The Microsoft Terminal Services Team has posted a new article detailing the technology behind a concept called Terminal Services Server Drain Mode. What is Terminal Services Server Drain Mode you may ask? According to the Terminal Service Team, “TS Server Drain Mode prevents new users from logging onto the server, while allowing currently logged on users to reconnect to their existing sessions. By waiting for existing users to save their work and log off, the administrator can take a terminal server down for maintenance without causing user data loss. Additionally, TS server drain mode is integrated with Session Broker Load Balancing, allowing one of the servers in a load balanced farm to be safely taken offline without any perceived change to end user experience or loss of service.

There are two ways an administrator can put a terminal server into drain mode:

1. Using the command-line tool chglogon.exe
2. Using Terminal Services Configuration UI.

The command-line tool chglogon.exe (or “change logon”) may be used to configure the drain mode. There are five options: /QUERY, /ENABLE, /DISABLE, /DRAIN, /DRAINUNTILRESTART

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Technorati : Load Balancing, Maintenance, Session Broker, Terminal Services, Windows Server 2008
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