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Extensive Application Deployment with Minimal Resources
1/30/2004
In the summer of 2003, Central Michigan University (CMU) deployed more than 40 applications throughout the university. Using the technology we had at our disposal, this would have taken at least six months. We didn’t have nearly that much time.
Resource-Consuming Obstacles
We run most applications via Terminal Services and Citrix MetaFrame Presentation
servers to enable more cost-effective, centralized management. However, to meet
this back-to-school deadline we had to overcome challenges that, to date, had
made deploying applications extremely time-consuming:
· Inability to run multiple versions of the same applications on the
same server:
Seven of ourkey applications used various versions of Crystal Reports, a popular
data-reporting program. Since different software versions cannot run on the
same server simultaneously, we would have had to build and manage separate Terminal
Services server groups, each running a different version of Crystal Reports.
This would have required eight different servers. It also would have meant that
each server would have been significantly underutilized, running at perhaps
30-40 percent of its capacity.
· Applications that would not run more than one instance in Terminal Services:
Several applications, including the conference scheduling software many of our
staff rely on, could not run multiple instances in Terminal Services. Because
they couldn’t be deployed via our server-based system, IT had to manually
install and support these programs on every user’s desktop. This went
counter to the very reason we were using Citrix server-based computing in the
first place, since one of its greatest strengths is to centralize the administration
of applications.
Application Virtualization
Our implementation vendor, RapidApp, told us we could totally eliminate these
application conflict and multi-instance problems by using a new platform that
virtualizes applications. The system, called Softricity SoftGrid (www.
softricity.com), transforms Windows applications from products that must be
installed and managed locally into virtual services you can deploy and manage
centrally—even to remote laptops—without any recoding.
To eliminate application conflicts, SoftGrid avoids writing files directly
to the registry and instead redirects them to its virtual “sandbox,”
a protective run-time environment that executes programs without altering the
host computer.
Table 1 shows how the Windows application installs normally—permanently
modifying the operating system’s settings, including writing to the Registry,
and installing specific versions of Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs). Table 2 shows
how a Windows application runs with SoftGrid—using a virtual copy of all
its settings so they do not modify the operating system upon which the application
is executing.
Accelerating Deployment, Simplifying Management
Using SoftGrid, we met our back-to-school deadline—and built a flexible
software infrastructure that easily and cost-effectively accommodates future
growth and changes.
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