Windows Server 2003 Technology Primer - Specifying Connection Type
(Page 15 of 20 )
Windows Server 2003 has added a new feature that enables remote users to specify the type of remote connection they have. Rather than having just a single server to remote client session configuration, remote users can specify that they are attaching to the Terminal server over a very slow modem connection, from a mid-speed broadband connection, from a very high-speed LAN connection, or from a customized configuration.
When a user specifies a slow modem connection session, the Terminal server system automatically optimizes server-to-client communications by not running functions that take up session performance such as complicated user backgrounds on a screen desktop. It also optimizes mouse and keyboard controls and disables Windows themes and unnecessary screen animation to provide more communication bandwidth to remote application access functions.
When a user specifies a mid-speed broadband or a LAN connection, more of the features are enabled so that backgrounds, themes, animation, and menu variations are transferred just as if the user were sitting at a desktop at the office.
This minor user-defined optimization enables remote users to improve their session connection and thus their user experience based on the speed of their connection.
Session Directory
New to Windows Server 2003 is a technology called Session Directory that allows remote users to reconnect to the exact same session that they were running before a temporary Internet, dial-up, or WAN connection failure caused a disconnection. This automatic reconnection has always worked fine if the organization has only one Terminal server; however, when an organization had multiple Terminal servers, there was no way for the remote client session to know which of the potential 32 servers to reconnect the user to.
Session Directory now runs on a separate system and keeps track of all user-connected sessions. When a user attempts to log on to one of the servers in a Terminal server load-balanced environment, Session Directory checks whether the user had previously connected to a session that might still be active. If it finds an active session, it reconnects the user to that session, thus restoring the user to exactly the place he left off before being terminated.
Session reconnection requires the Terminal server policy to keep sessions active for a period of time after unexpected disconnection. Best practices allow a remote user up to 10 minutes to reconnect to a dropped connection to re-establish his session right where he left off. However, after 10 minutes, a dropped connection is flushed from the Terminal server to free up server memory, processing capacity, and a remote session software license with the assumption that the remote user might not have been disconnected accidentally, but rather that the user just forgot to log out of the system when he was done. Session reconnection provides a variety of features and options that are addressed in detail in Chapter 27.
 This chapter is from Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Unleashed, by Rand Morimoto, et al. (Sams Publishing, 2004, ISBN: 0672326671). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today.
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