Microsoft Application Virtualization - App-V

Microsoft Application Virtualization also known as App-V is an application virtualization and application streaming solution from Microsoft.

Let me admit at the outset my ignorance on this subject. I know enough about it to be really dangerous, but here goes.

Microsoft Application Virtualization (MS App-V) platform allows applications to be deployed in real-time to any client from a virtual application server. It removes the need for local installation of the applications.

Instead, only the App-v client needs to be installed on the client machines. All application data is permanently stored on the virtual application server. Whichever software is needed is either streamed or locally cached from the application server on demand and run locally.

MS App-V thus allows centralized installation and management of deployed applications. It supports policy based access control; administrators can define and restrict access to the applications by certain users by defining policies governing the usage.

App-V also allows copy of the applications across multiple application servers for better scalability and fault tolerance, and also features a tracking interface to track the usage of the virtualized application.

The App-V client presents the user with a list of applications, to which the user has access. The user can then launch a virtualized instance of the application.

Depending on the configuration, the systems administrator can be either notified of the action via email or it can require an explicit confirmation from the administrator for the application to start streaming and initialize or it can just simply check the Active Directory for the user's rights and stream the application to the user if it is authorized to run the application.

Thanks to Greg Jackson (Associate Vice President - Computer Services) and a Developer from Dell Computers, the proof of concept was demonstrated for App-V. This should allow for greater efficiencies in Deployment of Applications, and some good Cost Savings.