Modernizing and Securing the VDI Experience with Blast on Horizon and IGEL OS

The shift away from legacy protocols is rapidly reshaping how organizations deliver virtual desktops and applications. With the planned deprecation of the Horizon-embedded version of PCoIP, customers are looking for a more capable, more efficient, future-ready alternative. That path leads directly to the Blast protocol. During our recent joint webinar with Omnissa, we explored what makes Blast the right choice going forward and how IGEL OS strengthens that transition.

Blast was engineered from the ground up to deliver a richer experience with lower resource consumption. Horizon customers have seen consistent improvements in host density, bandwidth efficiency, and overall session smoothness. In recent tests, Blast demonstrated higher frames per second while using far less bandwidth than PCoIP, even under constrained or unstable network conditions. When latency increased or available throughput dropped, Blast maintained steady performance and delivered a responsive, reliable session to the user. These gains open the door to new use cases in places where legacy VDI technologies struggle, such as remote sites, limited-bandwidth links, or highly distributed user populations.

Beyond performance, Blast ties deeply into Omnissa’s intelligence and DEX platforms. Administrators gain detailed telemetry on network behavior, latency, packet loss, protocol trends, and even guided root-cause analysis when issues arise. Instead of digging through logs, teams can quickly pinpoint what is affecting the user’s experience. This visibility reduces troubleshooting cycles and helps IT keep environments running smoothly at scale.

IGEL OS complements that protocol modernization with a secure and centrally managed endpoint OS platform. Its read-only, modular design eliminates unnecessary attack surface and supports only the trusted applications and components required for Horizon. Customers can deploy a lightweight, purpose-built Horizon client that runs natively with Blast, integrates cleanly with multifactor authentication, such as Omnissa’s Workspace ONE Access, and stores no user data on the device. This prevents tampering, reduces endpoint complexity, and avoids the overhead of multiple security agents.

Management at scale becomes straightforward through IGEL UMS. Administrators can push the desired Horizon client version, configure settings, automate grouping or enrollment, and even allow users to self-enroll IGEL OS devices. Whether an organization has 10 devices or 10,000, the experience remains simple and consistent. Combined with IGEL’s broad hardware support across leading partners, such as HP, Lenovo and LG, customers can modernize VDI endpoints without replacing entire fleets.

Together, Horizon with Blast and IGEL OS deliver a secure, high-performance, and future-ready VDI platform. Organizations gain better session density, stronger resilience across variable network conditions, and clearer insights into user experience issues. At the same time, they simplify endpoint management and reduce operational risk. As enterprises evolve their digital workspace strategies, this combination offers a proven, scalable path forward.

If you are planning your move from PCoIP or looking to improve the performance and manageability of your Horizon environment, explore how IGEL OS and Blast can elevate your user experience. Share your thoughts or questions in the comments and join us at IGEL Now & Next to continue the conversation.

Watch the webinar recording IGEL and Omnissa – Redefining Endpoint Performance for the Modern Enterprise | IGEL

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