It’s been a bit longer than I expected, but today Microsoft has finally released the official version of the RemoteFX product for Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7.
Today’s release of RemoteFX with Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows 7 SP1 is the culmination of two years’ close collaboration between engineers at Microsoft and engineers in great companies across our industry. This work has allowed us to build a new graphics experience for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) customers. The download for this release will enable millions of existing servers to run RDP 7.1 with RemoteFX and Remote Desktop Services. Hundreds of millions of Windows 7 Client machines will be enabled to take advantage of the benefits associated with accessing RemoteFX-capable servers.
If you’ve forgotten, RemoteFX is an addon to their existing Terminal Services and Remote Desktop services systems in use by various Thin Clients that adds the ability to use remote GPU’s for hardware acceleration and GPU compute. This means the nice Aero desktop, data visualization products, and even video games can now be used on true Thin Clients.
Already, NVidia has drivers out for the product, and the blog post form Microsoft lists a slew of other companies like Ti, iGEL, HP, and Citrix with additional products. I also like HP’s take on the new technology and it’s relation to the “Law of Conservation of Misery” (The total misery in any system must remain constant).
The law of conservation of misery that used to apply to client virtualization is now challenged with the Microsoft RemoteFX technology. It allows you to virtualize the GPU on the host side and also use the GPU’s computing power to do the rendering and compression of the graphics that are sent down to the client as fast as possible. But, what type of client? Any type of client able to run the new version of RDP 7.1, which means that even low-end ones will be able to do it. The end result? Client virtualization users will have the opportunity to access rich media content and enjoy Windows in Aero mode, as well as to do VDI with high resolution, and with single, dual displays …and beyond. This explains why there is a lot of excitement in the market.
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with Microsoft RemoteFX will certainly provide a great user experience over the local area network (LAN) and very fast WAN. To complement this, PowerTerm WebConnect’s Ericom Blaze technology delivers a great user experience over the WAN, WIFI, GPRS and other networks, making it a perfect technological complement to RemoteFX.
To read more about WebConnect and RemoteFX visit:
http://www.ericom.com/RemoteFX.asp?URL_ID=708
Adam