A highlight of today's technical keynote at our Citrix Summit partner conference in Las Vegas was the unveiling by Brad Anderson, Microsoft corporate vice president, and our own Bill Burley, Citrix Corporate Vice President and Acting GM, from a year-long cooperation between our companies, culminating now in version 2.0 of the XenApp / XenDesktop HDX realTime Optimization Pack for Microsoft Skype® for Business.
from field experience with two "v1" solutions for the optimized delivery of Skype for Business (formerly Lync) virtualized in a learning work environment, Microsoft and Citrix came together in January 2015 to brainstorm on how to better meet the needs of our joint customers and focused quickly on the following common objectives:
- Comprehensive functionality , including Audio-video and telephony functions when the Skype for Business client on Citrix XenApp or XenDesktop
- Fully native User Experience
- [1945002gehostetwird] Uncompromising quality voice and video
- Maximum XenApp / XenDesktop server scalability
- support for a wide range of devices and OS
- Common history of two providers on roadmap and support
the basic architectural concept of "optimized" delivery, namely the media processing on the user device offloading, when was always possible by the first two generation proven solutions but each of these solutions had strengths and weaknesses. Could our architects a "v2" architecture come that would bring together the best of both previous solutions, while eliminating their shortcomings?
Optimized and Generic Delivery
(and update) Reminder the key points of my July 2012 post on Softphone supply and the White Paper "Unified Communications with XenApp and XenDesktop: Solution Overview" , Citrix supports two to provide complementary approaches for UC applications, "optimized" and "generic" as we do for video playback / streaming multimedia.
is the goal of optimized delivery to XenApp off-load / XenDesktop server, whenever possible, especially for video processing, as is CPU intensive. General HDX RealTime technologies (see CTX133024 and CTX132764) a fallback when client-side media processing is not possible. If you expect a high volume of video call, update I strongly recommend to choose a UC solution that is optimized for workstation virtualization.
If you imagine the layers of software that make a typical softphone or UC app, you can think of optimized delivery as the media engine to take film from the bottom of the app and move it to the user device ,
If you do that, the communication between the processes that would have happened between the media engine, and the software layer takes up now via a virtual ICA channel. But only command and control information has to go through this virtual channel; Media traffic is out-of-band, usually over UDP / RTP.
In the case of a two-party call to the media traffic can flow ( "Peer-to-Peer") between participants directly, and in the case of a multi-party conference call it flows between the individual user and the conference bridge (MCU) ,
as this approach avoids "hairpinning" (also known as "Tromboning") through the XenApp / XenDesktop Server maximizes it the scalability of the server (hold down IT costs), no latency in the audio-video adds path, and eliminates redundant bandwidth consumption. Transcoding and repacketization often be avoided, even though the conference bridge UC provider may need to perform these functions to normalize the media streams if the endpoints use the audio / video parameters (codec, frame rate, resolution, companding algorithm, etc.)
an optimized solution development requires the softphone / UC App restructuring or seller's APIs use while generics HDX realTime technology works with almost any softphone / UC App. Optimized delivery solutions for business / Lync, Cisco Jabber, Vidyo and Avaya one-X and other softphone / UC app integration is available for Microsoft Skype in work. For non-optimized applications such as GoToMeeting, Google Hangout or CounterPath Bria, we recommend either the generic HDX RealTime technologies or Windows Device User, Local App Access (Platinum Edition), a local execution Windows application in the mixed enables users the virtual desktop.
Various generic HDX RealTime technologies help a good user experience to keep if there is no media engine on the endpoint available. These include:
- Optimized for voice codec technology, encode with fast and low bandwidth utilization
- Adaptive H.264 video in ThinWire display (adjust video quality and frame rate even with the network) remoting
- webcam video compression in the Citrix receiver for Windows, Linux and Mac, offering excellent efficiency of bandwidth and network latency tolerance
- jitter buffering in the Citrix receiver for Windows to ensure even smooth audio when network latency variable and echo cancellation when
(can middle session connected devices), a microphone and speaker - audio device plug-n-play with
- audio device routing (eg ringtone can be addressed to speakers, but the voice to a headset)
- Multi-stream ICA transport for full QoS support (up to 4 TCP channels and 2 UDP channels)
- UDP / RTP audio for superior performance on lossy and congested network connections
- DSCP packet marking for RTP packets (layer 3) and WMM tagging for Wi-Fi
Check the Citrix receiver feature matrix for details, but the short summary that generic support for real-time audio and webcam video is , the currently available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and ChromeOS, and Dell support Generic HDX realTime for Wyse Thin OS (. WTOS)
NetScaler can also play an important role in audio video streams delivered through ICA, with features such as:
-
NetScaler Cloud Bridge support for QoS and Multi-stream ICA including UDP and optional packet duplication for superior audio video quality - NetScaler gateway support for UDP / RTP and DTLS
So now that you understand that basics, let us focus on business on Skype.
from the first generation solutions optimized learning
Until the recent release of HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.0, Citrix supports two alternative solutions optimized for the provision of Skype, for business or its predecessor, Lync XenApp / XenDesktop. Why were two solutions are needed (for now)? Each solution had different strengths and weaknesses.
Microsoft VDI plug-in solution to the Skype for Business / Lync client as a plug-in to the Citrix Receiver for Windows packages. The Microsoft VDI plug-in has the advantage that a native UI experience for the user had.
But it was only qualified for XenDesktop VDI (although successfully tested by Citrix XenApp) and it supports only Windows devices (with some exceptions, in particular of Windows Thin PC). It could only be used with a full virtual desktop (no support for any app delivery of the Skype for Business / Lync client). It required a local Skype for Business Server or Lync Server infrastructure (no support for Office 365, that is Skype for Business Online).
wasand smart card support is not available. (Additional restrictions are published on TechNet.) Citrix continues to support Microsoft VDI plug-in solution after its lifecycle. For more information, see CTX138408. was
The Citrix HDX RealTime Optimization Pack needs customers with Mac and Linux devices to support next Windows. It has both XenApp and XenDesktop fully supported. And it was compatible with both full virtual desktops and published app delivery. It also has broader infrastructure compatibility offered (Skype for Business Server 2015, Office 365, Lync Server 2013 and Lync Server 2010) as the Microsoft VDI plug-in.
But the key is the first generation HDX RealTime Optimization Pack disadvantage that it was necessary to have some UI differences compared to the native Lync client UI because of limitations of Microsoft APIs (especially the Lync API) to introduce, which were at the time available.
Although these UI changes were well designed and not hard to get used to each draws an unmodified, native UI experience. And the UI differences include multiple constraints, in particular support for call delegation, answer / Team call groups and voice mail integration. Citrix uses Version 1.8 of the HDX RealTime Optimization Pack support to meet primarily the needs of customers are still using Lync Server of 2010.
Both solutions (though Mainstream Support End in April, according to published lifecycle achieved) requires authentication by two components, the virtualized Skype for Business client in the data center and the receiver plug-in on the user device. This led to occasional issues where a user will be asked, would have to enter their credentials again.
The challenge before the joint team was to bring architecture into a new and improved "v2" while eliminating the best of both solutions together their weaknesses. This new architecture came together in the first quarter of 2015 and was then examined under NDA and validated with several large mutual customers.
The "v2" solution
The "v2" architecture now available leverage Citrix field hardened multi-OS HDX RealTime Media Engine as Receiver plug-in.
This component is currently available for Windows, Mac and Linux x86 devices, with equivalent functionality. (This week Dell announced support for version 1.8 of the HDX RealTime Media Engine on Wyse Thin OS, with support for RTME 2.0 on the horizon.) The RTME provides a functional equivalent to the Skype for Business media stack, the support of all the calling / conferencing scenarios as audio and video calling, hold, transfer, call forking and redirection and active speakers conferences. It supports up to receive 720p30 transmit and resolutions. And it is of course compatible with the Skype for Business protocols for networking, media encryption (SRTP / AES), firewall traversal (STUN / TURN / ICE) and bandwidth management.
But the media HDX engine no longer has to deal with authentication or SIP signaling; these functions are now exclusively from the Skype for Business client. The Skype client authenticates to the back-end infrastructure via SIP, the context of the user's authentication with the Windows operating system on XenApp / XenDesktop, enabling single sign-on. These simplifications improve robustness and user experience (eg initialization is faster and there is never a need to re-prompt the user credentials).
The RTME is a self-contained package with a much smaller footprint than the VDI plug-in; it consumes about 0 MB of disk space on the user device.
HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.0 provides a truly native Skype for Business UI experience. And it adds numerous features to what in previously available was version 1.8, such as:
- reputation delegation
- Response Group and team call groups
- voicemail integration
- Automatic Join Audio meeting
- Emoticons
- Web proxy support
- support for Click-to-Run
- status icons (connection Connected etc.)
- Active speaker identification
all this is possible thanks to a much improved API added to the Skype for Business 2015 client in the product update December (client 15.0.4779.1001 version), for use in the native UI mode. , These significant improvements have been introduced, the quiet of Microsoft, while our cooperation on HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.0 was still under NDA
The resulting architecture looks like this:
(This simplified diagram does not show the Microsoft Edge Server uses to support remote access.)
If there is no HDX media engine on the user device, the realTime Optimization Pack supports optional fallback to server-side media processing ( Generic HDX realTime). Fallback can be disabled if it is preferred to deny audio-video service for users media engine without HDX rather than impose additional CPU load on XenApp / XenDesktop server.
No need to update the latest server version
There are many good reasons to the latest XenApp / XenDesktop 7.7 Release or Skype to consider an upgrade to Business Server 2015, but this feature not need to do that. HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.0 is compatible with XenApp 6.x / 7.x and XenDesktop 7.x and with Lync Server 2013 (and Skype for Business Server 2015 and Skype for Business Online).
And no additional software to be installed on the Skype for business or Lync Server. This solution works with existing infrastructure (at least Lync Server 2013 February 2015 cumulative update).
Receiver and RTME compatibility
The HDX RealTime Media Engine is a plug-in for the following Citrix Receiver versions:
- Windows Receiver 4 .x (32-bit)
- Linux Receivers 13.x (32-bit, x86 only)
- Mac receiver 12.x (32-bit)
on a 64-bit Linux operating system is the latest solution to use the 32-bit Linux receiver.
to make life easier BYOD and at-home workers, we have a bundled package of Windows Receiver 4.4 and HDX RealTime Media Engine 2.0 created - Single download, install single -. available soon
You can read more news about the HDX RealTime Media expected engine during 2016.
device compatibility
Between the Citrix Ready program and Microsoft's Skype for Business Certification Program, we have a broad ecosystem of partners, including suppliers of thin clients, USB audio setup was cell phones and webcams. Many of these partners have been given early access to HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.0 and will soon be their products on the Citrix Ready Marktplatz his posting. We recommend HDX Premium thin clients for use with Skype for Business Desktop Video.
Stay for many exciting device Innovation in 2016.
Common Citrix Microsoft Support 
agreed HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.0 is more than just a technology solution , Citrix and Microsoft joint support model for this solution. And every vendor can with the other providers trouble tickets open as needed.
Optional fallback to server-side media processing, if there is no HDX RTME is based on the user device exclusively on Citrix technologies, supported by Citrix.
, contact information for the technical support of Skype for businesses, see CTX132979.
Where do we go from here?
I wish I could tell you more, but in a public forum such as this blog Citrix prevented policy that me be concrete about our plans for the future. But I'm glad to say that the Citrix-Microsoft partnership does not end with the HDX RealTime Optimization Pack version 2.0. Both companies are committed to further cooperation and the joint roadmap planning. We are already actively working together on plans for the next version.
How to find out more
Be sure to check the online documentation to learn more about HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.0, and the other references cited in this blog entry. Additional Knowledge Center articles will be added or updated in the coming weeks. But of course the best way to the HDX RealTime Optimization Pack to get familiar, it is trying it. XenApp / XenDesktop Enterprise / Platinum Edition customers under active SA or Software Maintenance can log on our download page.
If you are new Citrix, you can find a Citrix reseller partners in your area who would like to help you. In addition to the technical support of Citrix partners and our own technical support department, you can feel free to use our support forum to ask questions or get help. Comments on this blog are very welcome, too, but be aware that I can not answer questions roadmap here.
our new release and have fun!
Derek Thorslund
Director of Product Management HDX
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