Missed Quest at VMworld this year? Not to worry, VMware is hosting a series of events in EMEA called the VMware Virtualization Forums 2008 that Quest will be attending. Come see us at one of the following venues/dates:

October 2008

• Sweden - Stockholm  02.10.08
• France - Paris  08.10.08
• Netherlands - Rotterdam  15.10.08
• Australia  - Sydney  15.10.08 ( not EMEA obviously )
• Germany - Dusseldorf  22.10.08
• Austria - Vienna  29.10.08

November 2008

• Spain - Madrid  06.11.08
• Italy - Milan  12.11.08
• Switzerland - Zurich  20.11.08

We will be showcasing the newest version of the Virtual Access Suite as well our Experience Optimization Pack and cool sneak peaks into the future of the Virtual Access Suite.

So come see us at one of the VMware Virtualization Forums 2008. We look forward to meeting you!

Here at Quest we are (not surprisingly) very excited about our products. We are sure you will be as well, as soon as you have tried our products for yourself. To that end we have made it very easy to download an evaluation copy of the Virtual Access Suite (5.10) and to even generate your own evaluation licenses.

Sometimes we still get questions, so to make sure that your evaluation experience is as smooth as possible, we have created a document that discusses exactly what steps you need to take to start evaluating the Virtual Access Suite: Obtaining Virtual Access Suite Evaluation Software and Licenses.

Happy evaluating!

So by now everyone knows that VDI is being adopted at a rapid pace, but often without enough due diligence by IT.  Server virtualization offers amazing return on investment, and is often implemented without end user ever knowing.   Users still access the same file servers, exchange servers, web servers… they just don’t know or care that the physical servers have been virtualized and consolidated.

Desktop virtualization sounds fantastic to the people that successfully completed a server virtualization project, and to the CIO & CFO that are looking to save even more money with virtualization.  Things that are often overlooked are the end user requirements. Just because one can deliver a remote display to a PC or thin client, doesn’t mean that it will be accepted by end users, and doesn’t mean that it will meet end user’s operating requirements.

So what are some of these “end user” requirements that IT should consider when designing a virtual desktop infrastructure.

1. Display performance - this is a no brainer, but more often than not IT is deploying virtual desktops without testing each of their customer’s applications to make sure they are responsive over the chosen remote display protocol.  It should also be noted that just because the application works fine across the LAN, does not mean that it will perform the same across a bandwidth limited, shared WAN pipe with significantly more latency than the LAN.
2. Printing - another “duh!, eh”, but for IT professionals without Server Based Computing experience, as it relates to application delivery, this is often overlooked.   IT may not understand that the Terminal Services printing infrastructure is quite different than that of normal client server computing.  Users will expect to be able to print to the same printers they used to, without having to call the helpdesk and without sacrificing functionality that they had on their physical PC.
3. Local devices - most clients support USB storage, but support for devices like TWAIN & WIA Scanners, webcams and VOIP headsets is not something that Microsoft delivers out of the box to remote desktops.

So what is EOP, and how does it relate to all of these statements?  EOP stands for both “Experience Optimized Protocol” and “Experience Optimization Pack“.  The Provision Networks division of Quest Software licenses and has been extending the feature set of the Microsoft RDP Protocol since 2004.  The following are core features of Quest’s Enhanced RDP Protocol that exist for Windows Terminal Services and VDI:

• Seamless Windows - remote applications look and act like local applications without being encapsulated by the Explorer Shell or the Remote Desktop Client window.  They minimize to the taskbar like local apps and retain the proper Z-order (when you alt+tab thru apps).
• Session Sharing - multiple seamless windows remote apps share the same Windows Session on a Terminal Server or VDI/Physical Remote Desktop, instead of being spawned in additional sessions.  This allows applications to interact with each other, i.e. different Microsoft Office applications.  Additionally, if a non-seamless desktop session is launched, and seamless windows remote apps exist, the seamless windows remote apps share the session with the desktop, and will be moved into the desktop session.
• Enhanced Multi-monitor support - this forces the Windows Taskbar and start menu to be confined to the primary monitor, allows users to maximize applications on the monitor of their choice and the applications remember these settings.  This was introduced in Virtual Access Suite 5.10 that was released in July.
• Universal USB Device Redirection - this is a new feature that allows clients to use virtually any USB connected device, i.e. VOIP headset, TWAIN/WIA Scanner, webcam…
• Universal Printing Virtual Channel - this has existed in Provision Networks’ products since 2001, we were a Citrix Platinum Partner, and we sold add-ons for Citrix and Windows Terminal Services.  This feature allows users to print to any client defined printer without having to install or have installed the printer driver on the Terminal Server or Virtual Desktop.  In addition to this Virtual Channel for client printers, Quest also supports use of the Universal Printer driver for Windows Network Printers (Session Printers in Citrix terminology) and Remote Print Relay printers (gateway printing).

Quest’s “Experience Optimization Pack” adds the following “User Experience” features to the previously mentioned core features:

• Graphics acceleration - this compresses and optimizes how graphics are rendered on the remote display, so Terminal Services and VDI can support graphical applications and animation that typically did not perform well over RDP.  This also dramatically reduces the bandwidth requirements of the RDP protocol, typically by 400 to 800%. I have seen some websites that consume 18 times more bandwidth when rendered via the standard Microsoft RDP client or VMware VDM client, than when using Quest EOP.
• Multimedia Redirection - this seamlessly redirects Microsoft DirectShow content (anything that can be played in Windows Media Player) to the client CODEC where it is rendered in full fidelity, insted of being rendered by RDP.
• Latency Reduction - when a lateny network is detected, client keystrokes are rendered on the client device so the end user can see them before they are transmitted to the remote RDP host.  This enables remote workers to use word processing application that typically suffered over a latent network connection.
• Bi-directional audio - this allows for support of microphones, even those that are not USB connected, which would be supported by the Universal USB Device Redirector.

So the combination of Quest’s core RDP enhancements and the optional “Experience Optimization Pack” features equals Quest Software’s ”Experience Optimized Protocol” (EOP).  Enhanced RDP has been referred to in many ways by industry analysts, and our own employees, so now we have an actual name for our RDP enhancements, “EOP“

rdp61_eop_live

QuestEOP

Provision Networks Multimedia Redirection Demonstration

So VMworld starts on Monday, and we’re getting ready to make a big splash with our new enhancements for VDI and Windows Terminal Services.  One of our new enhancements is something that I don’t think anyone thought could be done (make RDP perform well across the WAN, or display animation and complex graphics).  It used to be a foregone conclusion that RDP just could not perform well across a latent or low bandwidth connection, or one that is displaying complex graphics or animation.

This is no longer the case, as is shown in the video below.  This video is two mintues long, and during that two minutes I am working with two virtualized remote desktops via SSL Secure Gateway, from the same client computer, connected to the public Internet via a Verizon Wireless card, from the Southwest Coast of the United States to the Northeast Coast of the United States. I typically have about 384Kbps download speed, and the latency to the remote site is about 150 milliseconds.

So anyways, during this two minutes I load the exact same webpage on the two remote desktops.  On one desktop, the webpage never even finishes rendering the alpha-blended splash screen during the entire two minutes, whereas on the desktop running Quest’s EOP (Experience Optimized Protocol)  the page loads instantly and you can see me clicking around, flipping from page to page,  while the other one seems frozen. 

If you look closely, the desktop on the left that is using the standard RDP protocol, that is offered with products like VMware VDM, Leostream, 2x, Ericom, nSuite, Desktone [insert every other VDI and Terminal Services vendor that utilizes the Microsoft RDP Protocol] is drawing block by block, layer by layer and it is completely unusable.  It’s not just a matter of that one is more responsive than the other, but that one is using so much bandwidth that it’s completely saturating my Internet connection.  When this happens the only way interact with the frozen remote desktop is to wait for it to finish loading (no telling how long that would take), or to have an administrator reset the session.

Yesterday I visited a client that was ready to deploy VMware VDM, but they had to support several remote sites, some connected over DSL and others over T1 with MPLS. Users were complaining that they couldn’t use some websites that they use on their PCs every day (some for leisurely Internet browsing, and some to do actual work). We tested connecting to one of the Remote Desktops with the VDM client and launching their default webpage www.live.com.  This page took more than 30 seconds to load with the Vmware VDM client, and less than 2 seconds to load with Quest’s EOP.  In addition to that, the system integrator asked me how much less bandwidth we were consuming with the Provision Networks Client.  We measured it with NetLimiter Pro, and the Vmware VDM client used 18 times more bandwidth to load this one webpage than the Provision Networks client did.  This was way better than I expected, and the video below is even more impressive than what I just described.

If this sounds interesting to you, come see it in person at VMworld Booth #1039 from September 15-18, 2008.  If you’re not going to VMworld, just ping me and we can come to you.

rdp61_eop_live

QuestEOP

One of our Systems Consultants ,Patrick Rouse, has created another demonstration of our RDP Graphics Acceleration. Quest’s RDP Graphics Acceleration (aka EOP - Experience Optimized Protocol) is not limited to browser graphics, but rather can accelerate all bitmapped graphics, such as the Explorer Shell, Microsoft Office applications, AutoCAD, Photoshop, Flash, Shockwave, Quicktime, Google Earth…

In the video Patrick compares RDP 6.1 on Vista SP1, to Quest Software’s EOP Graphics Acceleration. On the Vista SP1 Remote Desktop the local system policy has RDP “optimized to use less network bandwidth”, which is the maximum data compression level and best performance currently offered by Microsoft for the RDP Protocol. Enjoy, as the performance improvements Quest has made to the Microsoft RDP Protocol are very impressive!

Quest’s RDP Graphics acceleration is available as part of the Experience Optimization Pack (EOP) for Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite, for Terminal Services, Virtual and Physical Desktops.

rdp61_eop_live

A couple of months ago we announced that Quest entered a partnership with Parallels to offer a joint VDI solution. This bundle allows you to experience the unique advantages of Parallels Virtuozzo Containers and the industry leading VDI capabilities of the Virtual Access Suite all in one license.

Ever since that announcement we have been seeing a tremendous amount of interest in this solution. To make it easier to evaluate this unique solution yourself we have created a detailed step-by-step guide that tells you exactly what you need to do to get up and running very quickly.

The guide will describe the requirements and the installation and configuration steps to test Quest Software’s Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite 5.10 in a Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4 Environment.

Download the Step-by-Step guide to Evaluate the Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite 5.10 in a Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4 Environment.

We are continuously working to improve our documentation, so we would to hear your feedback on this document as well! Please send your feedback to: pndocfeedback -at- quest -dot- com.