Parallels RAS Components

Farm is a collection of Parallels RAS components maintained as a logical entity with a unique database and licensing.

Site is a managing entity usually based on a physical location. Each site consists of at least a RAS Connection Broker, RAS Secure Gateway, and agents installed on RD Session Hosts, virtualization servers, and Windows PCs. There can be multiple sites in a given farm.

Parallels RAS Console is a desktop application for administrators who manage Parallels RAS.

Parallels RAS Management Portal is a modern web-based configuration and administration portal. The Management Portal is designed for administrators using a desktop or laptop computer or a mobile device to carry out configurations and day-to-day activities.

RAS Connection Broker provides access to published applications and desktops and load balances application traffic. High availability can be achieved by adding a secondary RAS Connection Broker to a site.

RAS RD Session Host Agent is installed on an RD Session Host and enables publishing of server resources (applications and desktop). RAS RD Session Host Agent also collects the necessary information from the server on which it's running and sends it to the RAS Connection Broker, which uses it for load balancing and some other purposes.

RAS Remote PC Agent is installed on a physical Windows computer or a Windows virtual machine. It enables publishing of the computer resources (applications and desktop). RAS Remote PC Agent also collects the necessary information from the computer on which it's running and sends it to the RAS Connection Broker, which uses it for load balancing and some other purposes.

RAS Guest Agent is installed in the guest operating system of a virtual machine. RAS Guest Agent enables resource publishing from VDI hosts and VDI RD Session Hosts and collects information required by RAS Connection Broker.

RAS Provider Agent collects information from the Parallels RAS Infrastructure and is responsible for controlling a Provider through its native API. RAS Provider Agent comes in two varieties. One is built into the RAS Connection Broker and is available by default. It can be used to control multiple Providers in a Parallels RAS Farm. The other is a separate component that can be installed manually on a Provider host, in which case it will work with that host only. The built-in RAS Provider Agent can be used with any Provider supported by Parallels RAS except QEmu KVM with libvirt and Nutanix Acropolis. With these two hypervisors, a dedicated RAS Connection Broker must be manually installed on a Provider host. See RAS Provider Agent dedicated below for more info.

RAS Provider Agent dedicated is a separate component that can be installed from the Parallels RAS installer. It serves the same purpose as the built-in RAS Provider Agent described above. The difference is, you can only use a dedicated RAS Provider Agent to control the Provider on which it is installed.

RAS Secure Gateway is a service that acts as a proxy between the Parallels Client software running on client devices and Parallels RAS. A Secure Gateway encrypts the communications using SSL. Multiple RAS Secure Gateways can work in high availability mode with Parallels HALB.

High Availability Load Balancing (HALB) is an appliance that provides load balancing for RAS Secure Gateways. Parallels HALB virtual appliance is available for Hyper-V and VMware. Multiple HALB Virtual Servers can be configured, each assigned with different virtual (and floating) IPs to load balance traffic to Secure Gateways in the same RAS Site. This enables administrators to configure Virtual Servers for segregated access, for example when using different Secure Gateways for internal and external access or different office branches. Multiple HALB deployments can run simultaneously, one acting as the primary and others as secondary. The more HALB deployments a site has, the lower the probability that end users will experience downtime. Primary and secondary HALB deployments share a common or virtual IP address (VIP). Should the primary HALB deployment fail, a secondary is promoted to primary and takes its place. Because HALB virtual appliances use source IP for load balancing, a firewall or router in front of them should be configured to preserve the source IPs of the client devices.

Parallels Device Manager is a Parallels RAS feature that allows the administrator to manage Windows computers. Windows 7 and new are supported.

Parallels Desktop Replacement is a sub-feature of Parallels Device Manager (see above). It allows the administrator to convert a standard desktop into a limited device similar to a thin client without replacing the operating system on it.

RAS Enrollment Server is an essential component of the SAML SSO Authentication functionality. It communicates with Microsoft Certificate Authority (CA) to request, enroll, and manage digital certificates on behalf of the user for SSO authentication in the Parallels RAS environment.

Azure Virtual Desktop is a desktop and app virtualization service running on Microsoft Azure, providing access to RD Session Hosts and VDI, including the new offering of Windows 10 and Windows 11 Enterprise multi-session hosts. Parallels RAS 18 provides the ability to integrate, configure, maintain, support and access Azure Virtual Desktop workloads on top of the existing technical capabilities of Parallels RAS.

Microsoft FSLogix Profile Container is the preferred Profile Management solution as the successor of Roaming Profiles and User Profile Disks (UPDs). It is set to maintain user context in non-persistent environments, minimize sign-in times and provide native profile experience eliminating compatibility issues.