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Extensive Application Deployment with Minimal Resources
1/30/2004
By simplifying each phase of the application management process and centralizing deployment of all applications, even those used by remote users, we were able to complete the project in just one month instead of the six months it would have taken. One of the keys to enabling this was the elimination of regression testing, which is used to ensure that applications won’t conflict with each other by overwriting one another’s systems settings. Since it’s estimated that up to 30 percent of Windows applications conflict when installed, regression is critical—yet incredibly time-consuming and tedious. By virtualizing applications and updates, we’ve eliminated the need for this process and vastly accelerated time-to-deployment. As a result, we can be much more responsive to ongoing end-user needs.
Centralized Environment
By eliminating application conflict, we can run any version of Crystal Reports
on the same server at the same time. In addition, the applications that we had
to manually install on every desktop, now run multiple sessions on each server.
As a result, we can centrally deploy and manage all our applications. This is
significant because we had chosen server-based computing because of its total-cost-of-ownership
savings, but having even one application that can’t be centrally managed
this way significantly reduces those gains. Being only partially centralized
is not enough—the goal is to manage all applications from a single console,
and now we can.
Enhanced Security
We can now give students access to key applications and still maintain high
security because the applications reside on the network, not the desktop. This
also helps us easily manage deployment of critical security patches. Instead
of having to go from desktop to desktop installing patches, now all we need
to do is make one change on our server and it stays up-to-date Given the increasing
frequency of updates and patches with all the viruses and worms that have invaded
networks, this has become an essential part of our infrastructure.
Shaun Holtgreive (holtg1s@cmich.edu) is associate director of Residence Life
at Central Michigan University.
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