The PCoIP protocol – delivering the desktop experience

So far, we have really only talked about building the virtual desktop machines and some of the features that help you build a solid infrastructure, but the most important task in any VDI solution is how do you get the screen contents of the virtual desktop machine running in the data center delivered to the users endpoint device you are remotely connecting from.

This is where the delivery protocol comes in. VMware Horizon View 6, like previous versions, uses PC-over-IP (PCoIP). In this section, we are going to cover what the PCoIP protocol is and how it works to deliver the end user experience.

An introduction to PCoIP

PCoIP is a high-performance, UDP-based display protocol designed by a company called Teradici and has been purpose-built to deliver virtual desktop machines over a LAN or WAN to provide end users with a feature-rich desktop experience.

With PCoIP, the entire screen content is compressed, encrypted, and encoded on the virtual...