Remote Desktop Slowdown - Best Practices

Over the preceding months, we have received many reports of slowdown issues across the Michener desktop & remote environment. We have been investigating the root cause of this issue during that time, and have determined it to be related to dramatically increased P: Drive activity caused by changes in modern application design. This has exceeded the design and capabilities of our infrastructure.

This means that resolving this issue will require changes to our infrastructure will take time to implement. As a result this issue will most likely persist into the new year as we work to resolve the underlying infrastructure issues that are causing it. In the meantime, please ensure that you have reviewed the following resources for best practices when using offsite equipment or mobile Michener workstations:

• Laptop Limitations and Restrictions
• Remote Resources and Working From Home
• Remote Access - Checklist & Best Practices

In particular, the following guideline is very important: The Michener Remote Desktop servers should only be utilized when you have exhausted all other available options.

We provide many other options for accessing and editing documents (detailed in the above articles) including OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams. The slowdown on the Remote Server is exacerbated by users inadvertently performing tasks on it that aren't necessary to use Remote for or are best done in another way.

Some general guidelines:

• Teams & Zoom should never be utilized on Remote. Please run those applications locally on your computer itself. Running Teams/Zoom meetings on the Remote Server places tremendous strain on its resources. We will be removing these applications from the Remote Desktop servers.
• Store and share documents that are being actively collaborated on via OneDrive or SharePoint, and edit and access these documents from the local computer itself, not from Remote.
• Access email, calendars and contacts via the local Outlook client on the computer, not the version on Remote.
• View videos, recordings, or other online resources on the local device's web browser.
• General web browsing and accessing web applications should occur on the local device's web browser.

In general, unless the only way to complete the task absolutely requires Remote Desktop, please perform that task locally on the device itself. Remote Access should only be utilized when required.

Examples include:

• Accessing applications that can only be accessed through Remote.
  • The full Office suite and all applications that are available via Remote are also installed on the local machine.
  • Most applications that require an onsite connection can be accessed via the Michener VPN instead of Remote.
• Accessing and editing files on the P: Drive or Y: Drive.
  • Frequently accessed files should be moved to OneDrive or SharePoint and editing should occur on the device.
• Printing to onsite Michener PCs.
  • This task can also be performed from hoteling PCs available in some offices as well as the Hoteling Lab in Room 1014 for Faculty.

If these guidelines are followed, then the overall strain on the Remote server should be drastically reduced which will improve slowdown when it needs to be utilized. In turn, you should also find that very little of your day-to-day work requires logging into Remote, which will also reduce the time you are subjected to slowdowns.

We apologize for the inconvenience this causes you, and rest assured we are working to prioritize this issue and we understand how impactful this is to day to day usage of Michener services. We appreciate your patience as we work to modernize our environment and tackle these issues.