Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) allows a user to connect to a computer running Microsoft Terminal Services (also known as Remote Desktop Services). This is a mode of thin-client computing, where Windows applications or an entire desktop are made accessible to a remote client machine.
Microsoft Terminal Services simplify remote application delivery and lower the costs of desktop support. However, it is an interactive application that sends screen updates and mouse movements over the WAN.As a result, it is sensitive to latency and network quality issues.
Silver Peaks Improves Terminal Services (RDP) over the WAN
Many WAN acceleration appliances simply attempt to compress all other traffic in order to ‘make more room’ for thin client applications.Many of these solutions actually hurt the performance of Microsoft Terminal Services by adding additional latency.
Silver Peak, on the other hand, employs various techniques to optimize the WAN in support of RDP and other thin client applications. This is achieved via the following:
Minimize latency. NX Series appliances are finely tuned with interactive applications in mind, minimizing latency and jitter when processing RDP traffic. This is achieved using Silver Peak's Network Acceleration technology, which reduces the chattiness of TCP, the transport protocol used in thin client environments.
Avoid retranmissions due to packet loss. Thin client applications do not perform well when packet loss exists across the WAN. Dropped and out-of-order packets must be retransmitted, which delays screen refreshes and other movements sent across the WAN. Silver Peak addresses these network quality issues in real-time with its Network Integrity features.
Application specific QoS. Silver Peak can properly enforce QoS to ensure that Terminal Services are properly prioritized and have sufficient bandwidth allocated.
Offload server.Silver Peak can perform compression on RDP traffic, enabling this feature to be turned off in the server. As compression is processor intensive, this can dramatically improve performance within the application.
The net benefit is that Silver Peak improves the performance of Terminal Services across the WAN, and frees up processing power within the Server for more efficient and cost effective operations.
