Teradici APEX 2800 Software 1.0.1 Release Notes

Release Status: General Availability

Release Overview:

Teradici APEX 2800 Software 1.0.1 release is a maintenance software release for the APEX 2800 Server Offload Card for use with VMware View virtual desktops. It is highly recommended that all customers update their APEX 2800 ESXi driver software to this release.

The APEX 2800 software includes two main components for 1) ESXi driver software and 2) VM driver software. Note that the ESXi drivers are specific to the ESXi release.

Release Details:

Incorporated a critical fix for an issue seen on ESXi 4.1 and 5.0 platforms where the VDI server can sometimes crash under extreme server stress conditions.

Compatibility Notes:

  • The APEX 2800 ESXi drivers are specific to the ESXi release (ESXi 5.0 Update 1 requires a future release)

    • VMware View 4.6 virtual desktops
    • VMware View 5.0 virtual desktops (VMware View 5.0.1 require a future release).
  • Deployments using PCoIP zero client devices to connect to View virtual desktops should install PCoIP firmware 3.5.0 or later on the zero client devices.

    • APEX 2800 PCIe Card reference T2800H0100, Rev 2<
  • Note: ESX is not supported (ESXi only)

Resolved Issues:

Fixed an issue where the APEX 2800 software can sometimes cause the VDI server to crash under extreme server stress conditions.

Known Issues:

  • Portrait mode is not supported if the display height is greater than 1200 pixels.
  • A 1680x1050 display is supported in landscape orientation since the display height of 1050 pixels is less than 1200.
  • A 1680x1050 display is not supported in portrait orientation since the display height of 1680 pixes is greater than 1200.

Occasional end user experience impact

  • Under heavy pixel processing loads and a constrained bandwidth or high packet loss environment, APEX offloading may contribute to some additional screen update latency compared to non-offloaded use. This issue is resolved when the workload is reduced, or bandwidth availability increases.

  • View Client error and session closure

    • In very rare cases, the View Client whose display is offloaded may close the connection abruptly. User will need to reconnect to the VM.
  • 'pcoip-ctrl -I' shows an invalid device utilization value
    IT managers should ignore the device utilization from the pcoip-ctrl -I command. The informational output shows an invalid value for the device utilization. The statistic actually reports the embedded processor utilization in the APEX 2800 device. This value should report the APEX 2800 device utilization from 0-99.

  • Occasional display update pause and cancellation of offloading.

  • In very rare cases, the user's display will briefly pause and the APEX 2800 offloading will be cancelled. The display will revert to CPU encoding momentarily, then return to APEX offloading if there are less than 64 displays offloaded by the APEX 2800 card.

  • There is no user impact since the switch between hardware offload and CPU encode is seamless to the end user.

  • Displays will not be offloaded when using ESXi 5.0 or later and using VM names with more than 14 characters. Workaround is to use VM names with 14 characters or less. This will be fixed in a future APEX 2800 software release.

The above known issues are under investigation. Please subscribe to this knowledge base item to receive updates.