Hi All
It's been a while, good to be back though.
Cutting to the chase, for expediency I want to add (possibly a pair) of 2019 GWs to our current production 2012R2 farm:
1. Can 2019 GWs front up a 2012 farm (CB/Web/Hosts)?
2. Or do I need to update the RDWB, RDCBs to 2019 also?
Would have been useful for the doc to be updated: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remote-desktop-services/upgrade-to-rds#flow-for-deployment-upgrades
3. Also want to implement 2FA or or some type of one time auth (SMS) without Azure etc.
We have two RDS 2012R2 farms in separate buildings totaling somewhere around 45 servers, a 2012 PoC used for UAT and a nice shiny new 2019 PoC farm for testing (fixes a few bugs in 2012 R2 RDS), one which we call 'switching' where the wrong window is presented to the user upon an auto reconnect post network dropping.
I'm looking to find an expedient solution. I know adding all the apps and several of our tricks to ensure 16-bit applications function (yes don't fall off your seats) take TIME. I also know that calling 2012R2 RDP application files 'workspace' from 2019 RDHosts works well too, so am pondering leaving all apps on 2012R2 and fronting using 2019.
Something like this:
User > 2019 RDWB > 2019 RDCB > 2019 RDHost (x2 for HA in each container) > calls RDP files (you can find these in Control Panel) which directs user to 2012 RDHosts (which have all the apps on). This would avoid reinstalling all apps and still retain HA. I've tested this on a 2019 PoC, all good and quite funky!
But maybe there are other options?
Lea