By Fredrik Brattstig @virtualbrat
14th July 2022
The day has finally arrived for announcing the General Availability of Microsoft Teams Optimization in Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 when using IGEL OS endpoints. IGEL OS is the first Linux-based operating system supporting Microsoft Teams Optimization in AVD/Windows 365.
Read the IGEL announcement here: https://www.igel.com/about-us/press-releases/igel-enhances-the-performance-of-microsoft-teams-in-microsoft-azure-virtual-desktop-and-windows-365/
Why IGEL OS and Cloud delivered Desktops? The vision of IGEL is to supply users with the ultimate endpoint operating system for cloud workspaces. When putting your desktops in a central location, be it in any public or private cloud, IGEL will remove the need of managing Windows estates in multiple theatres. Put Windows in the cloud and make use of a secure yet simple operating system for your users. Allowing full control of your Edge Endpoints (your user’s Laptops, PC’s, and Thin Clients).
IGEL OS has for a long time had support for Unified Communications offloading, starting with the implementation of Dynamic Virtual Channels (DVC) enabling Zoom VDI for AVD offloading the rendering of audio and video to the edge endpoint, DVC also allows the use of Fabulatech WebCam redirection for generic addressing of WebCams in any application in your AVD desktop, though leaving the camera feed processing to the AVD desktop.
From today, Microsoft Teams optimization is fully supported in IGEL OS using Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365, extending the capabilities and removing the boundaries of Unified Communications when using Microsoft cloud-delivered desktops in single/or multi-user scenarios in Azure Virtual Desktop on Windows 10 and Windows 11 plus RDS operating systems like Windows Server 2019 or Windows Server 2022. And of course, Windows 365 is covered with Windows 10 or Windows 11-based Cloud PC’s. Microsoft Teams usability is now accelerated and offloaded by the IGEL OS endpoint.
How do you set it up then? On the AVD host, install Microsoft Teams as you normally would for AVD and Windows 365 following the Microsoft official guidelines here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/teams-on-avd
IGEL OS needs to be on at least 11.07.110 firmware to have the possibilities to use Teams Offloading in AVD and Windows365. Still, I would recommend using a as up-to-date version as possible as there are lots of development going on both on the IGEL OS side and on the Microsoft Teams server side. Microsoft Teams Optimization is enabled by default in IGEL OS, so there is no need for any configuration on your IGEL OS estate (except for making sure that you are up to date in firmware). The firmware 11.07.136 is the current and recommended version of IGEL OS with the latest bits of Microsoft Teams Optimization. There will soon be a new public/rolling release of IGEL OS including the latest bits. You can check what version of IGEL AVD client you have installed on your endpoint by running the command igelrdp3 -v in a terminal window. The recommended version should be at least 1.0.99.20..
Fill out the form at the end of this blog post and I’ll send you a download link to the 11.07.136 firmware ASAP!
Let’s have a look at a video showing the IGEL OS AVD client connecting to AVD and Windows 365 doing a video meeting.
Request the 11.07.136 firmware by filling out this form:
See you all soon again with more news! Can’t wait! 🙂
/Fred
VirtualBrat 