Transcript Slide 1

“What IS Application Virtualization”
Presented by:
Douglas A. Brown
President / Chief Technology Office
[email protected]
Agenda
What is Virtualization?
What is Application Virtualization?
The AV Solution Landscape:
–
Citrix Presentation Server
– Citrix Project Tarpon
– Altiris
– Softricity SoftGrid
Conclusion
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What IS Virtualization?
What IS Virtualization?
Today, virtualization in the new
BUZZWORD
It helps businesses with scalability,
security and management of their
global IT infrastructure
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What IS Virtualization?
Recently, Gardner Defined Virtualization in many
forms…
This does not answer the question…
So, let’s take a deeper look at Virtualization!
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What IS Virtualization?
The First thing we need to define is, What is
true Virtualization?
Not just, “many forms”
Virtualization was
first introduced in
the 1960s to allow
partitioning of
large, mainframe
hardware
This made it
affordable
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What IS Virtualization?
I was first introduced to Virtualization with the
release of VMware 1.0
VMware helped me accomplish things that
was not possible before its release:
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No longer was I required to reinstall the OS every time I
made a change when testing a new product or
configuration…
I was able share OS builds, that consisted of
applications (different builds of MetaFrame, etc) with
others, without them being required to build it from
scratch and/or without the same hardware…
I was able to rapidly deploy and recover OS’s no matter
the hardware…
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What IS Virtualization?
With this in mind, lets look at how VMware defines
“Virtualization” and lets add to the growing list of
requirements to become true virtualization
http://www.vmware.com/virtualization/
“Virtualization is an abstraction layer that decouples the
physical hardware from the operating system to deliver
greater IT resource utilization and flexibility.”…
“Virtualization allows multiple virtual machines, with
heterogeneous operating systems to run in isolation, side-byside on the same physical machine. Each virtual machine
has its own set of virtual hardware (e.g., RAM, CPU, NIC,
etc.)”…
“The operating system sees a consistent, normalized set of
hardware regardless of the actual physical hardware
components.”…
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It is not just about a definition…
Now we have a definition and more
important, we have defined the
real/unique benefits virtualization brings to
the IT world
Now that we understand the value-add of
OS “Virtualization”, let’s look at what,
Application Virtualization is…
©Copyright 2005, DABCC, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
What IS Application Virtualization?
What IS Application Virtualization?
To answer the question, “What IS
Application Virtualization” we must define
the real/unique benefits it bring to IT
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What IS Application Virtualization?
True application virtualization changes the
paradigm of how applications are run and managed
Applications are completely insulated from the
operating system and from each other using an
abstraction layer (as defined earlier)
There is no writing to the host OS (registry or file
system) As a result, the OS is kept completely
clean
Just as VMware and Microsoft OS virtualization
don't install operating systems to hardware, true
application virtualization software doesn't get
installed to the operating system
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What IS Application Virtualization?
Why is this so important?
The goal of virtual application computing is:
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To turn every computer into a generic computing
device (A Utility)
To provide, in real time, users with exactly the
applications they need
Users have the right to personalize their
applications and thus these personalization's roam
with them wherever they computer from…
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What IS Application Virtualization?
Just as OS virtualization allows you to
dynamically run any operating system on a
server the moment you want it there
Application virtualization allows you to
dynamically run any application on any
desktop or server the moment a users needs
the software
Due to the insulation of the application there
is little to no regression testing involved
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What IS Application Virtualization?
Now that we see the real/unique benefits
that “application virtualization” brings to IT
we can use it to analyze each AV product
and see if it is AV or NOT AV!
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The AV Solution Landscape:
Citrix Presentation Server
At Citrix iForum 2005, Citrix made the claim that
Presentation Server was “Application Virtualization”
“Application Virtualization separates the application physical layer
from its logical layer. By virtualizing client-server apps, the client
can execute as close as possible to the server and the application
data - only the virtualized interface needs to be presented to the
user's computer. This keeps data traffic in the datacenter where it's
easier to secure, and enables IT to install and manage applications
entirely in a central location. And the user's device can be any
form factor, run any OS, and have minimal computing horsepower.
For all these reasons, virtualization yields the lowest TCO and
highest security for all client-server apps.
For over 15 years, Citrix has led the application virtualization
market. Citrix Presentation Server is the industry-standard for
application virtualization, proven by more than 160,000 customers
worldwide to deliver the lowest TCO and highest performance for
every client-server application.”
This seems a lot like Server-Based Computing
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Citrix Presentation Server
I’m not saying SBC is not an awesome way to
compute
SBC is more an, “user interface virtualization”
Each end-user has the ability to compute
anywhere, anyplace, and/or anytime
BUT, SBC still has the issue where applications
are required to be installed on the Server
THUS, NOT an AV solution
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Citrix Presentation Server
Citrix addresses this issue through Application
Isolation Environments (AIE)
In AIE, an application is isolated from one
another through redirection of the file, registry
and named objects on each application
It still however requires the application to be
installed on the host OS, thus breaking the
golden rule of not impacting the OS
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Citrix Presentation Server
The result of breaking this rule:
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Regression testing is still needed
– You are still required to install the application on the
server
– You are still required to uninstall the application from
the server
– The application is still machine specific, not user
specific
– Still leaves end-user downtime while applications are
being installed and configured
It is NOT dynamic, IT IS STATIC!
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Citrix Project Tarpon
At iForum 2005, Citrix announced Project Tarpon as a
desktop streaming solution
But is it streaming?
Project Tarpon deploys applications to workstation
through an SMB copy and then executes it through a
desktop AIE
When streaming it is required to copy the entire
package before the application the execute
Project Tarpon is based off Citrix’s AIE technology and
thus has the same issues
Still in early prototype, available in Q3 / Q4 2006????
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Altiris Software “Virtualization” Solution
From what I’ve read, descriptions, and
conversation with my friends, this is machine
based abstraction, not app based
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IT is required to activate an app and thus the apps required
dlls. These dlls are then seen by all running apps
(IT is required to activate and deactivate???)
A redirection solution...
NO Terminal Services support (because of machine vs. app)
The big question is: “Can you run conflicting
apps on the same machine at the same time”
Seams like a great ESD add-on to reduce the
of app conflicts but it is NOT an AV Solution!
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Softricity SoftGrid
Using SoftGrid, an application is:
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Not required to be installed or preconfigured on the
computer that will be executing it.
The entire application’s registry and file system is
insulated and turned into a data blocks in a virtual
file system
These files are then copied to the SoftGrid server
and deployed to the end-user by securely
streaming only the data blocks that are needed by
the end-user
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Softricity SoftGrid
Because the application is insulated it does
not require additional regression testing as it
does NOT alter the host OS in any way
Therefore it does not need to be installed or
preconfigured
This is true application virtualization as
defined earlier
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Conclusion
Conclusions
I conclude that neither Citrix nor Altiris provide
the benefits and does not comply with the
definition of a truly virtualized application
This being said, the only product that does this is
Softricity SoftGrid
This might change
It is up to you to take the knowledge I’ve tried
to lay out and ask yourself:
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What is Virtualization?
Does my solution provide me the real/unique benefits application
virtualization does?
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Thank you! - Additional Resources
To learn more, please read my, “To Install or Not”
paper:
www.dabcc.com/whitepapers
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