New Frame App Expands DaaS Use Cases

The new release includes the following feature enhancements:

• Improved multi-monitor support (seamless window dragging and auto layout detection/setup)
• Advanced Human Interface Device (HID) support (such as 3D SpaceMouse and speciality joysticks and controllers)
• SmartCard (CAC) support (Windows devices only)
• Scanner (WIA) support
• Auto-update

From its inception, Frame was designed with the following principles in mind:

• Cloud-native
• Delightful user experience
• Operational simplicity
• Web-scale

Behind these driving principles, when Frame launched in 2013, it quickly established itself as a pioneer in delivering 3D/CAD, design, and multimedia Windows applications to users with just a web browser. This was made possible by leveraging the video streaming standards used everyday by internet users worldwide to build an entirely new, remoting protocol for end user computing.

Frame's control plane was born and hosted in the cloud as a service with out-of-the-box integration with AWS and a robust automation engine. Frame also ushered in the era of Desktop as a Service (DaaS). To reduce complexity and operational overhead, customers needed an alternative to traditional VDI solutions.

This is why, up until this point, Frame has primarily been an HTML5-only solution. This approach not only made it incredibly easy for our customers in terms of endpoint management and user onboarding, it also made supporting initiatives like bring your own device (BYOD) and work-from-home, relatively trivial.

However, with simplicity comes its limitations. In the case of Frame, this meant a lack of certain features such as local client drive mapping, USB printer redirection, or limited support for advanced peripherals, multiple monitors, and CAC cards. While many of these gaps were addressed with innovative new approaches, such as drag-and-drop file upload/download and print-to-PDF, others have certainly remained.

As Frame continues to expand its reach into new industry verticals and use cases, this also means we will need to continue to expand our capabilities to better serve our new and existing customers.

And so we are incredibly excited to announce that Frame App for Windows and MacOS is now generally available (GA) with version 5.2+! We have offered the Frame App in Early Access for some time to enable specific customers, and are now thrilled to make Frame App available to everyone.

The Same, But Different​

The Frame App is our new native desktop application for accessing Frame sessions from our Launchpad (for end-users), as well as from our Dashboard and Super Admin consoles (for admins). Staying true to our HTML5 roots, Frame App is built using browser technology for accessing your Frame sessions. This means that most functional updates are still delivered dynamically on each session start. However, wrapped around a browser core is the secret sauce that allows the Frame App to provide our users with an increasingly feature-rich experience to address specific use cases that can't be served by a browser alone. The Frame App can more directly access the local hardware and OS resources to enable connectivity to more peripherals, in turn, enabling more use cases for Frame DaaS!

For the GA release of Frame App for Windows and MacOS, the following feature enhancements are now available:

• Enhanced multi-monitor support (seamless window dragging and auto layout detection/setup)
• Advanced Human Interface Device (HID) support (such as 3D SpaceMouse and speciality joysticks and controllers)
• SmartCard (CAC) support (Windows devices only)
• Scanner (WIA) support

We have also included an auto-update feature with Frame App that will automatically prompt users to install newer versions as they become available, making the ongoing administration and upkeep seamless.

Configuration of Frame App is just as easy — users simply set the custom URL of their organization's Frame environment and they're off to the races!

Ready to try Frame App? It is available for download now at portal.nutanix.com!

Please be sure to also check out our new End-User Guide and Admin Guide for Frame App.

And if you are brand new to Frame, we welcome you to take Frame for a spin today via our Test Drive or sign-up for a free 30-day trial at My Nutanix.