The benefits of Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V)

By Chris Sweeney, Consultant – Microsoft Systems Management and End User Computing, Data^#3 Limited

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As Windows 10 becomes more widely adopted by Australian busineses, I thought we’d take a closer look at the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP). Whilst MDOP is not specifically a Windows 10 feature, it provides an opportunity to modernise the solution used to package and deploy applications, and better manage the application lifecycle.

In particular, let’s focus on the Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) technology – one of the six tools available as part of MDOP.

What is the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP)?

Available as a subscription to Microsoft Software Assurance customers, MDOP is designed to help IT professionals virtualise the user experience, applications and desktop, as well as manage features within Windows and restore user productivity after a system issue.

Importantly, MDOP is now free for those customers who renewed their enterprise agreement after August 2015. This is great news, as cost was a prohibitive factor for many organisations when it came to the deployment of MDOP.

Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V)

As one of the six technologies that comprise MDOP, App-V enables applications to be made available to end users without installing the applications directly on end user computers.

App-V allows administrators to take an application, and its settings and dependencies and present them to end users as a network service, using local resources. Essentially, untangling the application from the operating system. App-V Packaging is known as “sequencing”.

Depending on the way the application is sequenced, it can interact with the local system or be isolated from it based on the requirements for that application.

As a result, applications don’t affect the operating system or other applications.

What’s more, you can individually connect sequenced App-V applications and configure them to communicate with each other by using connection groups. This flexibility gives organisations the best of both worlds – isolation to reduce application conflicts and time spent regression testing, while enabling applications to interact and communicate with each other when required.

Reducing the need to remediate application conflicts

One of the most time consuming and frustrating steps of deployment is testing and remediating applications. However, because App-V isolates applications in their own virtual environments, it can significantly reduce the need for regression and sociability testing (identifying conflicts between applications).

Put simply, App-V reduces the need to remediate application conflicts. In fact, many organisations skip these steps altogether and go directly to sequencing their applications, which is like recording the installation and configuration to a file that the administrator can stream it over the network.

App-V gets the right applications to the right users

Packaging applications for automated deployment and configuration can also be extremely time consuming. What’s more, getting the right applications to the right users on the right devices can be a complex process.

What if you could save time by more easily targeting applications to users and enabling those applications to follow users to each device they use? App-V can help.

With App-V, after you sequence an application, and publish it on the server and assign the appropriate rights, the application is immediately available for users. They can launch the application without waiting for it to be installed because App-V streams the application on demand to each device they use. This streamlined approach reduces cost and complexity, and helps improve efficiency and productivity across the organisation.

Rumour has it that the App-V client will become part of Windows 10, with the release of Redstone 2, so watch this space!

To learn more about Windows 10 and how you can benefit from the MDOP and App-V, contact us today.

We have lots more information about Windows 10, including special offers, viewable at data3.com.au/windows10.