Today Teradici announced the availability of their long awaited Server Offload Card, the Teradici APEX 2800.

VDI implementations are typically constrained by the servers’ CPUs. The many tasks a CPU performs, together with PCoIP® protocol image encoding, limits the number of virtual machines that can run on any one server.

The APEX 2800 card offloads graphics processing from the server CPU which can reduce server CPU utilization by up to 50%, freeing up valuable CPU cycles which can be used to support even more virtual machines, allow existing virtual machines to run more intensive applications, or simply to provide more headroom to your VDI implementation. With 2GB of on-board memory, each Server Offload Card can support up to 64 displays at a resolution of 1920×1200.

The Teradici APEX2800 delivers an even better PCoIP user experience and improves the number of VDI sessions per server. Because of the offloading to the APEX2800 you can deliver a more reliable and consistent level of experience regardless of the overall demand on server CPUs. The APEX 2800 works seamlessly with VMware View (4.6, 5.0 or later).

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Today VMware’s partner Teradici announced a significant new releases from their PCoIP zero client and host card firmware and the PCoIP Management Console.

The following releases are now available for download on the Teradici support site (techsupport.teradici.com):

• Firmware 3.5.0 for PCoIP Zero Clients and PCoIP Host Cards.
• PCoIP Management Console 1.7.0

The new firmware update includes the following enhancements:

• USB2.0 with VMware View sessions
• Imprivata OneSign Virtual Desktop Access via proximity cards with VMware View
• IEEE 802.1x network security
• IPv6 support.

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VMware in collaboration with Teradici is working hard to improve the rich user experience even more by adding new features and improving existing ones. The vDesktops running on VMware View can be reached through lots of different devices including Apple iPads or Android-based tablets. The VDI solutions on the market are getting more and more mature in a rapid fashion.

New PCoIP enhancements will be released with the next release of VMware View. PCoIP Optimization Controls will be one of them, with these controls you can tweak the bandwidth usage which can result in a 75% bandwidth improvement. This is huge!

What is in the PCoIP Optimization Controls:

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One of my coworkers pointed me to a video from this years Tech-Ed Europe about VDI protocols. Bernhard Tritsch did an interesting comparison between the different remote protocols used in today’s VDI solutions. In a 60 minute session Bernhard explains the differences between location (host vs client), type (hardware vs software) rendering and compression types (lossless vs lossy).

Although the results aren’t that good for PCoIP (software version) it still is a very interesting video.

Although PCoIP is very efficient display protocol also over WAN connection. (See video demonstration on Vimeo ) there was still the leak of a good WAN optimization solution for VMware View 4.0.

We all know that the user experience will heavily benefit  if we can control the WAN traffic. As we know the PCoIP uses both TCP and UDP transport protocols. All of the WAN optimization solutions support TCP. But UDP is not broadly supported with the WAN optimization solutions.

That changes because Expand Networks provide immediate support for all VMware View 4 remote display protocols across the Expand’s Accelerator range of WAN optimization solutions to securely enable, accelerate and control VMware View over the WAN, including the PCoIP protocol.

The benefits that Expand’s solution brings to VMware View include support for:

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Yesterday VMware released it’s new version of its VDI solution, VMware View 4.

VMware View 4 includes the following new features and improvements:

• VMware View with PCoIP – PCoIP provides an optimized desktop experience for the delivery of the entire desktop environment including applications, images, audio, and video content for a wide range of users on the LAN or across the WAN. PCoIP can compensate for an increase in latency or a reduction in bandwidth, to ensure that end users can remain productive regardless of network conditions.
• PCoIP includes VMware View Display with support for up to four monitors and the ability to deliver the optimal resolution and pivot orientation to each monitor independently.
• VMware vSphere Support – VMware vSphere 4 support enables improved virtual machine scalability, performance, and management, with continued support for VMware Infrastructure 3.x.
• Enhanced single sign-on – The Log in as current user feature is integrated with Active Directory and smart cards to help simplify the process of logging in to a VMware View desktop.
• Restricted entitlements – Administrators can control user access to virtual desktops based on the View Connection Server being used for authentication.
• Smart card policies – Administrators can set group policies to force desktop disconnection and require reconnection when users remove smart cards.
• Domain filtering – You can use vdmadmin.exe to control the accessibility of domains and traverse trust relationships more quickly.
• You can cleanly delete View desktops using scripts.
• You can log in to View desktops using user principal names (UPN).
• You can explicitly configure IP addresses to override those supplied by the View Agent when accessing a desktop.
• Mixed Active Directory and Kerberos authentication is supported.

The VMware View 4 release can be found here.

Today is the day!

Today VMware released the new version of VMware View with the long awaited PCoIP protocol which provides a superior end-user experience over any network.

The new VMware View 4 is an integrated desktop virtualization solution, enabling reduced desktop costs, increased security, compliance and simplified desktop management, along with a rich, flexible desktop experience.

VMware View 4 is supported on the latest version of vSphere, bringing the most mature virtualization functionality to the desktops. View PCoIP establishes a new standard in the desktop user experience. Purpose-built for specifically delivering virtual desktops over the WAN or LAN, PCoIP is optimized to deliver the best user experience for the available bandwidth – without sacrifing user productivity.

With this this new version of VMware View with PCoIP it is possible to deliver a personalized, feature rich, graphical virtual desktop complete with applications and data and settings anywhere and anytime.

You can watch the VMware View 4 introduction video here.

Next week,  November 16th 19th, VMware View 4 will be generally available.

As a real VMware View enthusiast I’m really anxious to work with the new VMware View 4 with PCoIP. Just like vCenter Site Recovery Manager, were the new version was released last week,  VMware View has to be adjusted to support VMware vSphere 4.

The release of VMware View 4 is expected at the end of this year and earlier this week VMware launched a private beta.

The major difference will be  software version of the Teradici PC over IP (PCoIP) protocol which VMware View 4.0 will contain. The demo at VMworld Europe 2009 looked very promising and I’m very curious how this will perform.

This video I found on YouTube certainly looks very very promising indeed.

I’m not invited to this private beta (yet) but I hope that my VMware contact can arrange an invitation soon so I can experience this new technology soon so I can implement this at client sites as soon as it is released.

I just finished a great webinar by Randy Groves, Chief Technology Officer at Teradici Corporation.

The challenge for this and upcoming years is to give the most demanding users a true user experience while working on a true zero client through any network. The Teradici corporation is far ahead of the rest with their PCoIP protocol. No surprise VMware embraced the technology and the Teradici corporation by working together to answer the challenge.

The entire focus of the Teradici company is PCoIP, the DNA of the team working on the PCoIP protocol is from big and important companies like Broadcom, Intel, Nvidia and others.

Why should you want to use your graphics remotely you ask?
Several branch of industries choose for running graphics in the datacenter because of several reasons. For instance the healthcare industry and because of security, Media & Entertainment and CAD/CAM because of the enormous power they can use in a datacenter and efficient way of using resources and you can connect to it from anywhere. So designers aren’t convicted to 1 pDesktop, if that 1 breaks down it will be a big loss, instead they can use almost any device to do their work from anywhere connecting to their vDesktop or even vDesktops. Also branches like the Trading Floor, Air Traffic control and others who want space savings are using graphics remotely.

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VMware announced their effort to produce a software implementation of PCoIP together with Terradici at VMworld 2009 in Cannes.

Since then I have been anxiously waiting for a demo or beta. During today’s keynote at VMworld 2009 VMware gave a demo of their long awaited PCoIP demo.

Joep Piscaer from VirtualLifestyle.nl made a video of this demo. Audio is bad and the image is a bit shakey but it gives a good impression of the PCoIP performance an d possibilities.

You can watch the video here.

I’m impressed by the performance and I can’t wait to get my hands on the beta. I’m curious what Brian Madden’s opinion is on this premiere as he was skeptical on VMware’s effort to produce a software implementation of PCoIP.