Pano Controller's centralized management of desktops and endpoints provides the following benefits:
- Can run either uninstalled from a CD/flash drive (limited to 5 users) or installed to the server hard drive.
- Uses the secure and efficient Pano Direct Protocol on the LAN between Pano Zero Client and Virtual Client endpoints and Pano Controller servers.
- Manages your entire cloud desktop infrastructure, accessed from anywhere using the new Pano Cloud portal,with detailed logs and alert notification via email.
- Monitors and controls both Pano Zero Client hardware and Pano Virtual Client software from one console.
- Client Profiles for both user-based Windowed Mode personal workstations and device-based Kiosk Mode for locked-down public access workstations.
- Includes a native RDP client and integrates with Citrix Receiver for support of legacy Windows applications and Terminal Services resources
- Scales to very large deployments with servers in groups for load-balancing and redundancy.
Server Requirements: servers used to host Pano Controller for Cloud will need to meet the following requirements:
- CPU: as a rough guide you should be able to host 10 or more concurrent desktops for each physical CPU core. Using more recent Sandy Bridge E5 Xeon CPUs and hyper-threading can potentially allow for more user sessions per physical core. Running Terminal Services sessions will increase both CPU and RAM requirements.
- RAM: 1 GB RAM for the base software/OS plus RAM per concurrent cloud desktop starting at 512MB. Adding more physical memory (up to or over 1 GB) per concurrent cloud desktop will reduce the load on the hard drive from memory swapping and can help make user sessions more responsive.
- Storage: about 1 GB is needed for the Pano Controller server software plus about 2 GB per concurrent cloud desktop for temporary user files and memory swap space. Either SSDs or mirrored 15K rpm SAS hard drives using a RAID card with battery backup and cache memory are recommended. With both user file and session personalization stored in the cloud, expensive and complex SANs are not required for either performance or fault tolerance.
- Boot Device: a bootable CD-DVD drive or a USB flash drive is needed to boot the server using the Pano Controller for Cloud/Terminal Services ISO image.
- Network Interface Card: only a single network port is required for the initial release. A single switched Gigabit Ethernet connection should be sufficient for most server deployments.
- Peripherals: during installation a monitor, keyboard and mouse will be needed but can be removed once installed as all other management can be done via your LAN using the web-based console or over the Internet using the new Pano Cloud portal.
- OS Compatibility: server hardware like RAID and NIC needs to be supported on the Ubuntu Server 10.4 LTS x64 Linux operating system. More information on compatible Ubuntu Certified and Ubuntu Friendly server hardware can be found on the Ubuntu Wiki at: wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/
USB Device Support: in the current release only USB keyboards and mice are supported. As there is no native Windows desktop operating system as used with Pano System for VDI, there is no way to use the Windows-specific drivers needed by many complex USB peripherals. In future releases we plan to broaden USB device support to include USB storage devices, isochronous audio devices and some other USB devices for which compatible Linux drivers are available.
Bandwidth Requirements: Pano cloud desktops have roughly the same bandwidth requirements as the Pano virtual desktops provided the application workloads are equivalent. Bandwidth use is generally driven by display updates so a Windows virtual desktop running a web browser to play a video is going to use about the same bandwidth as a cloud desktop showing the same web page and video.
Pano cloud desktops leverage Chrome's login and sync facilities based on users' Google Accounts to carry user session settings from one cloud desktop session to the next. This ensures that each time you login you have secure access to the same settings, bookmarks, saved passwords, autofill entries, web apps and browser extensions. Synching helps users stay productive and easily roam between Pano Zero Clients, Chromebooks and Chromeboxes, and the Chrome browser running on Windows, Mac, and Android systems.
Pano cloud desktops utilize the native support for Adobe Flash and PDF content built into the Google Chrome browser. Support for Java and Silverlight applications is also provided by Pano Controller for Cloud
For access to legacy Windows applications or even full Windows desktop sessions, terminal services support is provided by a native RDP Client and integration with the Citrix Receiver for Linux, downloaded from the Citrix website during installation. In addition to the Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol used by the RDP Client, Citrix's ICA-HDX protocols are used by the Citrix Receiver plug-in.
Pano Controller groups also ensure higher availability for your Pano cloud desktops. By installing the Pano Controllers in the group on separate physical servers the group can continue operating even if one or more of the servers should become unavailable due to a software or hardware problem. In the event of a failure of the server hosting the master Pano Controller instance a secondary instance in the group will automatically take on its duties without significant user downtime.