churchIT

Windows Server 2008 SP1?

I've known for a while that Vista SP1 would bring Vista the same kernel as Windows Server 2008 but I never though of Windows Server 2008 including SP1.

I didn't know what to expect when I saw the blog subject: "Windows Server 2008 is called SP1. Adventures in doing things right." from Paul Thurrott's blog.

Paul links to a blog post that explains how and why Server 2008's first service pack will be SP2.

Terminal Services Gateway

I must admit that Windows Server 2008 is a product release that I have looked forward to for a long time.  Terminal Services, Hyper-V, Group Policy Preferences, RODC, Server Core and other features really make this a great upgrade from a technology standpoint.

One of the technologies that I wanted to test right away was Terminal Services Gateway.  This has been available through 3rd party software like Citrix for years.  At Sagemont, our use of Terminal Services is limited to thin clients and access to Shelby V5 for our user that that office outside our main campus.  I also allowed a few test users RDP access to Terminal Services outside the firewall but this is not very secure.

I am starting to get more feedback from staff that want to be able to work from home.  Especially when they found out about our test RDP users.  Now with Terminal Services Gateway (TSG) I can securely and easily deploy Terminal Services to all employees.  It allows an employee to access Terminal Services over the Internet via RPC over HTTPS.  RPC/HTTPS is the same technology that Outlook uses for Outlook Anywhere.  What is great about TSG is that you can create policies that control user access to specific resources.  There is a Connection Authorization Policy (CAP) that specifies what users and or computers can connect to the gateway and what type of Device Redirection is allowed.  For us we will probably just allow printer redirection for users connection from non-trusted computers.  For users that connect from a church issued laptop that is a domain client then we could allow drive redirection.  Then Resource Authorization Policies (RAP) are created to allow users access to Terminal Server groups.

So far TSG has tested out very well and I will have several users test it out this week.  The next steps will be to activate Windows Server 2008 on the gateway server.  Then I will be acquiring a certificate from a well known CA to make things easier on the staff when they connect.