Running Terminal Server with Other Applications and Services

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Choosing the servers on which you deploy your applications depends on the applications you plan to host with Terminal Server and the applications and services you plan to run on the server with it. For example, you might want to conserve resources by hosting Terminal Server on a computer that also serves other purposes, or an application you plan to host might require another back-end service to run.

Sharing Terminal Servers with Other Applications and Services

To conserve resources, you can deploy Terminal Server on a server with other applications and services on the network. However, because Terminal Server is optimized for the desktop experience, this can affect the performance and scalability of both Terminal Server and the other application or service. You should, for example, avoid deploying server-based services, such as SQL Server and Exchange Server, with Terminal Server. Likewise, deploying Terminal Server on a server along with file, print, or other services can affect the performance of these services. This can cause problems especially if non-Terminal Server users access these services. Also, some services can cause conflicts with certain applications that you are hosting with Terminal Server if the client and server applications use different versions of DLLs. Test your setup if you plan to deploy Terminal Server on a server with other applications and services.

Hosting Data on a Separate Server or Drive

If you are planning to use Terminal Server to host a server-side, data-intensive application (for example a custom line-of-business application that has a SQL Server back end), you can improve performance by hosting the database and Terminal Server on separate servers. Placing the terminal server and the database on the same high-speed link or even on the same subnet increases the responsiveness of the application. You can optimize disk access performance by configuring multiple SCSI channels and distributing your operating system and application traffic across different physical drives. You can also dedicate a network adapter to operating system and application traffic, while the other network adapter handles RDP traffic.