URL Content Redirection - Use cases?

[alienjoker]

Hi,

I thought I'd reach out to the community to get a view on the feasibility of using a feature such as URL Content Redirection in Horizon 7. Whilst on paper, it sounds like a benefit to offload URL clicks/entries to sites such as YouTube so as to place the overhead on a ThinClient for example, there are many user experience caveats/complexities. For example, if you are using a full screen VDI session, upon attempts to access YouTube, the local browser does successfully appear in front of your active session to continue use of the redirected site, but if you minimize the window, you are helpless to bring it back as the ALT-TAB you issue is sent to the VDI session, not the underlying device and therefore your users have no method of regaining control of the local browser the VDI session called. Making a comparison to Citrix, their local application access technique successfully integrates the locally run application into the taskbar of the VDI session, allowing you to transparently use the application as if it was genuinely hosted within the Virtual Desktop.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but unless you operate a Windowed virtual desktop (and therefore present two taskbars/start menus, which brings a whole new level of complexity for the end user), I'm struggling to understand how the feature at this stage of development would even stand the test of time in a production environment.

I look forward to hearing other peoples views or successes/failures with this "feature".

Thanks

Andrew

[gmtx]

Timely your mentioning this - we're looking specifically at URL redirection as a reason to upgrade to 7.

I've been having performance issues with my View hosts lately, and come to find I now have many of my users streaming multiple live feeds all day long (we're in financial services so it's Bloomberg, CNBC, etc.). The Apex cards I have installed have been useless, and URL redirection - done right - would take a lot of CPU pressure off my hosts and not require I start dropping multiple $4K M60 nVidia cards in each host to handle the load. But as you mentioned, if it won't work at the UI level for users, then it's a non-starter.

Any VMware folks here that can address this issue and provide any guidance or workarounds for the way URL redirection currently works in 7? Anyone actually using the feature yet?

[alienjoker]

Hey gmtx,

Apex, apex apex ;o) I've had many a discussion on these devices and in their day (i.e. before double digit multi-core processors), they were pretty good. The thing is, now that CPUs are so powerful, the density problem it aims to improve is easily addressed with a better CPU at a comparable cost. There is a lot of misleading information that suggests Apex will reduce CPU problems, but in reality, multimedia rich content isn't one of them and invariably this is the problem that causes the biggest headache. We've thrown more compute at individual use cases, but the processes will just consume whatever you give them so you end up no better off.

Like you, I have many clients who use Bloomberg, FT etc complaining of performance problems and we see IE and Chrome hitting the highest level of compute demands on a day to day basis. Offloading these demands to the local device seems to be the most cost effective solution, so Content redirection would be of great benefit if it integrates with an active session in a seamless way. The nVidia cards whilst a possible option, a) don't work in the blade compute (BL460s) I find in many VDI shops b) have extortionate support/licensing costs c) reduce the density of users per server due to the reduced number of users per Tesla card (16 in an MXM module) vs users per server at 75.

Given the lack of responses to this thread, it seems that it hasn't picked up much traction in the field for genuine use cases.

Thanks

Andrew

[gmtx]

I've tried the same - giving more compute resources to my "problem" users, and you're right, all it does is consume even more CPU and cause ready times on the troubled endpoints to go through the roof. The net effect is no relief at all for them, and an even worse experience for everyone else.

We're coming up on a hardware refresh cycle for our host/endpoint environment, and much as I can't believe I'm saying this, after four years of VDI use we're actually considering going back to physical PCs. Between all of the critical long-standing bugs in recent vSphere/View releases, the unpredictability of end-user performance requirements and the need to basically over-provision hosts for worst-case, and peripherals that don't play nicely with View, the benefits, costs and risk of VDI are getting extremely hard to justify - at least for us.