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The senior architect at a major bank recently told me how they use Wyse TCX USB Virtualizer to deliver the Cisco IP Communicator softphone from XenDesktop to LAN-connected users. The Wyse V10L thin clients are equipped with Netcom GN 2000 USB headsets. He reports that the audio quality over USB is "excellent" and bandwidth consumption appears to be minimal. Sounds like a great solution for delivering potentially any softphone from XenDesktop to Wyse thin clients and desktop appliances!
So what about users who don't have a Wyse thin client? As part of the expansion of our HDX RealTime technologies, Citrix is near to completing the development of an enhanced audio subsystem for XenDesktop, comparable to what we have in XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2008. The HDX RealTime audio subsystem will provide broad compatibility with softphones and the "voice chat" feature of Unified Communications applications. And later this year, look for news of further enhancements to HDX RealTime with the Ulysses audio codec technology that I blogged about some time ago, designed to provide outstanding audio quality with minimal bandwidth consumption. These enhancements are aimed at improving the multimedia virtual desktop experience for on-premises users while establishing a foundation for future support of VoIP for remote workers.
Derek Thorslund
Product Strategist, Multimedia Virtualization
Comments (9)
Feb 10, 2009
Anonymous says:
Hi, These really sound great as on of the big trends is Unified Communications ...Hi,
These really sound great as on of the big trends is Unified Communications systems.
Will these technologies work with any OS at the client side? I mean it really is important to be compatible with MAC, WinCE or Linux. Customers running XenDesktop are really looking to get rid of the desktop OS and it would be a shame if HDX supports only Windows.
Feb 10, 2009
Derek Thorslund says:
I have good news for you. The enhanced HDX RealTime audio subsystem for XenDeskt...I have good news for you. The enhanced HDX RealTime audio subsystem for XenDesktop (Apollo subproject Spectrum) will be compatible with all of our clients/plug-ins, just as is the case with the audio subsystem in XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2008. And our new audio codec technology (Apollo subproject Ulysses) is also being designed to work with all of the clients/plug-ins, although they often come out on separate release schedules.
Feb 10, 2009
Anonymous says:
Excellent, excellent. Thanks for the answer!Excellent, excellent. Thanks for the answer!
Feb 17, 2009
Daniel Huber says:
I am wondering if anyone already managed to run Cisco IP Communicator in an Citr...I am wondering if anyone already managed to run Cisco IP Communicator in an Citrix XenApp5 environment successfully via the "publish application" function. When using PS 4.5 it is really frustrating
I also posted in the Citrix forum Thread: Cisco IP Communicator with Citrix PS 4.5 / XenApp5
Feb 17, 2009
Derek Thorslund says:
The new audio subsystem in XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2008 can now handle appli...The new audio subsystem in XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2008 can now handle applications that need to open the audio device more than once (e.g. once for ringtone and then again for the voice path), as Cisco IP Communicator does. We successfully tested Cisco IP Communicator 2.1 on XenApp PS 4.5 FP1 for Windows Server 2003 using a specially modified audio driver that allowed the app to do that (although it didn't solve all of the issues with the previous audio subsystem). We ran IP Communicator in an isolation environment (I'll post the details on the Citrix forum thread referenced in your comment above) and disabled Cisco Discovery Protocol on the server since the CDP driver was not multi-user compatible.
I'm trying to arrange for that testing to be repeated on XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2008 but it hasn't been scheduled yet. Don't be shy to let your Cisco contacts know that you'd like that to happen! XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2008 can be used to deliver softphones and other applications with "voice chat" functionality to on-premises users. However, any packet loss results in retransmission which introduces delay, so we do not recommend delivering softphones to remote workers in this way.
Mar 04, 2009
Anonymous says:
any way to update the audio drive on ps 4.5 fp1 to support this?any way to update the audio drive on ps 4.5 fp1 to support this?
Mar 04, 2009
Derek Thorslund says:
No. We were able to create a partial solution on 4.5 to begin some basic compati...No. We were able to create a partial solution on 4.5 to begin some basic compatibility testing but it had issues.
Aug 22
Anonymous says:
I was wondering if some progress has been made with this enhanced audio driver. ...I was wondering if some progress has been made with this enhanced audio driver. We're testing with OCS 2007 R2 in our Citrix environment, but run into the issue that voice cannot be heard (but the microphone works). I'm guessing this is also due to the fact that the audio driver cannot be accessed more than once. The Communicator client displays an error: "speakers are not supported or not installed"
Aug 22
Derek Thorslund says:
The new HDX RealTime audio subsystem was introduced in XenApp 5 for Windows...The new HDX RealTime audio subsystem was introduced in XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2008 (the "Delaware" release) and XenDesktop 3 Feature Pack 1 ("Rioja").
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