Technical Overview

Raydesk server side

Stickfish Raydesk virtual desktop server allows to connect a group of users and desktop devices (local or remote) to their specified desktops on the server side. The following technical drawing will help you understand how the Raydesk virtual desktop easily fits in any suitable environment.

Raydesk desktop's easy conceptual architecture is a “brick by brick” subset of other systems and application providers, determined by the desired resulting desktop architecture. The drawing of a sample Raydesk server below is divided into application providing components and their responsibilities or impact on the actual user working desktop applications or profiles of users.

MS Windows environment

MS Windows applications can be delivered to the user's desktops in number of different ways and the following connection terminal services are available:

• Microsoft native RDP protocol (Remote Desktop)
• Citrix ICA protocol
• X11 protocol as a frontend to MS Windows Server

UNIX and Linux environment

UNIX, Linux, or Solaris applications are delivered using the native X11 protocol or more secure and encrypted connections.

Java applications are platform independent and can be run as in any environment.

For more advanced implementations or remote users with insufficient connectivity, the browser window or seamless desktop window can be used. Applications are then accessed through Web Services (Sun Secure Global Desktop/Tarantela, Citrix, etc.)

Applications can be run on the same server as the Raydesk virtual desktop, or from within a virtual server (VMware or VirtualBox). For maximum availability, more extensive implementations may call for running the applications on independent server farms, separate from the Raydesk virtual desktop.

Raydesk server farm

A single Raydesk virtual desktop server will handle over hundred users depending on the number of CPU cores and memory. As each user logs in to the Raydesk server to work with their desktops, the server keeps track of all applications and sessions being opened while maintaining network connections to signed-in users.

When the server and system resources for a single Raydesk server have been exhausted, it is and easy process to deploy additional Raydesk servers to create a so-called “Raydesk farm”. With arrays of just a few servers you may handle several thousand simultaneously connected users.

Raydesk's built-in fail-over scripting features ensure that application sessions are distributed evenly across application farms.

A key desktop strategy of the server farms is to ensure that access to applications and the actual desktop is always available and you are running a High Available Desktop environment. You can even disperse farms geographically into different data centers to help guarantee business continuity in almost all desktop scenarios.

Raydesk user authentication

To see their working desktop, users must first log in to the Raydesk server or server farm. To allow modern businesses to integrate Raydesk virtual desktop seamlessly with their existing IT infrastructure, users can be authenticated in many different ways via Identity Management Servers or login authorities. User credentials (username and password) are sent from the Raydesk host device to the Raydesk server. During the Raydesk authentication process, each login authority in turn uses its own set of rules to map the credentials to an appropriate object in the Raydesk datastore, and tries to validate the user against an authentication service. If the authentication succeeds, the object located by the login authority in the Raydesk datastore determines the content of the user’s desktop and the desktop is provided accordingly.

For a detailed Raydesk technical specification, click here.