Choose?

Thank you and have a great day!

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Best Regards
Karlie