How Good is PCoIP - A Remoting Protocol Shootout

Shawn Bass, shawnbass.com

Cyndie Zikmund, VMware

EUC5503

#EUC5503

• What do protocols and cars have in common?

Cyndie Zikmund PLM End User Computing, VMware

• Graphics remoting 101

• End-user computing test methodology

• Shootout – 2D multimedia / software graphics

• Shootout - GPU Sharing

• Summary

Content

• Consider minimum set of requirements

• Research your options

• Shop around for best price

• Make a selection based on all your criteria

• It’s like buying a car…

Making a Protocol Purchase Decision

Requirement: 40mpg or More

Meets the 40mpg requirement, but is it what I want?

Requirement: 40mpg or More

Beats the 40mpg requirement, but is it what I want?

Requirement: 40mpg or More

Come on. Really?

Other Considerations are Important Too

Overall requirements need broader solution.

40mpg + Best Overall = More Choices

Choices. Now, that’s what I’m talking about.

• Protocol is an important factor

• Once requirement is met, other factors take

precedence

• Choose based on best overall solution

MPG and Protocols

• Tested various LAN/WAN scenarios against

RDP7, RDP8, HDX, PCoIP, HP RGS, Quest

EOP, Ericom Blaze, etc.

• Tested mobile devices (iOS, Android, Blackberry,

etc) over real 3G/4G networks.

• Tested all forms of Office Productivity and many

richer media and 3D applications

• In 6th phase of results comparisons

• Phase 6: RDP7, RDP8, View 5.2, XenDesktop 7

• It’s really an exercise in…

History of Remoting Protocol

Comparisons

Desktop Composition

GDI/GDI+

WPF

DirectX/OpenGL

Video/Audio

Silverlight

Flash

Client-Side Rendering

Advanced Host-Side Rendering

Render

Capture

Compress

Encrypt

Decrypt

Decompress

Display

TCP or UDP

Running Different Test Scenarios

Protocol

Host Client

Scripted Test

Runs

WAN Emulation – The Test Setup

Client Host

Apposite Linktropy Mini2

Epiphan

DVI2USB

PC with

Epiphan

recording SW

One-on-one connection

Shared environment

USB

DVI/

HDMI

Video files

(raw)

AVI

Description Bandwidth Latency Packet Loss

LAN 100Mb/s 0ms 0%

Within continent, slow 500Kb/s 50ms 0.01%

Within continent,

medium 2Mb/s 50ms 0.01%

Within continent,

medium, Cloud 2Mb/s 50ms 2%

Within continent,

fast 8Mb/s 50ms 0.01%

Across continents,

medium 2Mb/s 200ms 0.01%

Across continents,

fast 8Mb/s 200ms 0.01%

Across continents,

high

speed/latency/loss

12Mb/s 300ms 1%

Network Emulation Settings

Video Post-Processing

Raw AVI video

Full resolution, 60fps max.

ffdshow MS MPEG4 v2

One pass - quality, 99%

Microsoft

Expression Encoder

WMV Video

512 x 384 / 640 x 512

VC-1 Advanced

Fixed bitrate 1045/2090 Kbps

SPHtmlGenerator

4-Up Split Screen

SyncPlayer (Silverlight)

by J. Gorzas, Sense GmbH

Results – 2D Graphics

PCoIP

View 5.2

on ESXi 5.1 Windows 7

View Client 5.4

PCoIP

RDP7

Win7/RDVH

on WS2012 HV Windows 7

RDC

RDP7

TCP

HDX

Win7/XenDesktop7

on XenServer 6.2 Windows 7

Citrix Receiver 4.0

HDX

TCP

RDP8

Win7/RDVH

on WS2012 HV

Windows 7

RDC

RDP8

UDP

UDP

Enterprise User Categories

Designers

Power Users

Knowledge Workers

Task Workers

Dedicated

GPU

API Intercept

(DX9, 10, 11)

Software

Rendered

Graphics

Graphics Acceleration Guidelines

Source:

VMware

• SVGA/Soft GPU – Emulating a GPU in software

– Guest OS uses generic SVGA 3D graphics driver

included in the VMware Tools

• vSGA – GPU Sharing

– Guest OS uses SVGA 3D graphics driver

– Requires a VIB component on vSphere for the API

intercept, forwarding commands to physical GPU

• vDGA – GPU Pass-Through (Tech Preview)

– Assign physical GPU to selected guest OS

– Requires native nVidia GRID card driver installed on

the guest OS

How View VDI uses 3D Graphics

vDesktop Graphics Model

VM VM

NIC Harddisk Memory CPU(s) Graphics

Hypervisor

Driver Driver Driver

VM

Guest Operating System

App App App App

PCoIP

RemoteFX

HDX

Virtual Driver

Virtual Driver

Virtual Driver

VDI Mgmt

GPU Sharing – vSGA

VM VM

NIC Harddisk Memory CPU(s) Graphics

Hypervisor

Driver Driver Driver

VM

Guest Operating System

App App App App

vSGA

RemoteFX

Virtual Driver

Virtual Driver

Virtual Driver

VDI Mgmt

OpenGL on vSGA

GPU Pass-Through - vDGA

VM VM

NIC Harddisk Memory CPU(s) Graphics

Hypervisor

Driver Driver

VM

Guest Operating System

App App App App

vDGA

HDX

Virtual Driver

Virtual Driver

GPU Driver

VDI Mgmt

Test Hardware – nVidia GRID K2

GPU 2 High End Kepler GPUs

CUDA cores 3072 (1536 / GPU)

Memory Size 8GB GDDR5 (4GB / GPU)

Max Power 225 W

Form Factor Dual Slot ATX, 10.5”

Display IO None

# users 2 – 64

Watts per user ~ 3.5 W

OpenGL 4.3

Microsoft DirectX 11

GRID vGPU support Yes

Inside the GRID Cards

Results – Shared GPU

XenApp GPU Sharing – GRID K2

RDP8, vGPU GRID K2

XenDesktop 7 AppEd

(Server 2012)

on XenServer 6.2

Windows 7

Win7/RDVH

on WS2012 HV Windows 7

HDX

RDP8

UDP

PCoIP vSGA GRID K2

Win7/View 5.2

on ESXi 5.1 Windows 7

PCoIP

UDP

Bare Metal – Intel HD4000

Windows 7

TCP

• Rich graphics requires 2-5 mbps for great user experience

• PCoIP, HDX and RDP8/RemoteFX are head to head in

Task Worker, Knowledge Worker and some Power User

scenarios

• Pass-Through GPU offers many advantages in scenarios

that require high end rich graphics

• Pass-Through GPU is limiting for VDI scale because of 1:1

mapping.

• In the future, high-end graphic cards may play the same

role for desktop and application remoting as they do in

selected work scenarios today (engineering, design,

medical imaging)

• What’s next? 3D design & gaming from the cloud?

Summary

30 30

Other VMware Activities Related to This Session

HOL:

HOL-MBL-1301

Horizon View from A to Z

EUC5503

THANK YOU

How Good is PCoIP - A Remoting Protocol Shootout

Shawn Bass, shawnbass.com

Cyndie Zikmund, VMware

EUC5503

#EUC5503