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mpulsfort
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

PCoIP Desktop experience - Fat Client vs. ThinClient

Hi,

I`m evaluate a VMware View pilot enviroment at a customer site with vSphere 4 U1 and View 4.0.1.

We are using Igel ThinClients (Model UD3 420 LX & UD5 720 LX) to connect to the VMware View Deskops using PCoIP.

Our View Desktops are running Win7 enterprise with 1vCPU 1GB RAM.

The hardware used is a HP DL380G6 with quad cores, 72 GB RAM and the disks are 15K rpm disks from a HP EVA Array.

When we connect using a fat client (Win7 notebook with View Client) the experience is great, smooth scrolling and youtube videos up to 720p.

But when connecting via ThinClient, the expirence isn `t that great anymore.

Applikations are running great on the virtual desktops (ThinApped and normaly installed in the base template).

youtube videos are nearly ok in 360p but not so important.

Smooth scrooling on websites with or without flash is an issue when using the ThinClients.

We see a load nearly and over 1 when connecting to the ThinClints (Linux based) via ssh while using them.

The next step we want to try is a windows XPe based

ThinClient for connecting to the View desktops.

Is this issue relatet to Win7,a configuration or a perhaps a Thinclient relatet issue? (win7 is unsupported i know)

What is your experience when connecting to View Desktops using Thinclients?

Thank`s a lot for any answers

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12 Replies
Linjo
Leadership
Leadership

Are the ThinClients windows or linux based?

Are you sure you are connecting with PCoIP? (Maybe it is connecting with RDP)

Best regards,

Linjo

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

Best regards, Linjo Please follow me on twitter: @viewgeek If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
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georgewraith
Contributor
Contributor

We are doing a similar evaluation, with a similar environment (Vsphere 4 U1 and view 4.0.1) but we are using Wyse, P20 zero clients and R90 XPe clients both with win 7 (1X cpu, 1Gb RAM). Dell R905 hosts with 128Gb RAM. Also Dell fat clients with view clients deployed.

The zero client is coming out on top for speed and performance.every time, although perfoance is fine with the R90, it is the extra time, overhead and cost of the winXPe client (which is not neccessary) that pulls it down in comparison to the P20 zero client.

mpulsfort
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

The ThinClients are Linux based.

I'm sure the we are connecting with PCoIP. Default protocol is set to PCoIP at the pool level and when connected the display protocol shows PCoIP in View Manager.

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SWCS833
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

What are your specs on the Thin Clients, specificaly the CPU? I have seen the same thing from WYSE on their C30LE with a VIA 1 GHZ CPU and it did not perform as well as their other Thin Clients, and I attributed it to the CPU (VIA vs ATOM).

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mpulsfort
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I also thougt in that direction.

The Igel Thinclients have a 800 Mhz Via CPU (UD3 420 LX) or 1,5 GHz Via CPU (UD5 720 LX) installed.

The R90 Series from Wyse have AMD Sempron CPUs with 1 Ghz or 1,5 GHz installed which may offer a better performance.

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Linjo
Leadership
Leadership

That could be the issue, we usually say that 800Mhz and SSE2 instruction set is the minimum spec to run PCoIP.

Best regards,

Linjo

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

Best regards, Linjo Please follow me on twitter: @viewgeek If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
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langonej
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Those are under-powered thin clients. I've got over 30 thin clients here that we have been actively testing, and for the most part, they are all under-powered to handle Flash/video/et cetera.

Thick clients work like a champ, but if you go to www.formula1.com and watch some video at a high-res, you will see CPUs in most thin-clients spike to 100%, choking on the processing.

From a x-client perspective, we are strongly encouraging people to look at zero clients. Samsung (also available through Dell) makes a monitor with integrated PCoIP. You simply plug in the ethernet, configure the View settings (point it to View Manager) and away you go. Teradici also has a central console for en masse management.

The performance on the LAN is beautiful.

I'm also actively testing some mobile thin clients from Dell. So far so good.

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gunnarb
Expert
Expert

I tested a lot of the thinclient solutions and none of them are quite as good as a fat client that has a lot of power, most of the are acceptable though. One suggestion is to run your VM with 2 CPUs. This should greatly improve your performance on a thin client.

-Gunnar

Gunnar Berger http://www.gunnarberger.com http://www.endusercomputing.com
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s1xth
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

I have been testing 10Zig Thin Client the RBT series with an Intel Atom 1.6Ghz HT Processor and intel embedded video and its been working great with Video via PCoIP. No issues... now my Wyse V10L....couldnt handle it and that was a Via 800Mhz proc.

Blog: www.virtualizationbuster.com

Twitter: s1xth

http://www.virtualizationimpact.com http://www.handsonvirtualization.com Twitter: @jfranconi
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buckethead
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

We have tested several different thin clients and had very good results. The Wyse R50L (Linux based), Wyse P20, and Samsung NC190 were the devices we liked best. We have a Dell FX110 showing up and I am interested in seeing how that looks. The video on the zero clients was as good as a workstation running the client.

We have some existing Wyse V10L devices for XenDesktop and the video performance on them is just not very good.

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mats82
Contributor
Contributor

in regards to the Igel TC's.. If you're using the Linux OS you need to install and enable the falsh player locally and then enable the flash redirect to get better video performance on youtube and flash. You can do this via the setup options.

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mats82
Contributor
Contributor

also from memory, the UD3's are the lower spec TC models

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