Book Image

Getting Started with Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6

By : Augusto Alvarez
Book Image

Getting Started with Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6

By: Augusto Alvarez

Overview of this book

<p>Organizations often spend more money than they should on maintaining applications and the operating system life cycles. Supporting end-users' problems as well as maintaining different operating system baselines can also get really expensive. Microsoft App-V saves resources and increases productivity by virtualizing applications and providing centralized management for your organization's application infrastructure. However, application virtualization is not as simple as it sounds and can require expert guidance for successful implementations in an organization. <br /><br />With this book in hand, you will learn how to easily implement a centralized management for your applications with Microsoft App-V. It provides all the necessary guidance for preparing your App-V environment, as well as sequencing (capturing) and delivering simple and complex applications. It will demonstrate how you can save a lot of time and effort by eliminating the common issues faced in application deployment and maintenance. <br /><br />This Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6 Implementation Guide will show you, in a step-by-step manner, how to set up the environment for installing your company&rsquo;s applications, defining all the requirements and configurations one time only, and then delivering the same baseline to all the users you want. Microsoft App-V removes the constraints we usually have with applications, their dependencies and the issues involved, providing a centralized management of those applications. With this book, you will first review the basics of App-V architecture and the components involved and then start working directly with the platform by installing the App-V server and client components. As the book progresses, you will learn to sequence and publish simple as well as complex applications. Using this guide, applications' transitions, such as moving up from Microsoft Office 2007 to Office 2010, can be achieved transparently for all users. It will also guide you through advanced topics such as integrating App-V with Microsoft&rsquo;s Configuration Manager, securing communications, and publishing applications through Remote Desktop Services.</p> <p>By the end of this book, you will be geared up to plan and implement the virtualization of your application infrastructure with Microsoft App-V.</p>
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Getting Started with Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Combining App-V with Remote Desktop Services


The benefits you can achieve using App-V can sound a lot more interesting for most environments, but how can you maintain those benefits where you already have a Remote Desktop Services platform deployed?

If you already have users accessing virtual desktops from RDS sessions or Hyper-V virtual machines in VDI, adding a new layer of complexity with App-V should be carefully analyzed before any implementation.

Here are some reasons to use App-V along with RDS:

  • Delivering applications to the RDS servers using App-V simplifies the time and effort to maintain these servers. Users can directly use the App-V RDS Client installed on the RDS server which will be in charge of receiving App-V packages.

  • App-V removes the need to install applications on servers. RDS requires an existing and installed application on a server for publishing it, making this a risk you have to accept; using App-V, you just need to deliver these applications to the servers without installing any of them.

  • You can optimize resource utilization in your RDS platform. In complex scenarios, you may need to publish incompatible applications using RDS. For example, HR members need Microsoft Office 2007 and management is using Microsoft Office 2010; for this, you need at least two separate RDS servers to install both of them.

    The App-V RDS client can be installed on one RDS server, from which you can deploy both incompatible applications and clients will still be using only one server.

  • Simplified applications deployment. Installing applications in RDS is a disruptive process; users must log off and a server reboot may be required as well. Using RDS with App-V, the process can be transparent for users, including updating an application.

  • Improving profiles experience. You can avoid the use of roaming profiles for users; App-V supports redirection for application settings. You can force mandatory profiles (user environment modification not possible by users) for RDS clients, while redirecting App-V applications data and settings to keep these changes consistent.

  • Using small foot-print images in VDI environments. Providing virtual machines for users' desktop environments can be really expensive in terms of storage, combining VDI with App-V can guarantee simple and small operating system images, while providing virtualized applications to complement the environment.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) represents one of the most attractive solutions in virtual environments, and there are a lot of resources about it from Microsoft: