This article walks through the process to create a new itopia CAS deployment for Remote Desktop Services (RDS) using an existing Active Directory domain. The existing AD domain may be one of the following scenarios:

Before completing this process, please ensure you have previously completed the following:

If you have already created a deployment, select it from the Deployments menu on the top left of the CAS console. You will get the option to continue the deployment in the dashboard. The system will resume your deployment at the same step where you left off. Click the Continue button.

2. Select Remote Desktop Services as the deployment type, then type the Name of your deployment. The deployment code will be generated automatically. If you prefer to define your own code, uncheck the "Autogenerate Code" box and type your code (we allow from 3 to 8 characters). Click Create.

Once all the above fields are populated, click Next.

Click Authenticate to sign in with your GCP account. The system will prompt you for your Google email address and password. Make sure to use the same one you used to sign up for Google Cloud, or a Google account that has owner permissions on the project you wish to use. Note that these credentials are only used for the initial provisioning of the deployment in your GCP project; these credentials are not stored by itopia and are not used again.

Once you've authenticated, CAS will populate the list of GCP projects that are associated with your account. Use the Select project drop-down menu to specify which project CAS should use.

💡 Note: It is recommended (but not required) to use a "fresh" project for the CAS deployment, one that does not have any other resources already provisioned. Although CAS isolates its GCP resources and configuration, having existing resources and configurations increases the possibility of encountering an issue. Also note that a GCP project can only be assigned to one CAS deployment at any given time.

If you want to create a new project for your deployment, select Create new project from the drop-down menu.

itopia requires access to several application programming interfaces (APIs) to be able to provision and manage objects in the Google Cloud project. Once you select a GCP project, CAS will check if these APIs are enabled and, if they are not, will give you the option to enable them. Clicking Enable or Add next to an API will redirect you to the relevant page in the GCP Console. On the page, click Enable near the top of the screen. 

Once enabled, the button will change to Disable.

CAS will also check the IP quota restriction in the GCP project. The system will confirm if your Google project is upgraded. If the project is not upgraded, you will only have access to a limited number of static IPs which may be insufficient for a CAS deployment. If the Public IP Quota validation fails, click on Increase in the top-right corner to upgrade your account. If you don't see such button in the IP quota tab, it means that your account was already upgraded.

After you enable any APIs that failed validation, click the Refresh icon next to it to re-validate.

Once all validation tests  are green, you can continue to the Region section below.

Select the GCP region to use for your RDS deployment. If you wish to configure the deployment in multiple regions, click Add Region and specify the additional regions to include in the deployment. If desired, you may specify custom subnets for each region; this is useful if you plan to connect the deployment to your on-premises network or another VPC and want to avoid conflicting subnets.

On the bottom of the screen you can check the servers that will be created; each server is a Google Compute Engine (GCE) instance. For each instance, you can edit certain settings such as CPU, RAM, and disk space by clicking the Edit (pencil) icon. 

You can also specify additional instances to be created, such as for database servers or web servers, using the green Add (+) button. If your GCP project has existing GCE instances that you would like to include in the itopia CAS console, you can import them by hovering on the Add (+) button and selecting Import. More information on importing existing GCP servers is available here.

💡 Note: itopia CAS will not be able to see or manage servers that you deploy directly in the GCP Console unless you import them in.

Once you've added all servers, click Next.

The final screen will provide a summary of the RDS deployment you just configured. Review the configuration to ensure everything is correct. This screen also provides a general estimate for monthly GCP compute costs for the environment for two scenarios: leaving all servers running full-time (730 hours), or using the Scheduled Uptime feature to only have servers running during normal business hours (305 hours). Please note the provided costs are just estimates; your actual costs may differ.

Review all information, click the checkbox to confirm consent, and then click Deploy. CAS will begin provisioning the RDS deployment into your GCP project.

Once the provisioning begins, you can monitor Provisioning Status in your CAS dashboard.

Please note the provisioning process could take several hours, depending on the size of your deployment and the number of regions. After the automatic server configuration is complete, you will receive an email with your administrator credentials to be able to connect to your servers. 

In the CAS console, you will see two Tasks that must be completed manually: uploading your SSL certificate, and creating a DNS record for external connectivity; refer to the links in the Next Steps section of this article for more details. Once both tasks are marked complete, you will receive a link to download RDP file so users can connect to their cloud desktop. 

💡 IMPORTANT: Do not turn off your servers before the provisioning process has fully completed. If the provisioning process appears to be "stuck" for an extended period of time, please contact itopia for assistance (use the "Chat" icon in the bottom-right corner of your screen).

💡 Note: If you'd like to build your remote desktop deployment using a new domain rather than an existing domain, please refer to this article.