VDI bandwidth management via GPO policies in the Zoom app

The maximum available bandwidth for thin clients can be configured through GPO policies configured by the administrators. In addition, it is also possible to set bandwidth throttling policies that apply exclusively to office equipment, so home users can take full advantage of all the features provided by personal networks by implementing these policies.

The following topics are covered in this article:

• MSI bandwidth settings
• Web bandwidth settings
• Policy bandwidth settings
• How to change the value “Office” or “Home” on the thin client
  • Windows
  • macOS
  • Linux
  • GPOBandwidthOverrideWeb
• How to Check Bandwidth Limit in VDI Statistics Tab
  • Access statistics using meeting controls
  • Access statistics from the main window of the desktop client

Requirements for VDI bandwidth management through GPO policies

• Ownership or administrative rights of the account
• Building a virtual desktop infrastructure

MSI bandwidth settings

This can be done by the administrator either through the installer or by modifying the registry (HKCU or HKLM) with the keys and values ​​listed below:

SOFTWAREPoliciesZoomZoom MeetingsGeneral

• BandwidthLimitUp – In the Send Bandwidth setting, you can specify how much bandwidth you want to send at a time in kbps.
• BandwidthLimitDown – There is a minimum value of 800 KB for the maximum receive bandwidth in kbps (should be at least this value).
• Recommended to ignore bandwidth limits – It is used to ignore and ignore bandwidth limits set by MSI and/or the web. Policy bandwidth settings are not affected by this setting.

Web bandwidth settings

You can find these settings in the account section of the Zoom web portal. MSI bandwidth settings override these settings unless IgnoreBandwidthLimits is set to 1, which overrides MSI bandwidth settings.

• Depending on the IP address and the rules applied to the IP address, they can be applied.
• It is possible to set the value to 0 if no bandwidth restrictions apply or exist.

Policy bandwidth settings

It is possible to configure these registry keys on the VDI client to provide policies based on thin client .ini files and they can be configured under the following registry keys:

SOFTWAREPoliciesZoomZoom MeetingsVDIbandwidth

• Office: These are the settings that need to be set on the thin client to work with the on-premises setup controlled via the .ini file. If you are using the thin client, you can look for the following line in the .ini file in the installation directory:
• [DeviceLocation]

  IsInOffice=1
  A value of 1 for IsInOffice would mean that the Office settings are used if the value of IsInOffice is set to that value.

• Home:
• The home settings are used if no .ini file is available, or the IsInOffice value is zero if no .ini file is available.

It should be noted that both the “office” value and the “home” value can accept three types of connections (ICA, UDP and Direct) with “up” and “down” values ​​configured for the available bandwidth are.

GPOBandwidthOverrideWeb=1 is a registry key that allows the values ​​associated with the connection type and location to be used, regardless of whether the value exists under the location or connection type key. Since the default value is 0, there is no bandwidth limit if the value is not configured if left at 0.

*Note: There is a small difference in the implementation of the .ini file for Linux, including the “eLux” distribution. A new line must be added to the ZoomMedia.ini file in the setup/ica/ZoomMedia.ini directory in place of the existing line:

Only one extra line needs to be added:

[DeviceLocation]
IsInOffice=1

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesZoomZoom MeetingsVDIbandwidthofficeica]
"Up"=dword:00000320
"Down"=dword:00000320

[DeviceLocation]
IsInOffice=1

[DeviceLocation]
IsInOffice=1