For Fall 2009, Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) will introduce a new method of serving software and applications to its customers. Most of you are familiar with the “CAE Applications” menu on your desktop computer. While the existing Novell-provided solution has served as well in past years, advancements in “application virtualization” will allow us to provide even more applications with a level of performance and customization that is not available with our current system.

Virtualization is currently one of the hottest trends in the IT industry. To reduce costs and streamline management, IT departments have begun to virtualize everything from servers to desktops. Microsoft has taken this one step further with its Application Virtualization (App-V) technology.

With App-V, applications do not need to be installed on the client computer. Instead, they are dynamically streamed and run in their own virtual environment. All that is needed is a small client installed on each workstation. This client can be rolled out en masse through Active Directory or included in the original desktop image. By running applications in a virtual environment, App-V avoids DLL conflicts as well as incompatibilities between legacy software and newer versions of Windows. It also allows multiple versions of an application (e.g. Office 2007, Office 2003, and Office XP) to be run on the same workstation.

App-V also solves a common security conundrum while improving ease of administration. Since the application software is not installed on the end user’s computer, App-V sidesteps the need for local users to have administrator rights or for an IT support person to individually log in and run the setup routine for a needed application. Furthermore, App-V applications leave no permanent changes to the file system or Windows registry.

In most cases, App-V’s virtual applications are deployed using a centralized management server. In this configuration, applications are deployed based on a user’s group membership in Active Directory. The centralized server also allows us to control licensing as well as generate usage reports. IT departments not leveraging AD can still use App-V by packaging applications with an MSI file or by streaming them from a file or web server.

The familiar CAE Applications menu will be supplanted with a “Course Software” menu in the CAE labs. The CAE Applications menu will remain available until all software and applications have been moved to the App-V system at which point it will be removed. Non-lab computers will also get a new menu item specifically created for their needs. CAE will be working with departmental support folks to help integrate the new system appropriately in departments.