Dualview, 3D graphics and HD video: multimedia with thin and zero clients

The user experience when working with thin and zero clients is very often judged by how well they handle multimedia content. Yet not everything that is technically feasible also makes good economic sense. What matters is having the right interaction between server and client.

Contents: • Multimedia and IT efficiency – a contradiction? • Interaction between client and server • Usage scenarios and requirements as regards thin and zero client hardware and software • Multimedia with Citrix XenApp / XenDesktop, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services and VMware Horizon • Software thin clients and multi-display solutions

Whether or not users accept thin and zero clients depends primarily on the performance of their desktops: It has to be just as good as the performance of a PC running locally installed applications. This requirement is particularly evident when it comes to 3D graphics and multimedia applications. Typical performance benchmarks for new thin and zero clients range from the smooth streaming of YouTube videos and video conferences to multi-display and CAD workstations.

High Performance Computing and IT efficiency – incompatible goals? When high-level application performance is required, blade PCs, rack workstations, or stand-alone PCs are commonly favored options, but continuing to use dedicated hardware adds significant costs. Considering thin clients backed by desktop virtualization as a potentially more economical solution is therefore a worthwhile endeavor. Comprehensive client standardization offers fundamental advantages, including centralized remote management, lower maintenance and support costs and an operating life about twice that of a PC.

Local computing power vs. client standardization After researching their end-point options, the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental Safety and Energy Technology (Fraunhofer UMSICHT) decided to implement thin clients. The organization opted for thin client devices in order to take advantage of the benefits of standardization. An economic analysis determined that over a three-year leasing period, desktop costs are 36% lower using thin clients in place of PCs used in an equivalent manner1. Standard users at Frauenhofer now receive applications via Citrix XenApp. Power users who work in the press office, in software development, with CAD or in other specialized areas and use applications such as Adobe Creative Suite, Autodesk AutoCAD, Eclipse or Microsoft Visual Studio are provisioned via Citrix XenDesktop. Both

Regionalverkehr Köln bus control center with IGEL UD5 thin client and two 24" displays groups use thin clients made by German manufacturer IGEL Technology. In combination with Citrix XenDesktop, these powerful devices reduce the computing workload on system servers.

Typical areas of application More and more companies expect powerful multimedia performance – even at standard workstations with thin and zero clients. For example, online training, webcasts and video conferences can help minimize travel costs. Since Microsoft Windows 7 was released, Aero and 3D effects are a typical part of screen workstations. At the same time, social media platforms like XING, Facebook and Vine are making communication more visual. In addition to playing back Internet content using Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, podcasts and HD videos can also be important for work, for example, during training sessions. The popularity of dual-screen workstations, too, is increasing as a way of boosting productivity. Such dualview setups are typically found at accounting and merchandising workstations or at production and logistics control points. Typical applications for high-performance multimedia are image editing in marketing departments, publishing houses and agencies, CAD/CAM in mechanical engineering and those in the medical field such as in radiology.

Requirements as regards client hardware Whether or not a given user scenario that once required a PC can actually be provisioned via a thin client depends not only on the client hardware but also on the software support for the relevant provisioning solution in the computer center. Zero clients typically provide good performance with a specific cloud solution and with minimal hardware use. For example, the IGEL IZ2 costs less than 240 euros and offers good playback quality including the fullscreen playback of HD videos. Multiprotocol thin clients, on the other hand, support numerous central IT and cloud environments. Efficient multicore processors and graphics chipsets enable them to achieve high-level graphics performance. With numerous interfaces, including two digital monitor connections, the IGEL UD5 falls in this category. IGEL thin client with Microsoft Windows Aero

 Fraunhofer UMSICHT / IGEL Technology: Thin clients 2011 – ecological and economic aspects of virtual desktops (http://it.umsicht.fraunhofer.de/TC2011/); thin client used: IGEL UD3 LX

1

2/5

TIMELINE SHOWING THE DEVELOPMENT OF REMOTE DISPLAY PROTOCOLS, ASSOCIATED FEATURES AND PROTOCOL EXTENSIONS: 2013 2009 Citrix Optimization Pack SPICE for MS Lync Citrix HDX PCoIP (VMware)

1987 X11

1989 Citrix ICA

1996 Microsoft RDP

2003 VDI (VMware) 2002 NoMachine NX

Influence of the client software In order to avoid unnecessary use of computer center resources for rendering screen content or decoding audio and video files, thin and zero clients that are certified for Citrix HDX, Microsoft Remote FX or VMware Horizon can reduce the burden on the servers. With media redirection for example, the thin client software can accept unprocessed content such as MPEG videos or Flash animations and play it back locally using an integrated player and the relevant codecs. This redirection can also be used to get around weaknesses in the network connection if the bandwidth and latencies prevent transmission in real time. This is particularly useful for video conferences where the image and sound are transmitted synchronously.

Powerful and flexible: Citrix HDX In order to offer an optimum user experience even during remote access via the WAN, server-based computing pioneer Citrix has developed HDX technology. HDX allows variable and dynamic decoding of multimedia content that not only takes into account the available bandwidth but also cost, security and performance considerations. “HDX Ready”-certified thin and zero clients can also decode locally if necessary. The multimedia features of HDX include Windows media and Flash redirection, audio/real-

MULTIMEDIA FORMATS SUPPORTED BY IGEL

With its optional multimedia codec pack, IGEL offers acceleration for all Linux-based thin and zero clients for the following formats:

2011 Remote FX 8 VMware Horizon Client Side Caching 2010 RemoteFX (Microsoft VDI)

time communications and HDX RichGraphics. The desktop virtualization solution Citrix XenDesktop with the HDX 3D Pro feature that allows hardware-based GPU sharing supports professional 3D graphics including OpenGL and DirectX applications. With this graphics acceleration, even applications for computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE), geo-information systems (GIS) or picture archiving communication systems (PACS) can be provisioned on a central basis.

VMware Horizon and Microsoft RemoteFX As part of its “IT as a Service” orientation, Vmware, too, has added solutions for improving the user experience to its range of products. These include client side caching. Thanks to this VMware Horizon feature, accordingly certified thin and zero clients can store image and video content locally on a temporary basis. “View Media Services for 3D Graphics” also allows virtual desktops to run 3D applications such as the Windows 8 Modern UI, Microsoft Office 365 and OpenGL or DirectX applications (Soft PCoIP). As with Citrix, however, high-end applications such as CAD require either a 1:1 relationship with a dedicated workstation or a central graphics card, which a number of virtual machines use as a shared GPU (Graphical Processing Unit). Microsoft VDI also supports a central GPU architecture of this type as part of Remote Desktop Services (RDS). Since Windows Server 2012 was released, the RemoteFX 8 protocol extension for access to Remote Desktop has been WAN-capable too. The corresponding “Microsoft RemoteFX Enabled” logo for thin and zero clients indicates among other things that the system is able to render YouTube videos (Flash), Microsoft Silverlight and Windows Flip 3D content.

aa Audio: MP3 and WMA aa Video: WMV (VC1), H264, MPEG-4 and MPEG-2

IGEL Universal Desktop thin clients with Windows Embedded Firmware support these formats as standard.

3/5

OVERVIEW: MULTIMEDIA SOLUTIONS FOR SERVER-BASED COMPUTING – SERVER AND THIN CLIENT

Solution

XenApp/XenDesktop

Horizon

Microsoft Remote Desktop Services

ICA

PCoIP

RDP

HDX/HDX 3D

Client-side caching

RemoteFX

Function used (rendering, decoding, client-side caching, etc.)

Adaptive orchestration: variable decoding and rendering (client-side or server-side), depending on whether or not the client supports codecs.

Server/client-side rendering: with a Windows client, client-side rendering is possible with PCoIP and RDP; with a Linux client, it is only possible with PCoIP.

Server-side rendering with RemoteFX 8 allows lean clients. Server-side GPU boosts graphics performance and increases the number of desktops per server.

Technical requirements (server and client)

Client-side rendering: codecs locally on the client. Server-side rendering: codecs locally on the server.

Client-side rendering: codecs locally on the client. Server-side rendering: codecs locally on the server.

Server-side rendering: special graphics card for RemoteFX and codecs on the server

Basic protocol Additional features/extensions for multimedia

Software thin clients: powerful and cost-efficient An increasing number of companies are using software thin clients for client standardization and as a cost-efficient alternative to zero or thin clients with dedicated hardware. These software thin clients are based on PCs, tablets or notebooks and provide a particularly good user experience thanks to their graphics resources. The thin client software must however support the hardware's various graphics modes, for example HD resolutions and dualview. The IGEL Universal Desktop Converter 2 (UDC2) client standardization software meets these requirements. It supports not only a wide range of graphics drivers but also various network cards, WiFi modules and additional device classes. If the UDC2 software recognizes a supported graphics card, it is automatically addressed with the native driver to provide the best-possible performance. A battery display for notebooks is also included. Remote management of the software thin clients takes place via the IGEL Universal Management Suite (UMS), which comes supplied. The UMS also allows all hardware-based IGEL thin and zero client models to be efficiently remote administered and centrally managed. MULTI-DISPLAY SOLUTION FROM IGEL aa The German thin client manufacturer IGEL Technology has

developed a multi-display solution based on standard thin clients. It allows one workstation to control up to 8 monitors. This solution is centrally managed by means of the IGEL Universal Management Suite (UMS) which comes standard with IGEL devices. This gives IT system managers full control over the position of dialog boxes and application windows. The heart of this multi-display architecture is a powerful IGEL UD5 LX Universal Desktop thin client fitted with an additional Ethernet network card that allows it to be a master device controlling up to three standard thin clients from the IGEL UD2 to UD10 LX ranges as “satellites” with HD resolutions of up to 2,560 x 1,600 pixels. These satellites configure themselves automatically, and each one can have two monitors connected to it. Typical application scenarios employing four to eight monitors include the control panels/switching stations used in production and logistics companies or in the transport sector. Other applications can be found in facility management for building and system monitoring.

Smooth presentation: a YouTube video on an IGEL thin client

A cost-efficient, future-ready choice Anyone wanting to provision multimedia content or applications efficiently needs a powerful yet economical overall system composed of server infrastructure, a cloud solution or service, a network and a client. Depending on requirements, the latter can be a thin client, a zero client or a software thin client. Even combinations to meet specific needs are possible – and make sense if the heterogeneous client pool can also be managed remotely in a standardized fashion. A standardized remote management solution such as the IGEL UMS allows central, profilebased and automated configuration of all multimedia-relevant settings. According to investigations carried out by the Fraunhofer UMSICHT, the administration costs are up to 70 percent lower compared to a FAT client environment with local Windows applications. Client standardization leads to three key benefits: efficiency, flexibility and a needs-based, positive user experience. 4/5

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