John Sheehan: Architecture and Engineering of Microsoft Application Virtualization (AppVirt)

Posted By: Charles | Feb 9th @ 11:45 AM | 45,896 Views | 6 Comments
Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 (AppVirt) allows the flexibility to control virtual application interaction. Administrators wanting to consolidate virtual environments, and enable faster, easier administration, can use the product’s Dynamic Suite Composition, which sequences and manages packages for middleware applications separately from the main application. It shrinks potential package size by eliminating redundant packaging of middleware, allowing, for instance, multiple web applications to communicate with the same single instance of a virtualized .NET Framework or Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Updates for the common virtual middleware are simplified as well as one virtual application is updated instead of several. This “many-to-one” capability greatly reduces the cost of updates. It also makes it easier to deploy and manage applications with multiple plug-ins and add-ins, and improves management of plug-in distribution to different user groups.

John Sheehan, Architect of Microsoft's AppVirt (SoftGrid) technology, spends some time with me digging (deeply) into the architecture and engineering of the application virtualization technology he and team create. A few months ago John joined us for a Going Deep on application virtualization and you asked for more (and you asked for us to go deeper - John only scratchd the surface last time we spoke). Well, here you go, Niners. Deep AppVirt. This is whiteboard-heavy and John's mic'd so the sound quality is exceptional. Enjoy!

Duration: 58:31
Rating:
2
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#Feb 9th @ 3:22 PM
stevej.
stevej.
Excellent! Now the next thing..  at home: streaming directX 11.0 applications from a central 'family homeserver' to a couple of low profile (no hdd/ssd) touch client­ devices, syncing changes to the cloud and from there to my netbook and mobile!??

p.s.: i love my iphone;)
#Feb 10th @ 7:00 AM
benyaboy
benyaboy
This looks like amazing technology!  I wish it were apart of all future versions of Windows.

Ironically, this looks like another video about shared state and concurrency.  But instead of program state, its installation, files, and registry state, and running programs concurrently.

It would be nice to further explain how a single "capture" installation can target many "clients."  More specifically, how would it deploy to different hardware, or versions of windows? Would you have to create a new image for each machine profile?

Also, about the virtual file system, does it only redirect the original installed files? Or does it also redirect newer files created by the user (settings, for example)?
#Feb 10th @ 9:49 AM
jsheehan
jsheehan
dumbnose
Ironically, this looks like another video about shared state and concurrency.  But instead of program state, its installation, files, and registry state, and running programs concurrently.

You are right.  We deal not just with program state, but with all of the state that the application attempts to place on the system. 

It would be nice to further explain how a single "capture" installation can target many "clients."  More specifically, how would it deploy to different hardware, or versions of windows? Would you have to create a new image for each machine profile?

I think most of this is covered in the first video.  Basically, a single image typically can be used for all machines.  Of course, if the installer did something very different based on the hardware, it would be an issue.  But, since we don't virtualize device drivers, this isn't something we see in practice.  As far as different OS versions go, customers typically capture the install on the lowest OS version they want to support and then stream the image to all OS versions.  From the application's perspective, it looks no different than if the app had been installed on the lower OS version and then it was upgraded to the new OS version. 

Also, about the virtual file system, does it only redirect the original installed files? Or does it also redirect newer files created by the user (settings, for example)?

It has to do both.  There is logic in the VFS to handle redirecting installation state and user state (i.e. settings).
#Feb 10th @ 9:51 AM
jsheehan
jsheehan
dumbnose
Interesting scenario.  I am always surprised with the number of ways people come up with to use this technology.  It is one of the things that makes it so fun to work on.

-John
#Feb 10th @ 10:16 PM
warren
warren
atom heart mother
Charles, I really dig this particular style of Channel 9 video, with the two cameras and showing the back & forth between you and John.   I imagine it's a bunch of extra work to get set up and to do editing etc. afterwards, but it works well and is very enjoyable to watch and listen to.
#Feb 11th @ 9:51 AM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change

Thanks for the feedback. You will see more of this quality (in this case a colleague of mine did the post production, Nic Fillingham - I don't have the editing chops yet), but also the traditional Charles-behind-the-camera ones...
C

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