RemoteFX, one of the new features in the just-released Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1, was recently described by Ed Bott as a "reinvention of the mainframe" and a major virtualization game-changer.

Want to know more? Desktop virtualization expert Brian Madden spills the beans in his in-depth guide to RemoteFX. Here's an excerpt from the section on RemoteFX basics:

The purpose of RemoteFX is to be able to deliver the "full" Windows experience to a client device. This means whatever a user can experience locally should also be experiences remotely via RDP with RemoteFX. So we're talking about multiple monitors, Aero glass, 3D games, multimedia, Flash, Silverlight, porn, video editing... everything! Anyone who's ever tried to use RDP as a "real" desktop replacement knows that there are still some limitations, and even though it's come a long way, if you maximize a Hulu video via regular RDP you'll quickly remember that you're not running Windows locally.

As you can see, Madden writes in a refreshingly plain-English style, which is great for something as potentially confusing as RemoteFX.

Elsewhere in the guide he explains how the technology works, the kinds of clients it works with, and "the great unknowns" of its performance and scalability. Read it, share it, bookmark it.