Monday 4 April 2011

Server App-V: Shift, Pause and Play for Server Applications


Well, to say that my time in Las Vegas at MMS 2011 was well ... Spent... Would be accurate.

Whether it was well spent - is another question. That said, I was able to meet up with the Microsoft App-V team (thanks Sean, Lidiane and Angie) and we were able to chat a little about the next version of App-V (version 5) and also spend some time on the new release of Microsoft's server application virtualization product - Microsoft Server App-V

There is a "release update" blog posting from the Microsoft Application Virtualization team blog, where you can read about this cool server-based virtualization product here:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2011/03/25/microsoft-server-application-virtualization-it-s-all-about-the-app.aspx

This is a pretty detailed posting about the features of the Server App-V product with some important optimizations which include;

  • State persisted to local disk
  • Windows Services
  • IIS Applications
  • Registry
  • COM+/DCOM
  • Text-based Configuration Files
  • WMI Providers
  • SQL Server Reporting Services
  • Local users and groups
  • Java

The key bits here are that I am interested in are the state persistence, COM+DCOM and services support.  From what I understand, the Server App-V does not take a bubble or isolated approach to virtualizing each application - from what I understand it's more a "layer" approach. Where the application is installed on the target platform - but isolated from the server build.

This approach has a couple of benefits :

  1. COM+/DCOM applications are likely to work
  2. Services support - a key benefit for server platforms
  3. Reduced virtualization application compatibility potential - More apps will work!


There are a few downsides to this approach;

  1. You may get application level conflicts
  2. Middleware dependencies and components may require a little more thinking/planning 

My favourite bit about this whole approach is that you can "Pause" an application - save that state and then move that application (with it's saved state intact) and move it to another platform. This is a killer feature and should make Server App-V a big hit with the data-center boys.




2 comments:

Colin Bragg said...

Regarding your understanding of the 'layer' concept,I too presumed this would be the case just like Symantec's SWV and asked this same question of Microsoft here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv/archive/2011/03/25/welcome-to-server-application-virtualization.aspx but as you see the application is still isolated far more than just a layer and is contained within a bubble. The bubble is launched using Powershell cmdlets. I have installed and played with the Beta. You can see my blog including screenshots here: http://softwaredeployment.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/app-v-for-servers-beta-a-closer-look/

Greg Lambert said...

Colin, thanks for the comment... I will have a look at your blog as well...