Lightboard Lessons: Remote Desktop Solution Using BIG-IP APM and Remote Spark

The Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is used by many people who want to remotely connect to desktops, printers, servers, etc. One of the issues with this is that each machine has to install a proprietary remote desktop client software to make the connection happen. These types of solutions introduce many security vulnerabilities and configuration complexities.

Just last month, a critical Remote Desktop Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability was introduced (CVE-2019-0708). In addition to that critical vulnerability, a CVE database search shows that 26 other vulnerabilities exist in with Microsoft RDP solutions dating back to 2002.

Remote Spark developed the SparkView gateway to "translate" the proprietary RDP protocol to HTML5 using WebSockets for data transport and JavaScript for client logic. Using Spark View for translation and BIG-IP APM (and optionally LTM as well), you can gain access to remote services using any Internet browser that is HTML5 capable (which all modern browsers are).

Imagine you have a big class of remote students and they all need access to remote desktop services. Instead of loading a bunch of proprietary client software on all their machines, you can now tell them to simply access a website with their Internet browser, and they are up and running! Check out the video below to learn more.