Hey everyone! Apologies for my hiatus from the RDPHard channel and PureRDS.org blog, but during the second half of this year, I’ve been hard at work leading new development efforts at RDPSoft. About a month ago, we just released our new Sysmundo utility, which is a digital forensics and incident response program that leverages the free Microsoft Sysinternals Sysmon utility. Basically, Sysmundo can keep tabs on all sorts of user behavior and program activity on your Windows networks, drawing your attention to aberrant behavior and indicators of compromise from malware. Best of all, it does all of this without needing to leverage a SIEM in the background, so you’re not paying for data ingestion costs like you would be with Splunk, Azure Log Analytics, and other vendors. It’s a freemium tool, so please download a copy from https://www.rdpsoft.com/sysmundo, play around with it, and send us your feedback!
But I digress – let me get to the exciting news at hand which came out of Microsoft Ignite a few weeks ago. Hat tip for my friend Ruben Spruijt, who is the Field CTO at Dizzion, for drawing my attention to this with his post on X.
Microsoft Has Surrendered – On-Premises RDS Will Remain Available in Windows Server vNext, AND M365 Apps Support Will Be Available Until 2029!
In my last RDPHard episode months ago, I made a prediction that RDS is here to stay well into the 2030s, since Server 2022 will not hit the end of extended support until October of 2031. I also stated that while Microsoft had been playing games for years now around whether or not Microsoft 365 Apps would stay supported on Windows Server, they always managed to relent in the end and offer support for 365 Apps on the latest version of Windows Server. And finally, I predicted that RDS would still be available as an installable feature in the coming version of Windows Server vNext.
Well, whether it was due to me and others haranguing them, or the fact that they are finally realizing that the future of cloud computing is truly hybrid for most organizations, they’ve stopped playing these games, and have now announced support for Microsoft 365 Apps in the next Version of Windows Server. Basically, they’ve now codified a policy whereby Microsoft 365 Apps will be supported on new versions of Windows Server and RDS during the 5 year period of mainstream support. In Server 2022, they previously announced that M365 Apps would be supported until October 2026, which coincidentally was the end of mainstream support on Server 2022, so this makes sense.
Now, during this announcement at Ignite, they also indicated that RDS will still be available in Server vNext, and that M365 Apps will be supported on Server vNext during its 5 year period of mainstream support. Assuming a 2024 release of Server vNext, this will mean that M365 Apps support is guaranteed for on-premises RDS all the way until 2029. But please, don’t take my word for it. Watch the clip from the Microsoft Ignite session itself.
Exploring the Implications and Cost Savings Potential of This Decision
Here’s the bottom line – this is great news for organizations that don’t want to lift and shift their remoting environments up to Azure for cost or other business reasons. And since Microsoft has now committed to a 5 year mainstream support cycle for M365 Apps on Windows Server RDS, the economics of refreshing hardware and RDS CALs over 5 years instead of 3 makes a TREMENDOUS difference in cost when compared to migrating RDS up into Azure Virtual Desktop. On the order of 60% to 75% savings in fact… If you don’t believe me, go back and watch RDPHard Episode 2 – The Cost of AVD is Too Damn High.
Now, you might make the argument that “Well Andy, there are no Microsoft Teams optimizations for regular old RDS like there are in Azure Virtual Desktop.” To which I would respond with “Have you seen how many problems folks are having getting Teams to run in Azure Virtual Desktop right now? Including the new Teams version that is supposed to use fewer resources?” Spending 3 to 4 times the money on Azure Virtual Desktop just to try and get a marginally better user experience for a piece of free, buggy software Microsoft has crammed into the M365 offering doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. You can still use the chat and other collaboration features of Teams in RDS, you just don’t use the call and video features. And in almost any collaboration software scenario, like Teams or Zoom, it makes much more sense to conduct calls and videos on the EDGE client device instead of on the server side.
Conclusions and a Suggestion
- On-Premises and private datacenter RDS is here to say in Server vNext. Which means On-Premises and private datacenter RDS will be around until 2034, at the earliest.
- Microsoft’s new policy moving forward is to support Microsoft 365 Apps on RDS in new Windows Server releases for the 5 year mainstream support period. Which means M365 Apps for on-premises/private datacenter RDS will be supported at least until 2029.
- If you are currently running RDS on Windows Server 2019, I would recommend skipping the upgrade to Server 2022, and instead upgrade to Server vNext by October of 2025, which is when M365 apps support ends for Windows Server 2019. This ensures another 4 years of M365 apps support on Windows Server.
The market has made it clear that the future of cloud computing is hybrid, not public cloud only. For most organizations, it’s simply not worth the increased cost and pain to lift and shift their end user computing platform from on-premises or private datacenter up to Azure at the moment. These organizations should use technologies like AVD or Windows 365 Cloud PC more sparingly, such as in failover scenarios for work continuity. Microsoft’s latest announcements around continued RDS support in Server vNext, and continued Microsoft 365 Apps support should have you breathing easier, plus reduce your inclination to jump to a pure cloud strategy purely out of fear of non-support.
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