PCoIP is intended to overcome some of the limitations that RDP experienced with high-resolution desktops and complex graphics situations. The Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) has been the protocol that has been used by View, but a new higher-performing protocol called PC over IP (PCoIP) was recently introduced with View version 4. View uses a special protocol to send data back and forth between the thin client and the hosted virtual machine. Like the super definitions? Check out our VMware vCenter Server definition as well. They can take full advantage of all the features built into vSphere like VMotion, snapshots, Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and more. VMware View leverages vSphere as the virtual desktop host platform in other words, user desktops are virtual machines running on ESX/ESXi hosts. The only data that is sent back and forth between the thin client and the hosted server are video, keyboard/mouse inputs and peripheral connections (USB drives/printers).

Because the desktop is hosted on a powerful server that handles all the processing for the desktop, the thin client has very small resource requirements and does not need to be that powerful. Thin clients can be either low-cost dedicated hardware devices that are basically just a monitor, keyboard and mouse, or an application installed on any type of PC.

The user can then access it from anywhere using a small remote client application, which is referred to as a thin client. Desktop virtualization takes a user's desktop workstation and stores it on a central server as a virtual machine.

Virtual desktops provide several advantages over traditional full workstations including easier management and simpler provisioning.

Vmware workstation viewer