VDI via Windows Server? You'll want 2012 R2... #VirtualGeek

If you already have or perhaps have been eyeing a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure implementation via Windows Server then you'll want to give a close look to the upcoming Server 2012 R2.  Go start the free download of R2 Preview here (free license expires on January 15, 2014) while you read my comments below on R2's upcoming VDI goodness...

TIP: RPC issues with VirtualBox #VirtualGeek

I recently had occasion to set up Virtual Machine Management features of a Windows server hosted within a VirtualBox-based VM instance. I'd done this in the past but this time I was connecting to target VMs hosted within a Windows failover cluster. I could see the clustered VMs just fine (via the Failover Cluster Manager) but when selecting a specific VM and clicking "Manage virtual machine" my VMM console spat out a "RPC server unavailable" error.

It turns out that VirtualBox does not pass through the needed RPC traffic when the VirtualBox-hosted machine's NIC is in "NAT" mode.  If you encounter this, switching the NIC from the default "NAT" to "Bridged Adapter" may take care of the problem (as it did for me).