My organization is trying to overcome some bandwidth limitations and end-user system requirement limitations by consider virtualization solutions for Education Edge and Raisers Edge.  We have multiple sites so users on the remote sites have some heavy latency accessing EE and RE directly. For the time being we're building them a Terminal Services connection to a limitted desktop, but I'd like to just stream the app instead of an entire environment.

Windows 2008's product description has this exerpt:

Applications can also be efficiently virtualized using Windows Server 2008 centralized application access technologies. Terminal Services Gateway and Terminal Services RemoteApp allow easy remote access to standard Windows-based programs from anywhere by running them on a terminal server instead of directly on a client computer - without the need for a complicated virtual private network (VPN).

While I have worked with CITRIX before, this more direct approach sounds far more appealing.  Has anyone here had experience attempting this type of setup?  If so, I'd like to ask a few questions about performance and server requirements, as Blackbaud has taken a step back from this issue and won't make any official recommendations.

Thanks for your help!

Warren Walker
wwalker@sierracanyonschool.org
Sierra Canyon School
Chatsworth, CA

I have installed FE in a RemoteApp server using Win2008R2.  It works well.. I planned to use the remoteapp UI to create a Windows Installer Package to deploy using GPO.  It works great, however - it doesnt tie seemlessly back to a MAPI so you can't export to email.  You can also not export seemlessly the report files a user has to "browse back" to their local desktop to gain access to exported reports.  I am currently looking for a way to set the MAPI piece up and find a better way for users to be able to export files to their local machine vs the server.

If you want to stick with Microsoft for a solution you may want to take a look at the Microsoft Application Virtualization Sequencer tool.

To get a deep dive feel for how the tool works in practice check out Chris Green's presentation at tech-ed last year; slides and presentation here http://www.msteched.com/2010/NorthAmerica/VIR320

Solid presentation that helped me understand what could be done a bit better than MS documentation. http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/appv/techoverview.mspx

Have you had any issues with Financial Edge disconnecting often and sometimes logging the user out? (using RemoteApp)