2012-10-25

Alternative application virtualization tools to VMware ThinApp


Mike Nelson


VMware ThinApp is popular for virtualizing, sandboxing and packaging applications. But I'm always on the lookout for alternative tools that can provide the same functionality at -- hopefully -- a lower cost.
Citrix has its XenApp application streaming product, and Microsoft offers App-V to round out the more widely used application virtualization tools. Let's take a sampling of some alternatives to VMware ThinApp and see how they might save time and money in your environment.
A resource called Project VRC from Ruben Spruijt, Jeroen van de Kamp and Sven Huisman offers great insight into the use of application virtualization within VDI. If you're considering ThinApp or any of these application virtualization tools, this project is a great place to start learning about the technology.

Spoon Studio

Spoon used to be called Xenocode and was more widely recognized as an OEM product from Novell called Zenworks Application Virtualization.

The company, now called Spoon Inc., offers the Spoon Studio application virtualization product along with Spoon Server and Spoon.net. Spoon Studio is very easy to use and can integrate with either a physical delivery system (such as USB or Spoon Server) or its cloud offering -- Spoon.net. It is a very versatile product but still a bit pricy at $1,995 to start. Take it for a trial run to see if it's right for you.

Evalaze

Evalaze is a newer application virtualization tool on the market. It has three editions: a free Private edition, Professional edition and Commercial edition. The free edition is severely limited in features compared to the other two, but it does allow for an unlimited number of virtualized applications.

The company also has an application virtualization "service," which takes the application and files that you upload and creates the virtualized package for you. That's kind of cool in today's world of Software as a Service.I wanted to try the Professional edition, but they do not offer a trial link for download. However, they do have a Commercial edition trial, which includes the proverbial kitchen sink of tools for your use, including distribution licenses and technical support. I had some trouble sending a request for the trial, but it looks promising from their marketing. You'll need to judge for yourself if you can get them to answer!

InstallFree

This is a tough one. I really like the InstallFree interface, pricing (free or subscription-based) and versatility of this app virtualization tool. However, you must have an Internet connection to use it. It doesn't provide the same offline functionality of VMware ThinApp or others. If having your application available offline is not a deal-breaker for you, this product might be up your alley.

Portable Apps

Portable Apps provides a basic way to create and carry your applications wherever you go on a USB stick or drive. It is really what VMware ThinApp started out to be, but the vendor evolved ThinApp into a very large package with added functionality. Sometimes, you just need an application to be portable, and this product does that very well.
I believe all administrators should have this as a core item in their admin toolbox. Best of all, it's free, requires no registration and never nags you.

Symantec Workspace Streaming

This product is most often used by administrators that want to virtualize as many applications as possible or want to micro-manage their app license tracking. Symantec Workspace Streaming does a great job of virtualizing more applications than VMware ThinApp, but it also requires a client agent and streaming server, which ThinApp does not.
Workspace Streaming also lacks an intuitive user interface and is clouded by Symantec Corp.'s difficult licensing and support. ThinApp is more portable than this product and has more flexibility rather than complexity.
VMware ThinApp truly is a flexible, easy to use and versatile application virtualization tool. Still, some administrators need something closer to Portable Apps or will want to check out lower prices.

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2012-10-24

Application Streaming vs remote app delivery


Application virtualization Q&A: Streaming and remote app delivery

As virtual and remote desktops -- not to mention mobile devices -- start to pervade our environments, admins are finding new ways to deliver applications to end users. One method to consider is application virtualization.
Application virtualization includes remote applications and streamed applications. Remote apps run on a remote server rather than on a client device. With application streaming, apps are executed on the local computer but only certain components are downloaded, making it possible to function without a network connection.
Some benefits of these application delivery methods include more provisioning control for IT, centralized management and easier patching and updating. But not all applications work well as remote or streaming apps, and administrators often run into network bandwidth issues.
In this Q&A, expert Alastair Cooke explains how application virtualization works and when it's useful.

How does application virtualization work?

Alastair Cooke: Remote and streaming applications execute an application that's not installed on the device in front of the user. A remote application runs on a computer somewhere else, in the data center. A streaming application is run from a network share that actually executes on the user's device.
Remoting is good if the user is accessing a variety of different devices. Today they're using their iPad, the next day they're using their home PC, for instance. Streaming is good for having more responsiveness in the application because it's running on the device itself. But it's limited to running only on the OS that the app would run on natively. So, if it's a Windows application, the device has to be a Windows PC.

What are some other benefits of application virtualization?

Cooke: Application streaming makes it very easy to deploy new versions of an application because you simply wrap the new app once and place it on the network share or the replication point, and the new application becomes available to all your users.

MORE ON APPLICATION VIRTUALIZATION

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It also means there is no requirement for sociability testingamong your upgrades. Because you put a runtime that provides essentially a virtualized file system and registry inside the application (and you're using an agent to deploy these applications), the application itself runs inside a sandbox so it can't impact another application that's installed in your environment.
Remoting can be very beneficial around patching and upgrading. Users are accessing an application that's running in the data center, so you have very high connectivity. The update challenges around WAN don't come into play when the execution is in the data center.

How does app virtualization affect application performance?

Cooke: For a streamed application, the virtualization of file systems and registries has a small impact. The application execution is potentially a little slower, but the user interface runs at the native speed of the device.
With remote applications, the actual execution tends to be very fast because it's running on data center-grade equipment. But the user interface has to be remoted out to wherever the user is -- and that's very dependent on the network between the data center and the end user's device. If they're using a low-power device like a cellphone to access an application, there may be some speed issues.

What kind of network challenges come with application virtualization?

Cooke: Latency is another issue: How long does it take to get the data back and forth? You can't change the speed of light! The further away you are from the data center, the longer it takes for the information to get to you. These factors can degrade the performance of an application's user interface.
Modern remote protocols have gotten very good at dealing with these issues. The effects of different network characteristics are different across different protocols. Some are very good with high latency. Some work well when bits of information are lost along the way; others are not so good.

Are there some applications that aren't worth virtualizing?

Cooke: It depends how you're going to use the app. A heavyweight CAD application that needs a lot of resources in the data center to do its job well, for instance, requires high latency and low bandwidth.
The larger and more complex the application, the harder it is to stream. You have to capture how an application works when it is installed locally, and it's hard to do that well.

How can application virtualization help VDI admins create disposable desktops?

Cooke: What most VDI deployments want is to get to a state where the virtual machine the user accesses is actually disposable -- you're persisting the user's environment but not the virtual machine. This helps with updates and support.
For [a customer of mine], the key to getting to a disposable desktop state was to virtualize all the applications that were only used by a small number of users. VMware ThinApp allowed them to go from applying disposable desktops to 20% of their staff to applying them to everybody that uses VDI. VDI pays off when you don't have anything unique to each user at the virtual machine-level.

What are some differences between VMware ThinApp and Citrix XenApp?

Cooke: These are application streaming products that are applicable to VDI environments and even conventional desktop environments. They capture an application by watching how it performs on a nice clean computer and then seeing the differences. … To run that captured environment, you need to provide the runtime for the virtualized file system and registry.
These two tools are very different in how they provide the runtime. With ThinApp, it's included inside every captured application, which is a very small number of files. XenAppand Microsoft App-V, as well as products such as Symantec's app streaming technology (formerly Altiris), rely on having an agent installed. For XenApp, you deploy an online plug-in, and for App-V you deploy a client.
When the runtime is inside the agent rather than inside the package, those products talk to a central management service. If all you have for a packaged application is an executable container with that virtualized file system, then all the policy and management has to be wrapped up in there as well. Plus, you can take a ThinApp package on a USB and use it in an airline lounge, whereas with XenApp or App-V you need to be connected to the management server. That means those packages often only run on devices owned by the company. To access a remote application on a device not owned by the company, you could use Remote Desktop Services to stream the application from the data center.
Updating is also done differently with the two technologies. For the ones using an agent, you update on the management server. With ThinApp, you update the copy that people download rather than updating a central copy.

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2012-10-19

CIOs may have no choice in supporting Windows 8

 

By
October 17, 2012, 5:47 AM PDT
Takeaway: Scott Lowe has some advice for those CIOs who intend to ignore Windows 8: It’s not going to be as easy to do as you think it is.
It’s more than obvious that an enterprise migration to Windows 8 will not look like the migration to Windows 7. In fact, many organizations remain in the midst of their Windows 7 deployments and won’t even consider a look at Windows 8. Other organizations have completed their Windows 7 projects while still others remain firmly and happily planted on Windows XP.
Many CIOs have indicated that Windows 8 is not currently on their radar and many have also indicated that they intend to skip Windows 8 altogether while they either await Windows 9 or simply stick with Windows 7 or XP. Personally, I see many XP organizations ultimately being forced to Windows 7 because of emerging compatibility issues in new third-party software releases.
For those that intend to ignore Windows 8, I don’t think it’s going to be quite as easy to do as it may have been to skip, say, Windows Vista. Sure, many organizations will put into place policies that prevent the installation of Windows 8 on official corporate desktops and laptops, but that alone will not prevent these same organizations from having to support it anyway.

BYOD

Primarily, Windows 8 will worm its way into organizations through BYOD initiatives, whether or not those initiatives are officially sanctioned. Even if an organization doesn’t deploy its own Windows 8 desktops and laptops and absolutely forbids the use of personal Windows 8 desktop and laptops, it’s important for CIOs to bear in mind that we’re moving to a Windows 8 everywhere world. In this era, Windows 8 runs on devices that span the spectrum and include tablets and, if you count Windows Phone 8, mobile devices.
For organizations that have implemented BYOD policies, it will be difficult to make Windows 8 tablets an exception to the policy. After all, Windows 8 tablets will likely be a whole let easier to support than some other tablets. Organizations tools may run natively on the tablet. This is not generally the case with iOS- and Android-based devices on which it’s necessary to run Windows-native applications through some kind of remote connection.
Although Windows 8 is quite different than Windows 7 in many ways, those that have experience in supporting Windows 7 won’t have much trouble upgrading their skills to include Windows 8. From a support perspective, it may be easier in some ways to support Windows 8 in a BYOD scenario than it is to support other platforms.

The executive

I expect that, upon its release, Microsoft’s Surface (Windows 8, x86-based edition), will, at least for a while, be a popular device and, if Microsoft executes well, could be a long-term winner. I also suspect that there will be some in the upper echelons of the organization that will buy these devices and want to use them at work. This is part of the BYOD coin, but senior management, unfortunately, often has different rules, so IT may end up supporting these devices through that backdoor entrance into the company.

Feature set

Windows 8 does, in fact, carry with it some features that CIOs might find compelling, depending on the organization’s needs.

Windows To Go

Windows To Go might be an answer for your need to support part-time or temporary staff. In short, you can provide these people with a USB stick that contains Windows To Go, which is a full corporate desktop. This USB stick can be inserted into any Windows 7 or Windows 8 computer and the person will be presented with your corporate desktop image.

Direct Access

Direct Access has been improved in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 and provides users with a VPN without needing to use a VPN. With Direct Access, users are able to directly access the corporate network from anywhere, which means that their machines cab be managed as if they were local and the user gets access to the resources they’d have if they were on the local network.

Side load Metro apps

With the Enterprise edition of Windows 8, organizations will be able to side load Windows 8 Metro apps without having to use the Windows Store.

Summary

Although many out there are planning to skip Windows 8 altogether, forces may align that make this decision far from a slam dunk and you may end up discovering that Windows 8 is, in fact, a part of your support portfolio
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What's new in Windows Server 2012 RDS


With the official release of Windows Server 2012 rapidly approaching, VDI administrators should take note of some changes to Remote Desktop Services.

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Remote Desktop Services (RDS) in Windows Server 2008 R2consists of numerous components that perform specialized roles to make virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) possible. The deployment process and the components are the same in Windows Server 2012 RDS, so you'll feel right at home if you've deployed the previous version. What's different is some additional features for provisioning and managing virtual desktops with RDS.

Remote Desktop Services roles

Before we dive into the differences, let's review the components of RDS. Windows Server 2012 Remote Desktop Services offers the same basic roles as Windows Server 2008 R2 (Figure 1). These roles include:
Figure 1. Windows Server 2012 offers the same RDS roles as Windows Server 2008 R2.
  • Remote Desktop Connection Broker: The connection broker connects users with remote desktops. If a user loses connectivity to a remote desktop, the connection broker allows the user to reestablish the connection without losing the virtual desktop's state.
  • Remote Desktop Gateway: This component allows for connectivity to virtual desktops and RemoteApp programs over the Internet.
  • Remote Desktop Licensing: This component tracks license usage for your RDS deployment.
  • Remote Desktop Session Host: The Session Host allows a server to host session-based desktops or RemoteApp programs.
  • Remote Desktop Virtualization Host: This is the component that hosts virtual desktops.
  • Remote Desktop Web Access: This component lets users access remote desktops or RemoteApp programs either through a Web browser or the Start menu.

So what's new?

Most of the work Microsoft has done with Windows Server 2012 Remote Desktop Services is on the back end, particularly involving the virtual desktop provisioning process.
Simpler desktop collection creation 
It's now possible to use a virtual machine (VM) that has been prepared with Sysprep to create an entire collection of virtual desktops, without the aid of System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Here's how:
  1. After running Sysprep on the VM, shut the VM down and detach the Windows installation media (typically a DVD drive).
  2. Open the Remote Desktop Services console on the Connection Broker.
  3. Click the Collections tab and then choose Create Virtual Desktop Collection.
  4. Windows will launch the Create Collection Wizard. Click Next to bypass the wizard's Welcome screen.
  5. Specify a name and an optional description for the collection you are creating.
  6. On the next screen, indicate that you want to create a pooled virtual desktop collection and that you want to automatically create and manage the virtual desktops.
  7. Click Next, and select the virtual desktop that you previously created.
  8. It will then prompt you to either provide unattended installation settings or to use a Sysprep answer file. The option that you choose here determines the path that the wizard takes.
Things get interesting when you reach the Specify Users and Groups screen. This screen lets you specify which users should be given access to the new virtual desktops and the total number of virtual desktops to create (Figure 2). You can even assign a prefix and suffix that will be used in the virtual desktop name.
Figure 2. You can create multiple virtual desktops.
Preserving pooled desktop states
The other big change in Windows Server 2012 RDS is a stateless pooling mechanism that ensures that pooled virtual desktopsremain in a pristine state regardless of anything the previously logged-in user might do.
This feature is possible because Windows directs user operations to differencing disks, thereby keeping the virtual desktop's virtual hard disk in an unchanged state. The wizard even contains an option to automatically roll back changes when users log off the virtual desktop (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Virtual desktops can be rolled back to a pristine state after a user session.
This functionality is certainly nice, but it begs the question of what happens to user profiles. User profiles can be stored on a user profile disk (which you can configure through the wizard's next screen). The advantage of using user profile disks is that they are centrally stored and readily accessible from any VM in the collection.
The disadvantage is that the servers in the collection must have full control over the user profile disk share and users must be members of the local admin's group on the server. That raises some security concerns because users will have access to the servers, so you may be better off redirecting user profiles to a file share instead.
On the surface, it doesn't appear that all that much has changed with Windows RDS. Once you dig into the remote desktop deployment process, however, you can see that Microsoft has implemented some very welcome changes in Windows Server 2012 Remote Desktop Services.
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2012-10-05

Why do we virtualize?

The Top Reasons of Virtualization

 1- Reduced Administration Tasks

With Virtualizing Server, the burden of administrating your servers will be reduced. According to VMware, you can reduce the administrator to server ratio from 1:10 to 1:30. This means that you can either save time in your daily server admin tasks or be able to administer more servers by having hybervisor system implemented.
Here are some examples of how Virualization can reduce your administrative burden:

  • Centralized console allows quicker access to servers
  • You can quickly mount CD/DVDs using ISO files
  • You can deploy servers quicker
  • Quickly allocate additional RAM or disk drives
  • Quickly move virtual servers from one server to another

2- Faster Server Deployment

Because every virtual guest server is simply a file on the disk, you can quickly clone an existing system or create a new system from a sysprepped image.
To clone an existing server, you can simply copy the entire directory of your current virtual server. To make this not conflict with the existing Then go in and rename the folder and files and folders, edit the VMX File, change the SSID if it is a Windows system, change the hostname and the IP address (if static).
However, the best way to quickly deploy a new server with VMware is to create an unused virtual guest that has a sysrepped install of Windows. This way, you have a unique username, but can still get a fast install and deployment.
Think about it. Say that you are told you need a new server. Say that you order a new server, have it arrive, unbox it and mount it in a rack, supply power and network access, provide cooling, and then install the OS. If you compare this to the time it would take just to copy a virtual disk, turn it on, and complete the sysrepped install you will see just how very quickly you can deploy new servers with VMware.

3-Reduced Infrastructure Cost

We just talked about the time VMware server can save you on deploying new servers but think about it, what about the cost for that server, cooling, electricity, network ports, console video mouse & keyboard ports, and rackspace? By VMware running servers virtually, all of these costs can be averted. Here are some from the VMware website:

  • Increase hardware utilization by 50-70%
  • Decreased hardware and software capital costs by 40%
  • Decreased operating costs by 50-70%

VMware works best for servers that aren't resource intensive. However, that description probably includes many servers in most IT environments today


4. More features than the competition

Like Microsoft's Virtual Server, VMware Server is free to download and use. Both allow you to virtualize Windows and Linux systems. But I can tell you that VMware Server offers MORE features than Microsoft's Virtual server. Here are a few of the reasons I believe that VMware Server offers more:

  • Upgradeability to ESX Server
  • VMware is more mature
  • More grassroots support for VMware Server
  • Snapshot give you the ability to save the state of your server and then revert to it
  • Virtual Center centralized management system is available to manage multiple VMware servers
  • Supports two processors on a single guest
  • Supports 64 bit guest operating systems
  • Runs on Linux or Windows as the host operating system

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