Console quick from workstation but not RDP

[RadarG]

I have a home lab setup and I have a bit of a problem. I have two workstations, and my ESXi 5.0 connected to a dlink DIR-655. I'm using the dlink just as a switch. My firewall (astaro) is running on a vm. I can sit on either workstation and fire up the vmware client and my  windows server vms are fast and snappy. However when I RDP into the vms from the workstations they are very slow. I did notice that the RDP session disconnected for a bit and reconected. I'm seeing the same issue on both workstations. The workstations are connected 100MB to the switch and the ESX is connected 1GB.

[zXi_Gamer]

Well for one thing, opening a VI console of a VM and opening a RDP of a VM are quite different and use entirely different protocols. If you suspect opening rdp is slower, you might want to check:

i) opening a rdp is allowed by firewall

ii) Opening a rdp of a different VM inside a the VIconsole of another VM is also slower? then we can confirm that rdp session is being crunched by some process.

[RadarG]

Yes I think that its a firewall issue. I migrated a vm from my dmz to green side and I noticed an improvement. I can also access through RDP a vm on green side. I'll let you know.