Frequently asked questions: Like local, in the cloud

In this episode of Windows in the Cloud, we took a closer look at our new streaming enhancements for Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop. The like-local engineering team joined me to showcase these new experiences with demos they prepared.

We’ve been talking about the future of streaming with features such as Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Multipath, Simple Traversal Underneath NAT (STUN), Traversal Using Relays around NAT (TURN), GPU-hardware acceleration enhancements, what’s next with our NPU Cloud platform, and much more. Watch this informative podcast for insights you don’t want to miss!

Get to know the experts

Our panel this month included:

• Angelo-Gacad-Sioson, a senior product manager for Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop. His areas of focus include the graphics stack and improving connection time from client to host.
• Rinku Dalwani, a senior product manager for Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop. She works on improving Transport RDP end-user connection reliability experience for Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop.
• Jordan Marchese, a principal product manager for Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop. He owns key pieces of the RDP: peripheral and device state redirections. Jordan is a 13-year veteran at Microsoft, where he has worked across Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, Surface Hub, and Microsoft Store.

Common questions about like local, in the cloud and the future of Cloud PC experiences

What does like local mean?
Like local refers to an experience in which the user feels they are working on a local machine even though they are accessing resources remotely. This involves optimizing performance, reducing latency, and improving the overall responsiveness of the remote session.

How do we improve the experiences that spread across all the layers of like local?
To improve the experiences across all layers, we focus on optimizing each layer’s performance, from the network to the application. This includes enhancing connection experiences, reducing latency, and ensuring that the user experience is as smooth and responsive as possible.

What is RDP Multipath, and could you explain more about it?
RDP Multipath is a technology that allows data to be transmitted over multiple network paths simultaneously. This improves reliability and performance by helping ensure that if one path experiences issues, the data can still be transmitted over the other paths. It enhances the overall user experience by providing a more stable and efficient connection.

How can we take advantage of the GPUs on GPU-enabled hosts to improve the graphics experience?
Users with GPU-enabled remote machines can take advantage of hardware accelerations, which use the GPU hardware to encode the graphics frames for the remote session instead of the CPU-based software encoder used in our hosts that don’t have GPUs. Hardware acceleration uses either AVC (generally available) or HEVC (currently in public preview) to encode the graphics frames more efficiently than our CPU-based encoders and unlock higher fidelity graphics experiences such as 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. Learn more at aka.ms/AVD/EnableGPUAcceleration.

What are we doing to reduce the time it takes to connect a user to their remote session?
Connecting to the remote machine is the gateway to our like-local Cloud PC experience, so we are laser focused on continuously improving the connection process and reducing the time to connect. In the past year, we’ve introduced a number of improvements to several components of our connection process. This includes improvements to authentication protocols, RDP file caching, token management, and reductions in Windows 365 Graph Calls. We continue to look at the connection process through every layer of the protocol, and we’ll improve the connection time where we find opportunities to do so.

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