Brian Madden - All Comments

re: Look out Citrix HDX & VMware PCoIP: RDP and RemoteFX in Windows 8 is awesome!

jimbonbon — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:07:32 GMT

I like RFX, but a lot of this isn't new, so I can't quite share the same level of excitement.

Take the 'adaptive graphics' bit (which would probably be better referred to as 'adaptive compression'). This is a base feature of PCoIP - breaking down the graphics output by content type (video, text, image) and applying different compression techniques to optimise bandwidth usage. Text is prioritised over any of the other content types so you only ever see build-to-lossless on images (aka this progressive refinement).

Media and USB redirection are nothing new either - its great to know they are there, but I would say this is an expected option for any such technology.

One point that does stand out is that if the UDP versus TCP decision making could be made location based (which it seems it could be), this would certainly be useful.

There is certainly some other cool stuff in the pipeline for RFX, but when some of this is heavily OS dependant (even down to the bandwidth optimisations), surely this should be more frowned upon than celebrated?

re: Look out Citrix HDX & VMware PCoIP: RDP and RemoteFX in Windows 8 is awesome!

Daniel Bolton — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:21:08 GMT

Also... Wouldn't be nice to be able to nominate an application to exclude an app from using RemoteFX?

Some apps believe it or not - just perform better using good old RDP even on the LAN! - specially with the min send interval tweak!

Could be handled easily with GPO's!

re: Look out Citrix HDX & VMware PCoIP: RDP and RemoteFX in Windows 8 is awesome!

vgernyc — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:26:58 GMT

In the RDP 8 demos they specifically state that RDVH and RDSH have the same RDP features. No crap of full RemoteFX on RDVH and a lite version in RDSH. That's a thing of the past.

I'm guessing OpenGL support will be left to Citrix? HDX 3D Pro in XenApp 7.0 perhaps? Can't wait. Someone on here said it almost made it to XenApp 6.5 but was withdrawn.

There's an open source project attempting to bring RDP 7.1 to Linux/UNIX, Mac and Windows called FreeRDP. They eventually want to add RDP8 down the road.

re: A deeper look at Ericom's "AccessNow" HTML5 client. Why wait for Citrix & VMware? This thing is out now & works with View and vWorkspace.

Dan Shappir — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:16:26 GMT

Tal,

HTML5 clients have both advantages and disadvantages compared to native clients. Native clients can provide better performance for graphically rich applications, and greater access to local resources. HTML5 clients can be used on most any device without requiring installation or configuration. Including devices where native clients cannot be installed or run. Or on devices that IT doesn't want to manage (think BYOD).

Also, Ericom AccessNow performance is already more than adequate for many line-of-business applications, and improving in every release. In any event, we always recommend that prospective customers evaluate our products in their own environment before making purchasing decisions. As Brian can attest, AccessNow is very quick and easy to deploy - an evaluation environment can usually be set up in a matter of minutes.

For customers who need optimized native client performance for accessing graphical applications and rich media, over the WAN, they can utilize Ericom Blaze native clients for PCs, thin clients and mobile devices.

re: A deeper look at Ericom's "AccessNow" HTML5 client. Why wait for Citrix & VMware? This thing is out now & works with View and vWorkspace.

Tal Klein — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:28:39 GMT

No.. I promise not to like HTML5 clients any better even once we have one. I'm not a big fan of HTML5 Receiver, or AccessNow, or ThinkApp (whatever that's going to be). I think it's OK for the occasional use case, but I don't want people using it to make Post PC era claims. It's a nice tactical tool for getting at your hosted windows apps or desktops from guest machines without native clients on them.

re: Look out Citrix HDX & VMware PCoIP: RDP and RemoteFX in Windows 8 is awesome!

Tal Klein — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:20:58 GMT

Oh snap!

re: A deeper look at Ericom's "AccessNow" HTML5 client. Why wait for Citrix & VMware? This thing is out now & works with View and vWorkspace.

Brian Madden — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:11:48 GMT

This article is sensationalist and makes people believe that they can be as effective as native clients? What about where I say "And that's a key point. It's tempting to think that the future will be only HTML5 apps, but in reality HTML5 VDI clients will never have the performance or features of native clients."

And later I talk about how this product is great for unknown or unmanaged clients.

But I'm sure Tal will like HTML5 clients a lot better as soon as Citrix releases one. :)

re: A deeper look at Ericom's "AccessNow" HTML5 client. Why wait for Citrix & VMware? This thing is out now & works with View and vWorkspace.

Tal Klein — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:49:02 GMT

Thanks for the information, Dan. My main problem with articles like this is that they are sensationalist in nature and they make the audience believe that HTML5 clients can be as effective as native clients. I'm fine supporting the "occasional' use case via a browser, but I can't imagine recommending any existing HTML5-based solution today as a primary access method to any desktop or app virtualization solution.

re: Look out Citrix HDX & VMware PCoIP: RDP and RemoteFX in Windows 8 is awesome!

Brian Madden — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:47:49 GMT

How about just spending that time making a decent Mac client?

re: Look out Citrix HDX & VMware PCoIP: RDP and RemoteFX in Windows 8 is awesome!

Tal Klein — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:44:58 GMT

In lieu of your article, I have installed shakers in all of the HDX R&D team's boots.

re: Look out Citrix HDX & VMware PCoIP: RDP and RemoteFX in Windows 8 is awesome!

Shawn Bass — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:52:06 GMT

@Brian - Agreed. Still a bit wordy on my articles. Happy to have a separate one that calls this out front and center.

re: Look out Citrix HDX & VMware PCoIP: RDP and RemoteFX in Windows 8 is awesome!

Shawn Bass — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:45:53 GMT

Dan is spot on. Microsoft's crutch is that they only enable features on the latest/greatest OS platform as part of their desire to drive further Windows upgrades / sales, etc. If they do this with RFX and not support it downlevel on Windows 7, then it opens up all sorts of ISV moves.

Shawn

re: Look out Citrix HDX & VMware PCoIP: RDP and RemoteFX in Windows 8 is awesome!

Daniel Bolton — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:39:21 GMT

All good, but I want to know...

Will there be an update (SP2) for Win7 to enable it to decode the RemoteFX payload from a Windows 8 desktop? (because this never happened for XP - unless you're Gabe)..

DirectX support for RDSh sessions?

Any advances in OpenGL support?

First question is more important...

I'm glad about the bandwidth improvements - will keep network chaps off my back... 800 RemoteFX vm's creates some pretty impressive charts!

Dan

re: Look out Citrix HDX & VMware PCoIP: RDP and RemoteFX in Windows 8 is awesome!

Kata Tank — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:32:52 GMT

Once again, the same old story since 20 years... With this new version, you will not need anymore Citrix and others... Hopefully, Microsoft is getting better each time...but didn't solve the non-microsoft and non-latest-version issues...

Hey guys, wake up ! Remoting something is not just about protocols.

re: Look out Citrix HDX & VMware PCoIP: RDP and RemoteFX in Windows 8 is awesome!

Brian Madden — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:30:20 GMT

Yeah but I was thinking that was just one section about RemoteFX on Windows 8 of a larger article that was about the history of protocols. So I was thinking for my article that it would be just about the new stuff for Windows 8 and go into more detail there.

Now, what I forgot was that your article was like 4k words, so probably your little section on Windows 8 was longer than my whole article. :)