Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Communication Panel can be run on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), such as Citrix. For prerequisites for running Communication Panel, see the Operation Guide .

Audio for Communication Panel can be done in two ways:

  • Connecting a USB device via local workstation to your VDI session

  • Using any telephone as audio device via the Simultaneous Ringing feature

Note:

The practice of VDI solutions encapsulating traffic and switching from UDP to TCP may result in audio quality issues, which Sinch is currently unable to mitigate.

The requirements for VDI solution are:

  • Network access to Communication Panel website and port openings for audio stream

  • Accessible soundcard or a (USB) sound device, and a permission given for the VDI solution to use the device

  • If a thin client is used with a USB headset, make sure that the thin client has enough CPU power to manage audio streams.

Depending on your VDI solution, headset controls may be supported. In this case, USB headset needs to be exclusively assigned to the VDI desktop. For tested headsets and prerequisites for headset controls, see the Operation Guide.

Microsoft Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop

Microsoft's VDI solutions are configured to use HTTP over TCP by default. While HTTP uses encapsulation technology to secure the network stack, this setup is not optimal for handling real-time audio. Using TCP as the transport protocol can cause issues such as poor audio quality and interruptions.

With Microsoft's default configuration, we recommend using Communication Panel only for non-real-time communication. For audio use, you can use the Microsoft feature UDP Shortpath, which allows UDP-based traffic instead of TCP.

Sinch Contact Pro is investigating a Microsoft technology called Multimedia Redirection, which aims to separate the audio stream from the VDI stream.