Patent ID: 8621261

Claim:
A method comprising: at a virtual desktop thin client device, establishing a Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) connection between a VDI client in the virtual desktop thin client device and a VDI server in a hosted virtual desktop server; establishing a unified communications (UC) control connection between a UC protocol stack on the virtual desktop thin client device and a primary call agent, wherein the UC control connection is configured to allow the UC protocol stack to register with the primary call agent, and to send or receive commands from the primary call agent that are based on signals from a UC control application running on the hosted virtual desktop server; starting a UC control backup application on the virtual desktop thin client device in a standby mode that is configured to switch to an active mode in response to a failure to establish or maintain the UC control connection, or a failure to establish or maintain the VDI connection; and when the UC control backup application is in the active mode, launching a user interface on the virtual desktop thin client device configured to perform UC backup functions.