# Orchestration and Control Layer— Core Components

Within the **Orchestration and Control Layer** reside the central services of the platform, responsible for orchestrating connections, authenticating users, managing sessions, and storing critical data. These components operate as the control and access plane, ensuring secure coordination between the [**Edge layer**](https://thinfinity-workspace-v8-docs.cybelesoft.com/appendix/thinfinity-r-workspace-reference-architecture-for-high-availability-ha/broken-reference) and [**Workload layer**](https://thinfinity-workspace-v8-docs.cybelesoft.com/appendix/thinfinity-r-workspace-reference-architecture-for-high-availability-ha/broken-reference).

<table><thead><tr><th width="174.88885498046875">Component</th><th>Description</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Thinfinity Gateway</strong></td><td><p><strong>Role</strong>: The only servers that receive external connections from the Load Balancer, exclusively through HTTPS (port 9443).</p><p><br><strong>Function</strong>: Act as the entry point to the environment, encapsulating user sessions and securely relaying them to internal services.</p><p><br><strong>Security</strong>: Connections remain encrypted end-to-end, supporting long-lived WebSocket tunnels.</p></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Thinfinity Brokers</strong></td><td><p><strong>Role</strong>: Not accessed directly by users; instead, they register with the gateways via HTTPS (port 443).</p><p><br><strong>Function</strong>: Handle session orchestration, license validation, and policy enforcement.</p><p><br><strong>Integrations</strong>: Communicate with Active Directory for authentication and group management, and with the database for persistence of session metadata and configuration.</p></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Database Service</strong></td><td><p><strong>Role</strong>: Central repository for session data, configuration, and authentication details.<br></p><p><strong>Implementation</strong>: Typically provisioned as a managed service (e.g., OCI MySQL Database Service).</p><p><br><strong>Access</strong>: Restricted to brokers only, using TCP 3306.</p></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Monitoring Engine</strong></td><td><p><strong>Role</strong>: Collects metrics from gateways over HTTPS (TCP 443).</p><p><br><strong>Function</strong>: Provides visibility into performance, availability, and user activity.</p><p><br><strong>Benefit</strong>: Enables centralized monitoring, proactive fault detection, and the generation of governance and SLA reports.</p></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Remote Desktop Services (RDS) License Server</strong></td><td><p><strong>Role</strong>: Provides CALs (Client Access Licenses) for Remote Desktop sessions when required.</p><p><br><strong>Connectivity</strong>: Communicates with brokers via TCP 135 (RPC Endpoint Mapper) and dynamic RPC ports (49152–65535) on modern Windows Server versions.</p><p><br><strong>Purpose</strong>: Ensures licensing compliance for large-scale deployments.<br></p><p>*This is only necessary for Windows session-based VDI hosts. It is not required for one-to-one (1:1) VDI hosts, such as Windows 10/11 or Linux.</p></td></tr></tbody></table>

### Summary

The **Thinfinity Workspace Orchestration and Control Layer** is the heart of the platform, combining Gateways, Brokers, databases, Monitoring, and licensing services into a secure, segmented control plane. This design minimizes exposure, enforces Zero Trust principles, and supports efficient load distribution for thousands of concurrent connections.
