RAS on Microsoft Azure

Please plan your deployment using the following information:

• Azure regions — An Azure region is a set of data centers deployed within a latency-defined perimeter and connected through a dedicated regional low-latency network. Azure gives customers the flexibility to deploy applications where they need to: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global-infrastructure/regions/.

• Availability Zones — Availability Zones are physically separate locations within an Azure region. Each Availability Zone is made up of one or more data centers equipped with independent power, cooling and networking. Availability Zones allow customers to run mission-critical applications with high availability and low-latency replication. To ensure resiliency, there’s a minimum of three separate zones in all enabled regions: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/availability-zones/az-overview .

• Availability Sets — An Availability Set is a logical grouping capability for isolating VM resources from each other when they're deployed. Azure makes sure that the VMs you place within an Availability Set run across multiple physical servers, compute racks, storage units, and network switches. If a hardware or software failure happens, only a subset of your VMs are impacted and your overall solution stays operational. Availability Sets are essential for building reliable cloud solutions: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/tutorial-availability-sets .

Please note that Microsoft Azure design is out of scope of this guide.

Parallels RAS provides the two most common scenarios for delivering applications and desktops on Azure. These scenarios are described below.

Parallels RAS infrastructure in the cloud

Parallels RAS infrastructure servers, including RAS Connection Brokers, RAS Secure Gateways, RAS Enrollment Servers etc. are located on Azure. Each component of a RAS deployment should be in its own Availability Set to maximize overall availability. For example, a separate Availability Set should be used for Connection Brokers, Secure Gateways, Enrollment Servers etc.

You can also use Azure as a SAML IdP provider and as cloud computing platform for VDI/RDS resource hosts to deliver applications and desktops.

On-premises with backup Site using site-to-site VPN (or Express Route)

Parallels RAS infrastructure servers, including RAS Connection Brokers, RAS Secure Gateways, RAS Enrollment Servers etc. are located on premises, whereas VDI/RDSH resource hosts are deployed on Azure in Availability Sets. This can be practical when you need to support burst growth of the usage or business continuity.

Note: A single Farm is used with two Sites.