Primer for HDX and 3D in XenApp and XenDesktop

HDX technologies built into Citrix XenApp and Citrix XenDesktop can and do deliver an excellent user experience on a many devices and over smaller network connections. HDX technologies are built on top of the ICA remoting protocol.

HDX has three technical principles:

1. Intelligent redirection; examining screen activity, application commands, and endpoint device, network and server capabilities to determine how and where to render on the server or redirect them on to the client.
2. Adaptive compression; defines codecs for specific network conditions, as manages CPU and/or GPU resources on hosts.
3. De-duplication of network traffic; using multicasting of multimedia streams, delivering of a single transmission  to many users at once. And the de-duplicates of bitmap graphics, files, print jobs and streamed media.

HDX is built on the core of ICA which also has these features to manage network traffic:

1. Adaptive TCP flow control accelerates the flow of all TCP-based traffic, by sensing and responding to high network latency and packet loss. The result is significantly higher network throughput and performance than with standard TCP implementations.
2. Adaptive compression to compress ICA traffic based on its characteristics, infrastructure capabilities and network conditions.
3. Adaptive protocol acceleration performs intelligent acceleration of ICA traffic while sensing and responding to network and traffic conditions.

Under the covers HDX is based on these seven components:

1. HDX Broadcast - Broadcast for providing desktops and applications over any network. It provides the underlying transport for many of the other HDX technologies. HDX Broadcast includes many of the older technologies such as instant mouse click feedback, keystroke latency reduction, multi level compression, session reliability, and queuing and tossing.
2. HDX Plug and Play - Plug and Play provide connectivity for local devices and applications in a virtualised environment, including USB, multi-monitor, printers, and peripherals. HDX Plug and Play includes technologies such as multi monitor support, smart card support, special folder redirection, universal printing, file type association, and USB support.
3. HDX 3D - 3D delivering high end graphics remotely such as image acceleration and progressive display for graphically intensive images.
4. HDX MediaStream - MediaStream for multimedia extends HDX Broadcast capabilities. With technologies for streaming media files to the client device for playing via local codecs with seamless embedding into the remote session.
5. HDX RealTime - RealTime for realtime communications such as voice and web cameras. RealTime extends HDX Broadcast capabilities. HDX RealTime support is in development today with third parties to support realtime communication via both voice and video on the remote client.
6. HDX IntelliCache - IntelliCache is to locally cache bandwidth intensive data and graphics and locally stage streamed applications. IntelliCache caches common application display data for multiple users locally to the branch office, eliminating redundant transfer of commonly used application objects.
7. HDX Adaptive Orchestration - Adaptive Orchestration enable seamless interaction between the HDX Technology categories. A central concept is that all these components work adaptively to tune the unified HDX offering for the best possible user experience.