View in remote access scenarios...

[sketchy00]

Hi everyone.

Hot off the heels of seeing some great things at VMWorld (View, among other things), a few questions popped into my head before I got a chance to ask anyone who might know. The questions were about View. By the way, our infrastructure is about 85 percent virtualized, and we’re ready to move to the next step.

For a pilot project, one of our use cases is for a remote software developer to collaborate on the inside of our single site. After seeing the myriad of options of zero clients, dedicated thin clients, and systems reprovisioned as thin clients, what does the typical connection model look like for remote connectivity? Should it be assumed that the remote user is tunneled in via one’s VPN? And if so, is a zero client no longer applicable, because one would need a connection/authentication mechanism into the VPN before one could connect to a View? What are most people doing in this scenario? Our infrastructure sits behind an ISA/TMG firewall and use a PPTP based VPN Tunnel. If this is the scenario being used, do most use PCoIP, or do they go with RDP? We have a nice 30mbps low latency pipe, but the remote users may not be so lucky. Does anyone go with any WAN optimization solutions?

Would really enjoy hearing feedback from others.

[mittim12]

VMware View does have a security server piece that allows secure connection from outside the network without VPN. In this scenerio you would not be able to utilize PCOIP as it's not supported though I was told the labs at VMworld were running PCOIP over Security Server :). So in the "now" this means you would have to utilize RDP from outside of the network. If you opt to utilize a VPN client to gain entry into the network you can make full use of PCOIP while hitting one of the internal connection brokers.

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[AndreTheGiant]

The View Security can tunnel only RDP over HTTPS.

But you can use VPN, so you can use also PCoIP outside your network.

Andre

[sketchy00]

So, if I'm hearing you right, the options would be to have the remote thin client RDP riding over SSL through their connection mechanism, or have the thin client connect via VPN, then use either RDP or PCoIP. Does anyone have any feedback on what the practicle end-user experience is under these different connection types?

Should it be assumed that under both of these scenarios, a zero client would not be an option?

[mittim12]

I can't comment on the thin clients since we do not use them but user experience for RDP hasn't been bad at all. I have used PCOIP over VPN too and didn't experience any issuesl. I'm using a typical home broadband connection to connect up.

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[eeg3]

Teradici is coming out with a security gateway that supports PCoIP over the WAN.

It was demo'd at VMworld, and there is a video of it on Brian Madden's site that starts at about 3:30 into the video.

[mittim12]

The VMware labs at VMworld were using PCOIP over the security server and it worked great. I haven't heard a release date for that yet but hopefully it will be soon and will include RTO too

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[sketchy00]

Thanks everyone for the great responses. Look forward to trying it out.