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Why you need to consider alternative protocols to PCoIP
24 July 2024
In this blog article I am going to discuss the future around the PCoIP protocol, the Teradici T2 firmware-based client devices, and the options that customers need to consider given both of these technologies are not going to be with us in the long term. But before I get into that, now is a good time just to bring you up to speed with the whole VMware/Broadcom/Omnissa story.
The world of end user computing for VMware as we know it, is currently undergoing a period of transition. Whether a vendor technology alliance, a channel partner, or a customer, change is afoot both from a commercial perspective, as well as the technology solutions we all know and love.
So, what changed to cause this transition period? On the 22nd of November 2023, Broadcom completed its $69 billion acquisition of VMware. Broadcom then announced that it was going to divest (sell off) the end user computing business (EUC) looking for a new owner for the Horizon product portfolio and Workspace ONE platform a new home.
In early 2024, American investment company KKR were revealed as the potential new owners of the EUC business for a sum in the region of $4 billion. Finally on 1st July 2024 the deal closed and Omnissa, the new name for the EUC business made its first “proper” appearance as a standalone company. There had been information released previously, such as the new website, blogs, and other snippets of information but now the next chapter can begin proper!
Welcome to Omnissa, the new home for Horizon, Workspace ONE platform solutions, App Volumes and Dynamic Environment Manager (DEM).
Now you are up to speed on the commercial aspects of the EUC story, lets now get back to the core subject of this article and that is the future of PCoIP and T2 firmware-based zero clients.
Long before the Broadcom acquisition and subsequent divesture to Omnissa, VMware announced that they would no longer be supporting the PCoIP display protocol used by Horizon to deliver desktops to the device was, as far as VMware Horizon is concerned, going end of life.
PCoIP has long been the primary display protocol used by VMware Horizon for delivering virtual desktops and apps to T2 zero clients. The popularity of the protocol was down to the fact that the client devices had no local operating system installed on them which made them the default choice for deploying into secure environments.
However, since 2013, VMware had been developing and delivering their own home-grown protocol called Blast rather than take the PCoIP improvements and having to rely on a third-party company to provide those improvements. Therefore, over time, the Blast protocol has matured to the point where it has overtaken PCoIP and today it offers significantly more features within Horizon environment than PCoIP currently does. And it won’t stop there.
As a proud member of the Omnissa EUC Expert Community, I have had a glimpse into the future and the Omnissa roadmaps and can safely say there are some even greater features and performance enhancements in the pipeline.
So, going back to the end-of-life statement I made earlier, what exactly does end-of-life mean?
PCoIP will remain as an option for Horizon up until the end of 2025. After this date PCoIP will no longer be available as a protocol choice in any new versions of the Horizon Agent and Horizon Client that are released after that date. However, PCoIP will still be supported for three years after the end-of-life date, so customers will remain supported up until the end of 2028 (3 years from the date on the last PCoIP-based Horizon Agent and Horizon Client being released). Just to be clear, if you upgrade the Horizon Agent or Horizon Client after the end of 2025, you won’t be able to select PCoIP as a protocol option. If you have zero clients, then end users will be unable to connect to their desktops and . It might also be worth noting that PCoIP in the Horizon context followed a different release cycle to the HP Teradici lifecycle.
With this in mind what do customers need to know about migrating from PCoIP to Blast?
Experienced administrators of Horizon may say that it is just a case of reconfiguring desktop pools to use Blast instead of PCoIP, which in reality is what is required, but what about testing? Obviously, you need to test the new protocol. How does it perform with your network and any particular low latency requirements users may have, plus you will need to configure the policies that manage and control protocol settings. So, in theory, this is fairly straight forward, but this is the least of your worries as you still have the client device question to answer.
The Blast protocol will not work with zero client devices!
As zero clients don’t have a local OS or local storage and are chipset-based, then they are more of an appliance. I.e. they are built for one job, and one job only. That job being the delivery of desktops using the PCoIP protocol. They cannot be upgraded to take advantage of another protocol so the only option you are left with is to replace your zero clients and replace them with thin clients or a device that does support the Blast protocol and you will need to do this before the end of 2028 at the latest. Although waiting that long means you will potentially have missed out on three years of new features!
So, what options do you have?
If you want to continue using PCoIP, then there is a tech preview that HP are working with Omnissa on for an HP Anyware PCoIP plug-in for Horizon. This uses the latest PCoIP Ultra version and using HP solutions in the form of HP Anyware and HP Trusted Zero Clients.
This version of PCoIP is a software-based client and there may be a likelihood that using the T2 chipset-based zero clients may not be supported. In that case then the option would be to replace the client device for a Trusted Zero Client. The other option is to swap Horizon to use the Blast protocol in which case you would need to replace the zero clients with a thin client running an OS that supports the Blast protocol.
The upshot of all of this is that you will need to do something to continue running a supported solution. You can swap protocols to Blast and replace the client devices or continue with PCoIP using the HP plug-in and potentially continue with the zero clients.
Of course, you could just continue with the status quo and not upgrade the Horizon Agent or Client and rely on support for the three years after the end-of-life. Not really a viable option.
There is of course another option. You could look to replace the entire Omnissa Horizon solution and migrate to a different vendors solution such as Citrix or Inuvika. This is a radical option and still doesn’t solve the client device issue as another vendors solution won’t be using PCoIP and so you will still need to replace the zero clients. Then there is the question of redesigning your solution not to mention the retraining efforts and potential disruption to the workforce while you migrate to another platform. This all equates to cost too. While you might potentially save costs on licensing of a new solution, but what about the overall bigger picture costs such as replacing the client devices for example?
Whatever solution you consider, you need to start planning that migration today if you haven’t already started. Time is running out. Start by looking at the thin client options available and maybe procure a couple of units for evaluation to see how they perform in a test group that uses the Blast protocol.
This is where Amulet Hotkey can help. We are the experts in delivering client solutions and remote computing. We have clients for each use case, whether that’s thin clients, trusted zero clients, or help with extending the supply of zero clients, not to mention unique server infrastructure solutions with industry leading levels of user density and scalability when it comes to delivering high-end graphics and compute for virtual desktop and remote workstations.