Company News • 22.07.2011

IGEL Brings Multimedia from the Cloud to the User: Using Microsoft RemoteFX, Citrix HDX and VMware PCoIP

Online training courses, video conferences, 3D applications – IGEL thin clients provide high-performance remote access to the greatest variety of video content and graphics-intensive applications.

With the inclusion of the Microsoft RemoteFX protocol in the IGEL’s Universal Desktop range, the thin client leader is meeting the growing demand for efficient access to server-based multimedia content such as graphics, video and 3D applications. By adding this capability to its already supported technologies of Citrix HDX, VMware PCoIP and SPICE, IGEL has further underlined its determination to provide flexible and future-ready thin client devices to its customers.

The application scenarios for IGEL’s comprehensive multimedia and graphics support start with multi-screen workstations, video conferences and webcasts, also include the playback of HD videos and DVDs, and continue all the way through to CAD and 3D applications. In addition, special effects and animations commonly used on PCs are also possible using IGEL’s thin clients, including Windows Aero, Microsoft Silverlight or Adobe Flash.

Standardized Solutions Using Open Technology

With its program to continuously enhance and update cross-solution multimedia support, IGEL is pursuing the goal of achieving an optimum user-experience not only in all conventional but also in specialized, centralized IT environments. By following this universal product strategy, IGEL is specifically positioning itself against proprietary zero-client models, which generally only support one software provider and diminish the ability of users to safeguard their investments. In applying this broad approach that works across solutions, IGEL Universal Desktop thin clients not only support the Microsoft RemoteFX protocol extension for Microsoft-based environments but also Citrix HDX for Citrix XenDesktop, PCoIP for VMware View and the Linux protocol SPICE for Linux-based VDI solutions, such as Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for desktops. This diverse multimedia support also benefits users of those innovative centralized IT solutions that rely solely on the leading hypervisors from Citrix, Microsoft and VMware, such as Leostream VDI, Quest vWorkspace and Ericom PowerTerm WebConnect. These solutions can be economical alternatives to those from established providers and expand the range of options available in designing and managing centralized IT environments.

Broad Support for RemoteFX, HDX and Similar Solutions

With the exception of the IGEL UD2, all IGEL thin client solutions with IGEL Linux, including the IGEL Universal Desktop Converter (UDC) thin client software, support the RemoteFX protocol extension. Support for devices running Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard (WES) is also in development. The performance-enhancing PCoIP and SPICE protocols are supported by all thin client solutions with IGEL Linux and WES starting with the ‘Standard’ firmware package. Similarly, support for the Citrix HDX protocol starts with the ‘Advanced’ firmware package.

“As more applications are provisioned through the cloud, the more important it will be to provide high-performance remote access to centralized multimedia content as well as video and graphics applications,” explains Florian Spatz, Product Marketing Manager at IGEL. “At the recent CeBIT event, this critical consideration was clearly on the mind of customers as they frequently questioned us about our multimedia-ready solutions. We’re pleased that our implementation of RemoteFX also now allows us to offer particularly high multimedia performance for Microsoft-based environments.”

 

channels: video cameras, video analysis, tablet PC, 3D application, thin clients