Plan your deployment

Session Recording does not support Desktop Composition Redirection (DCR) display mode. By default Session Recording disables DCR in a session if the session is to be recorded by recording policy. You can configure this behavior in Session Recording Agent properties.

Depending upon your environment, you can deploy the Session Recording components in different scenarios.

A Session Recording deployment does not have to be limited to a single site. With the exception of the Session Recording Agent, all components are independent of the server site. For example, you can configure multiple sites to use a single Session Recording Server.

Alternatively, if you have a large site with many agents and plan to record many graphically intense applications (for example, AutoCAD applications), or you have many sessions to record, a Session Recording Server can experience a high performance demand. To alleviate performance issues, you can install multiple Session Recording Servers on different computers and point the Session Recording Agents to the different computers. Keep in mind that an agent can point to only one server at a time.

Suggested deployment scenarios

• To enable Session Recording components to communicate with each other, ensure you install them in the same domain or across trusted domains that have a transitive trust relationship. The system cannot be installed into a workgroup or across domains that have an external trust relationship.
• Session Recording does not support the clustering of two or more Session Recording Servers in a deployment.
• Due to its intense graphical nature and memory usage when playing back large recordings, Citrix does not recommend installing the Session Recording Player as a published application.
• The Session Recording installation is configured for TLS/HTTPS communication. Ensure that you install a certificate on the Session Recording Server and that the root certificate authority (CA) is trusted on the Session Recording components.
• If you install the Session Recording Database on a stand-alone server running SQL Server 2014 Express Edition, SQL Server 2012 Express Edition, or SQL Server 2008 R2 Express Edition, the server must have TCP/IP protocol enabled and SQL Server Browser service running. These settings are disabled by default, but they must be enabled for the Session Recording Server to communicate with the database. See the Microsoft documentation for information about enabling these settings.
• Consider the effects of session sharing when planning your Session Recording deployment. Session sharing for published applications can conflict with Session Recording recording policy rules for published applications. Session Recording matches the active policy with the first published application that a user opens. After the user opens the first application, any subsequent applications opened during the same session continue to follow the policy that is in force for the first application. For example, if a policy states that only Microsoft Outlook should be recorded, the recording commences when the user opens Outlook. However, if the user opens a published Microsoft Word second (while Outlook is running), Word also is recorded. Conversely, if the active policy does not specify that Word should be recorded, and the user launches Word before Outlook (which should be recorded, according to the policy), Outlook is not recorded.
• Though you can install the Session Recording Server on a Delivery Controller, Citrix does not recommend you do so because of performance issues. 
• You can install the Session Recording Policy console on a Delivery Controller.
• You can install both the Session Recording Server and Session Recording Policy console on the same system.