Parallels RAS 19 Administrator's Guide - Manage host pools (Azure Virtual Desktop)

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

Manage host pools (Azure Virtual Desktop)

A host pool is a collection of one or more identical virtual machines (VMs) within an Azure Virtual Desktop environment. Each host pool contains an application group that users can access.

Host pools can be configured a number of different ways depending on the intended purpose. The following table describes different options that you can choose when creating a host pool.

Option	Description
Personal vs. pooled	Personal host pools contain single session hosts, each of which is assigned to a single user. The assignment is persisted even after the user logs off or the host is powered off. You can unassign the host from a user and assign it to a different user if needed. Pooled host pools contain multi-user session hosts (RD Session Hosts or multi-session Window 10 machines), which are not assigned to any particular user. Each host in a pool can serve multiple users (multi-session).
Application vs. desktop	A host pool can only publish applications or desktops, but not both at the same time. When you create a host pool, you choose a publishing type from Desktop or Application. An application group of the appropriate type (Desktop or RemoteApp) for the host pool is created automatically. Note that you cannot change the publishing type later. If you decide that you want to change it, you'll have to delete the existing host pool and create a new one.
Template vs. standalone	When you create a host pool, you need to select from Template or Standalone. A host pool can contain hosts that already exist (Standalone) or it can use a template which in turn could be based on an existing guest VM or chosen to be created on the fly from images in Azure Marketplace or in your Shared Image Gallery. Template: Hosts can be created from the template by the administrator manually or they can be created automatically when there's a demand. Automatic host creation (called Autoscale in Parallels RAS) can be turned on or off in the host pool properties. Standalone: Hosts are added and removed to/from a host pool by the administrator. Hosts (virtual machines) must already exist in Azure and must be domain joined.

To manage Azure Virtual Desktop host pools, navigate to Farm > Site > Azure Virtual Desktop and select the Host pools tab.

To view and modify host pool properties, right-click it and choose Properties. In the dialog that opens, select tabs and view or modify host pool properties as described below.

General

On the General tab, you can enable or disable the host pool. Note that if you disable it, all hosts and published resources will also be disabled.

You can also modify the host pool description and view general host pool properties.

In the Application group section, you will see the name of the application groups created for the host pool.

The Friendly name field shows the friendly name used for the workspace in Azure Virtual Desktop and Parallels RAS.

Configuration

On the Configuration tab, examine the host pool configuration properties. You should be familiar with them from when you created a host pool.

You can modify the following properties on this page:

Load balancer
Limit number of sessions on host
Power on host on-demand
Validation environment

For the explanation of configuration properties, see Add an Azure Virtual Desktop host pool.

Autoscale

This tab is shown only for host pools with Template as a provisioning type. Here you can select a template if one has not been specified for the host pool yet. You can also create a new template by clicking the Create new button, which will open a wizard. If you don't have any templates, the only selection available is None, which means that there's no template to create hosts from. If that's the case, you need to create a template first and then select it here. See also Manage templates.

The Autoscale settings section contains settings that determine how hosts (virtual machines) are created from the specified template. These settings work the same as Autoscale settings for RD Session Host groups. The only difference is, in Azure Virtual Desktop we deal with hosts and host pools, while in RD Session Host groups we talk about servers and groups, otherwise the settings work in a similar manner. For details, please see the Autoscale subsection in Grouping and cloning RD Session Hosts.

The Specifications section allows you to overwrite the virtual machine size specified in the settings of the template used by the given host pool. Select the Overwrite the size specified in template properties option and select a desired size from the drop-down list. The selected size will only be used by this host pool. Other host pools using the same template will be unaffected. Note that available sizes may depend on the location, size, and power state of the host pool members and the template. Also note that overwriting the size requires a host reboot.

Hosts

The Hosts tab lists hosts from this host pool. You can examine the status of a host and other properties by looking at the values in the table.

The Status column should indicate "OK" if a host is operating normally. To verify the agent status, right-click a host and choose Check agent. If you see a message that "Agent did not reply", click Install to try and install the agent. If everything goes well, the agent will be updated and the Status column should say "OK". You can also upgrade all agents by clicking Tasks > Upgrade all Agents.

To add a new host to the pool:

Click Tasks > Add.
Depending on the host pool provisioning type, do one of the following:
- If the host pool provisioning is configured as Standalone, select one or more hosts from the list. You can also select the Show hosts in existing host pools not managed by RAS option to show hosts that exist in other host pools on Azure.
- If the host pool provisioning is configured as Template, you cannot manually add hosts here. Instead, use the Hosts tab in the main Azure Virtual Desktop view.
Click OK.

Application packages

See Using MSIX application packages.

Assignment

The Assignment tab displays Active Directory users and groups assigned to Microsoft Entra ID objects. In order for users to see published desktops and applications, they must be assigned to the application group available in the host pool.

To create a new assignment:

Click Tasks > Add.
In the Select User or Group dialog, specify a user or group and click OK.
Follow the onscreen instructions and complete the assignment. Note that additional filtering in the Publishing category may be used to control Azure Virtual Desktop resource availability in Parallels Client. For details, see Publish resources.

User profile

By default, this tab inherits its settings from Site defaults. If you wish to specify custom settings, clear the Inherit default settings option. For the information about configuring user profile, please see Site defaults (Azure Virtual Desktop).

Optimization

The Optimization tab allows you to specify settings that will be used to optimize session hosts for best performance in a Parallels RAS environment. You can select Windows components, services, and other options that will be disabled, removed, or optimized to ensure a more efficient, streamlined, and improved delivery of virtual apps and desktops. By default, this tab inherits its settings from Site defaults. If you wish to specify custom settings, clear the Inherit default settings option. For the information about configuring optimization options, please see Site defaults (Azure Virtual Desktop).

Host pool settings

This tab allows you to configure settings such as sessions timeouts, client URL/Mail redirection, drag and drop and others. By default, this tab inherits its settings from Site defaults. If you wish to specify custom settings, clear the Inherit default settings option. For the information about configuring host pool settings, please see Site defaults (Azure Virtual Desktop).

RDP printer

The RDP Printer tab allows you to configure the renaming format of redirected printers. By default, this tab inherits its settings from Site defaults. If you wish to specify custom settings, clear the Inherit default settings option. For the information about configuring user profile, please see Site defaults (Azure Virtual Desktop).

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Manage workspaces (Azure Virtual Desktop)

Manage templates (Azure Virtual Desktop)