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Network Capacity Planning

The following section outlines important bandwidth requirements to consider when you are negotiating network capacity.

Network Capacity Planning Guidelines

  • Ensure sufficient bandwidth is allocated to PCoIP traffic. Plan for an average of 150–250 kbps for standard office applications with Windows Experience settings optimized. Or, plan for 80–150 kbps when optimizing the Windows Experience settings and also optimizing PCoIP session variables.

  • Consider the bandwidth required for audio input/output and USB traffic. PCoIP Zero Client bandwidth limit will limit USB traffic per PCoIP session.

  • Plan a minimum of 1 Mbps per simultaneous user watching a 480p video window. More bandwidth may be required depending on video resolution/user quality requirements.

  • Ensure that network bandwidth analysis includes following network loading guidelines (for example, peak bandwidth less than 80% of theoretical link capacity.)

  • Ensure that there is sufficient bandwidth headroom for bursts of PCoIP protocol traffic.

  • Plan for a minimum bandwidth headroom of 500 kbps to 1 Mbps. The actual peak bandwidth required will depend on the user and applications (for example, the number of pixels changing, the level and complexity of compression, and the display frame rate).

  • Plan for adequate peak capacity for Remote Workstation Card users. Many workstation applications require a higher peak bandwidth that varies per user and imaging workload. It also depends on how many users are sharing the link.

  • Over-subscription analysis (optional) can enable efficient link sizing while maintaining a reasonable expectation that peak bandwidth is available per session.

  • Consider bandwidth reduction options when operating in a known constrained network environment.

  • Ensure you optimize Windows desktop experience settings, PCoIP session variables and display resolution and/or number of displays.

  • PCoIP Ultra with GPU optimizations configured for 4:2:0 chroma sub-sampling offers additional bandwidth savings for deployments comprising NVIDIA NVENC GPUs. For more information on Session Planning for PCoIP Ultra, see here.