RDS Licensing - is it possible to cluster?

Question

I have successfully created a new Remote Desktop Services cluster with two servers and all appears to be working well. The last step is to set up a license server for this system. I would like to cluster the license services however I cannot find any documentation on how to do this or if it's even possible. I would like to do this for the same reason I have a clustered setup. In the event a server the license service is running on is unavailable the other server running the license service can continue to operate.

Is it possible to cluster license servers? If so how is it accomplished?

Answer 1

The RDS licensing service is not an application that is supported in a cluster. RD Licensing is best made highly available by setting up 2 or more RD licensing servers, configuring each RDSH server to use all of these RD licensing servers. The CAL's purchased should be 'split' across these RD Licensing servers. With that configuration, even if a single RD License Server is down, the RDSH server will continue to query other RD License servers to obtain a valid CAL for an end user or device.

Answer 2

Hello@PaulH ,

If the license server fails, the session in grace period expired will fail, while per-user CAL will be warned about the server being unavailable but can still connect, and permanent device CAL (only when it expired) will fail to connect.

so according to different situation it may happen, you can decide whether it is necessary to have 2nd License server.

here is the flow chart for your reference:

There is a similar problem :
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/48f2fbe5-195e-416e-9020-b8ffa8d8962e/license-server?forum=winserverTS

I find there’s an article about RD Licensing HA may be valuable for you:
https://www.microsoftpressstore.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2346349&seqNum=4

Best Regards,
Karlie