The Problem
Multimedia performance over RDP on WAN links is suboptimal. Users will complain of the painfully slow rendering of Flash-enabled websites. Internet Explorer will block, so that you can’t scroll the browser window while Flash images are being rendered.
If you’re the Fed and can print your own money, Citrix’s Speedscreen Multimedia Acceleration can help.
Provision Networks, owned by Quest, has an RDP optimization pack forthcoming.
Microsoft acquired Calista Technologies in January ‘08. Calista’s technology looks impressive and should dramatically improve multimedia performance. With Virtualization all the rage these days, if you can’t display a training video or browse websites, it’s pretty useless, whether you’re using Terminal Services or just XP/Vista via VDI. I myself prefer Terminal Services with Softgrid/App-V, which abstracts everything.
Citrix and Provision Networks price their products like this is 1998, instead of 2008 — they’re priced way out of their range.
Having the Calista technology delivered by Microsoft is what’s preferred, but there are no public details or roadmap.
Cheap Solution
So, the cheap, sure-fire way to improve browser performance for Flash-enabled websites is [as many individual web browsers have done]: just block Flash. It’s all crap anyway. Annoying. Zero-content. Distracting. Even if they’re on business-related websites, they’re mostly useless.
Set your browsers to use a Squid cache, as a general rule.
Then use AdZapper with Squid, to block egregious ads, including Flash. When a .swf file matches a given regex, a blank .swf is substituted for it, showing just a white box. AdZapper is ridiculously easy to install, being a Perl script with a few content items (fake images, Flash, mp3).
Then, if you’re using Internet Explorer, load IE7Pro to block the remainders and let the user selectively enable them. Firefox users can use FlashBlock.
This solution is quick and cheap.