Parallels RAS 19 Administrator's Guide - High availability load balancing (HALB)

Introduction
- Parallels RAS 19 release history
- About Parallels RAS
- About this guide
- What's new
- Terms and abbreviations used in this guide
Installing Parallels RAS
- System requirements
- Install Parallels RAS
- Log in and activate Parallels RAS
Getting Started with Parallels RAS
- The Parallels RAS Console
- Set up a basic Parallels RAS Farm
Farm and Sites
- Connecting to a Parallels RAS Farm
- About Sites
- Sites in the RAS Console
- Adding a Site to the Farm
- Replicating Site settings
- Managing Licensing Site
- Managing administrator accounts
RAS Connection Broker
- Configuring RAS Connection Brokers
- Secondary Connection Brokers
- Managing Secondary Connection Brokers
- Using computer management tools
RAS Secure Gateway
- Overview
- Adding a RAS Secure Gateway
- Manually adding a RAS Secure Gateway
- Checking the RAS Secure Gateway status
- Configuring a RAS Secure Gateway
- Secure Gateway tunneling policies
- Configure logging
- Viewing Secure Gateway summary and metrics
- Using computer management tools
RD Session Hosts
- RD Session Host types
- Add an RD Session Host
  - Installing the agent manually
- Add a template-based RD Session Host
- Manage RD Session Hosts
- Planning for high availability
- Managing logons
- Using computer management tools
- Publishing from an RD Session Host
- Viewing published resources
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
- Supported providers
- Add a provider
- Manage VDI
- Configure logging
- Enabling high availability for VDI
- Site defaults (VDI)
- Using computer management tools
- Viewing Provider summary
- Remote PC pools
Azure Virtual Desktop
- Introduction
- Prerequisites
- Deploy Azure Virtual Desktop
- Manage Azure Virtual Desktop
- Site defaults (Azure Virtual Desktop)
  - Site defaults for single-session hosts
  - Site defaults for multi-session hosts
- Using Parallels Client with Azure Virtual Desktop
- Verify the deployment
Remote PCs
- Overview
- Adding a Remote PC to a Farm
  - Admin-initiated Remote PC enrollment
  - Self-service Remote PC enrollment
- Configuring a Remote PC
- Viewing Remote PC summary
- Using computer management tools
Publishing
- Overview
- Publishing a desktop
- Publishing an application
- Publishing an application with MSIX app attach
- Publishing a web application
- Publishing a network folder
- Publishing a document
- General management tasks
- Manage published applications
- Manage published desktops
- Manage published documents
- Manage folders
- Site defaults (Publishing)
- Using filtering rules
- Configuring preferred routing
- Understanding session prelaunch
- Checking effective access
- Specifying client settings
- Quick keypad
Session Management
- Overview
- Session information
- Monitoring settings
- Managing sessions
- The Resources tab
SSL Certificate Management
- Generating a self-signed certificate
- Generating a certificate signing request (CSR)
- Let's Encrypt certificates
  - Requesting a Let's Encrypt Certificate
  - How Parallels RAS requests certificates from Let's Encrypt
- Importing a certificate
- Exporting a certificate
- Assigning a certificate to Secure Gateways and HALBs
- Auditing certificates
- Permissions to manage certificates
- Upgrading from an older RAS version
Connection and Authentication Settings
- RAS Connection Broker connection settings
- Remote session settings
- Logon hours settings
- Restricting access by Parallels Client type and build number
- Multi-factor authentication
- Allowing users to change domain password
- Allowing users to discover RAS connections via email address
Load Balancing and HALB
- Resource based & round robin load balancing
  - Configure CPU optimization
- High availability load balancing (HALB)
RAS Multi-Tenant Architecture
- Overview
- Architecture description
  - Implementation overview
  - User connection flow
- Deploying Tenant Broker and Tenants
- Managing Tenants
- Shared Gateways
- Third-party network load balancers
- Web Client and Themes
- Monitoring Tenants
- Tenant Broker compatibility and updates
- Upgrading from an older RAS version
- Configuring notifications
- Communication ports
SAML SSO Authentication
- Introduction
- System requirements
- SAML basics
- SAML configuration
- Parallels Client configuration
- Parallels client policy configuration
- Test the SAML SSO deployment
- Error messages
Parallels Web Client and User Portal
- Configure Web Client
- Configure Themes
- Open Parallels Web Client
- Main menu options
- Running remote applications and desktops
- Auto login
- Direct App access
- Using the toolbar
Universal Printing
- Managing Universal Printing settings
- Universal Printing drivers
- Font management
Universal Scanning
- Managing Universal Scanning
- Adding scanning applications
User Device Management and Client Policies
- Inviting users to connect to Parallels RAS
- Mass configuring user devices
- Enabling Help Desk support
- Monitoring devices
  - Getting additional device information
- Windows device groups
- Managing Windows devices
  - Windows desktop replacement
- Scheduling Windows devices & groups power cycles
- Client Policies
- Configuring remote file transfer
Reporting
- System requirements
- Install Microsoft SQL Server
  - Install Microsoft SQL Server 2016 or earlier
  - Install Microsoft SQL Server 2017 or 2019
- Install Parallels RAS Reporting
- Running Parallels RAS reports
- GDPR compliance
Performance Monitor
- Overview
- Install RAS Performance Monitor
- Using Parallels RAS Performance Monitor
- Configure RAS Performance Monitor Security
- Updating RAS Performance Monitor
Common Management Tasks
- Recovery - add a root administrator
- Host name resolution
- Computer management tools
- Site information
- Site settings
- Using MSIX application packages
- Using template versions
- Settings audit
- Upgrading RAS agents
- Licensing
- Configure HTTP proxy settings
- System event notifications
- RAS session variables
- Maintenance and backup
  - Exporting and importing Farm settings from the command line
- Problem reporting and troubleshooting
- Logging
- Suggest a feature
Parallels RAS Management Portal
- Overview
- Prerequisites
- Installation
- Log in to RAS Management Portal
- Configure RAS Web Administration Service
- RAS Management Portal user interface
Parallels RAS APIs
- RAS PowerShell API
- RAS REST API
- RAS Web Client API and Parallels Client URL scheme
Appendix
- Microsoft license requirements in Parallels RAS
- Port reference
- RAS performance counters

High availability load balancing (HALB)

High availability load balancing (HALB) in Parallels RAS is a functionality that load balances RAS Secure Gateways. The load balancer is built into a Parallels HALB appliance, which is a preconfigured virtual machine with the operating system installed and all relevant settings configured.

Parallels HALB appliance is available for the following hypervisors:

Microsoft Hyper-V
VMware

Please note that other hypervisors may also be used, but support is provided as best effort. The Parallels RAS HALB appliance uses the Open Virtualization Platform (OVA) format, which is natively supported by various hypervisor.

HALB is deployed in Parallels RAS on a Site level. You can have multiple HALB configurations per Site, which are called Virtual Servers. Each Virtual Server has its own IP address (called Virtual IP or VIP) and is assigned one or more HALB appliances (also called HALB devices in the Virtual Server context) that perform the actual load balancing. An HALB Virtual Server is a virtual representation of HALB devices. It provides traffic distribution to HALB devices when they are properly configured. Since the IP address of a specific Virtual Server is the single point of contact for the client software, it is recommended to have at least two HALB devices per Virtual Server for redundancy.

Multiple HALB devices assigned to a Virtual Server can run simultaneously, one acting as the primary and others as secondary. The more HALB devices a Virtual Server has, the lower the probability that end users will experience downtime. The Virtual Server is assigned the IP address of the primary HALB device, which is shared with secondary HALB devices. Should the primary HALB device fail, a secondary is promoted to primary and takes its place using the same IP address for client connections.

Note: Please note that when a secondary HALB device is promoted to primary, a user may experience up to two disconnects. The first disconnect will occur when an HALB device goes down. The second disconnect may happen when a device goes back online. The disconnects cannot be avoided because the virtual IP address has to be transferred from one HALB device to the other, which means that the first device has to stop communications over this address, while the other device will have start it. Note that disconnects don't affect user sessions. Users are able to reconnect to their sessions and no user data is lost.

Setting up High Availability Load Balancing consists of the following steps:

Deploying one or more Parallels HALB appliances (devices).
Configuring one or more Virtual Servers in the RAS Console.

Read on to learn how to download and deploy a Parallels HALB appliance.

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Configure CPU optimization

Prerequisites