Application Readiness

Desktop Transformation Lessons Learned – Business Case, Part 3

By Greg LaVigne

I have a few final perspectives to share related to Desktop Transformation business case development.   Previously, I discussed the merits of performing a detailed use case analysis as well as application rationalization exercises early on so the findings and recommendations can be used as a part of the business case development. I then outlined using an investment perspective as opposed to simply a cost savings approach. Here are a few more ideas for you to consider:

• Be broad in your thinking and discussion. Desktop Transformation can include many different pieces and parts. In putting together the business case understand which components will comprise your overall implementation at the end of the day, so that they ALL can be included in the discussion up front. 
• Be sure to use the “program” umbrella perspective as opposed to a single “project”. The reality is with all the moving parts and components, you’ll be dealing with many different projects, each with their own “waves” or phases of implementation.
• Often times, I hear about organizations that focus on gaining budgetary approval for a traditional VDI POC implementation project or a separate thin client adoption initiative. Then perhaps pursue a third business case approval for an application virtualization implementation for the existing managed PC fleet. A true Desktop Transformation vision includes the integration of many of these technology options. In providing the flexibility your end users want and will get once they migrate to your solution, they’ll continue to ask for more. This will result in additional hybrid technology scenarios down the road. You’ll want to understand (to the degree possible) what some of those will be and which ones you may allow or facilitate. While I understand the need to keep scope narrow for the idea of keeping a potential expenditure number more palatable, the reality is you’re not representing the entire vision.
• This becomes important as some of the components are not an easy sell by themselves. Take User Profile Virtualization or management solutions. These solutions can all be very costly to acquire and implement. Often times, this cost gets chopped off because lower cost (dare I suggest “free”), targeted solutions can be used. Such an example of this is Citrix Profile Manager. It’s hard to compete with “included as free” and it works for a XenApp implementation quite well. However, when you start moving beyond XenApp into VDI, or App Virtualization and/or the remaining physical PC space, the limitations of that solution become obvious. This means an investment in a more robust tool.

At the end of the day, these pieces are the ones that will provide the flexibility your users will demand in the bold new world. But, they can also add significant cost and can be tough to gain budgetary approval for on their own. When you lay your end of day vision out, you’ll want to discuss these uses cases to show the need and the value up front so that the investment rationale becomes clear….and ultimately you gain alignment to your vision and approval for your requested Desktop Transformation program budget.

Next time, I’ll get into some of the planning aspects for laying out your Desktop Transformation journey.  In the meantime, do these business case perspectives resonate with you? What technology components did you find to be the toughest “sell”? What approaches worked for you and what didn’t?

Windows XP Support End Looms – Automation Eases Windows 7 Migration

By Randy Littleson

Companies of all sizes have one eye on the clock ticking down to the end of Windows XP support.  Numbers vary on the percentage of corporations and desktops that have been migrated to Windows 7 (we are not seeing many migrating to Windows 8), but all numbers point to a large number of companies that have yet to finish.  It’s a pretty safe bet that the overwhelming majority of companies that are not finished are at some point in their project to get there.

No matter where you’re at in the planning or execution stages of your Windows 7 migration, you will clearly benefit from automation of the Application Readiness process.  As the clock ticks down, you may think that an option is to outsource the management of application preparedness to a third party in an effort to get done by the deadline by “throwing bodies at the problem.”  As is typically the case in such situations, you may succeed with this, but you’ve really just put a band aid over the core issue that will come back to bite you later.  What you won’t be achieving by going this route is establishing/improving your overall Application Readiness processes, systems and tools critical to dealing with future changes (and keep in mind that industry data shows that 30% of applications change each year and need to go through this process).   Future changes are likely to include moving to Microsoft System Center 2012 or standardizing on application virtualization delivery models.

Since the big Windows 7 migration projects began over 3 years ago, Application Readiness solutions to manage application migrations have emerged and matured substantially, evolving from tactical tools to integrated solutions that are highly functional for day-to-day packaging tasks but also highly scalable for mass application migration projects.  And, they are field proven to work—saving you time and increasing the success rate of application migration projects.

While focusing on applications is a critical component of your Windows 7 migration you can’t forget about your users.  The massive time and effort of manually scheduling deployment to users can be a large project.  New solutions have emerged in this area as well.  App Stores not only allow you to deliver new apps to users but can also be used by IT and end users to manage and schedule OS Deployments in a way that minimizes mass help desk calls and network traffic, allows IT to have a controlled deployment and gives end users control over when their machines will be updated

You can complete your Windows 7 projects by the XP deadline, but you need to leverage advancements in automation for these critical areas: 

• Assessing application compatibility status
• Remediating issues
• Publishing fixed applications to your deployment solution
• Scheduling deployments with users

Be sure any solution you select has the following critical capabilities:

• Proven and reliable in many successful Windows 7 migrations, application virtualization projects and day-to-day application packaging
• Allows you to implement best practice MSI and application packaging standards at the same time you are assessing and preparing applications for Windows 7 deployment
• Ability to deploy back to System Center with the new user-centric Application Model fully populated
• Fully integrated with an App Store so that once you are ready to update users for Windows 7 – you can easily provide self-service scheduling
• An automation layer that not only reduces the manual tasks – but one that supports the automation techniques and tools that you already know – like PowerShell

Thousands of companies have used proven Application Readiness solutions to successfully migrate to Windows 7 while at the same time establishing a competency in managing application preparedness on an ongoing basis.  You can implement new standards and practices to enable a continuous Application Readiness process so that as you are filling day-to-day application requests you are ensuring your entire application estate is always ready for the next change.

App Store Essentials: Using Your App Store to Help Optimize Software Spend

By Laura Noonan

In many companies, more than one third of total IT spend goes toward software licenses, so it’s no wonder that IT executives are looking for effective ways to optimize software license usage and minimize software spend. Consequently, an important goal within IT is to establish a comprehensive Software License Optimization process that aggregates, normalizes and reconciles software inventory, purchase order, usage data, license entitlement, product use rights and other information from enterprise business systems and determines an accurate license position.

Your enterprise app store can be an integral part of your overall Software License Optimization program by helping you eliminate the waste that occurs when software that is installed on user machines sits idle.

The good news is that an enterprise app store with the right feature set can help you track down unused software and then reclaim the associated licenses. The benefit: You spend less on software because you don’t buy additional licenses unless all the software you own is actually being used. Two features in particular are instrumental in helping you do this: license reclamation and software leasing.

Let’s start with license reclamation. Here’s how this feature helps:

• License reclamation leverages installation and usage data to automatically identify software that is deployed but unused. Usually the organization specifies a period of time in which the software is unused, for instance 90 days, after which the software becomes a candidate for reclamation.
• Your app store should include the ability to conduct automated email campaigns, so you can engage users in the reclamation process by sending a message that offers the option of keeping an application or surrendering it.
• If the users opt to surrender the application, the app store then triggers a de-install of the application through your software deployment tool. The software license management tool will detect the removal of the software at the next inventory collection and add the license back to the available pool.
• Effective license reclamation campaigns track user responses for you and provide full visibility into results, including how many users did and did not respond, the percentage of users who opted to keep or surrender the software and the users' justification for keeping software.

Now let’s look at software leasing. Leasing is particularly useful in project-based environments where application needs change as employees move from one project to another as well as in environments in which contractors are brought in to perform specific functions for a period of time. Here’s how leasing helps:

• Leasing gives users access to an app for a limited period of time, after which the license is reclaimed automatically unless the user extends the lease.
• An effective leasing capability gives you the flexibility to set a maximum lease time and a default lease time based on the needs of your business.
• When a lease is about to expire, it’s important to have an automatic notification capability so users aren’t caught off guard and they can extend the lease if necessary.

As you can see, license reclamation and software leasing options give you a real edge in optimizing usage and spend. Some companies report that they were able to recoup nine times the acquisition cost of the app store solution within six months simply by using license reclamation capabilities.

Read the next blog in the App Store Essentials series, “Connecting Your App Store to IT Service Management Systems,” to find out how integrating your app store with solutions such as BMC Remedy, ServiceNow and Microsoft Service Manager brings the app store into your service management processes to ensure that software delivery complies with corporate policies and external regulations.

For more information about implementing a successful enterprise app store and unifying the software request, application packaging, deployment and license management processes, read Creating a Well-Stocked, Well-Managed Enterprise App Store white paper.

Desktop Transformation Lessons Learned – Business Case, Part 2

By Greg LaVigne

In my previous post we discussed the concept and value of leveraging third party user analysis tools and application rationalization tools. These tools are invaluable for identifying which users are viable candidates for Desktop Virtualization based on their actual day-to-day PC utilization metrics as well as which applications are actively being used (vs. just installed!!). Often times these tools are explored after the virtualization infrastructure has been provisioned for further insight into the legacy physical PC environment to better understand the reasons for the lower than expected adoption rates.

My recommendation is to perform this analysis up front and early on and leverage those findings as a part of the business case development. In doing so, organizations will understand who their target users are, the amount of infrastructure to build out, the number of applications that will need to be remediated and packaged, the application preparation effort and finally, what’s required to migrate users when the time comes. All of these factors are key components of a Desktop Transformation business case to accurately level set expectations with leadership. And as an added bonus, you’ll be well on your way to building out your rollout schedule when the time comes.

Lesson #1:  Business Case Analysis (Part 2)

As you all have heard, Desktop Virtualization is not a cheap undertaking. Infrastructure expense around servers and storage along with licensing around the VDI solution and Windows is significant. When you add in the resource time, both the IT staff and possible third party assistance, to build out this infrastructure, the costs become even more elevated. 

It’s imperative to understand the goals your organization is looking to achieve on this journey. Very few organizations have reported that they have saved significant OpEx budget dollars post implementation. Therefore, Desktop Transformation should be looked at from an investment perspective as opposed to cost savings, as you are investing in your end users future.

Organizations that understand Desktop Transformation will result in many “soft” benefits will be in a better place miles into their journey as opposed to those who are simply looking to reduce desktop related expense. Can anyone realistically quantify how many hard dollars are saved by empowering end users to do their work anywhere, from any device, at any time?  That’s the Desktop Transformation vision.

Understand that there is inherent value in pulling data off of managed laptops that may get lost or stolen by moving that data into the confines of the secure data center. Understand that improving speed to market of applications through application virtualization delivery aids in productivity to end users and ultimately your business. Understand that end users like being able to use their own personal tablets of choice in the workplace. 

Desktop Transformation does add cost and complexity for IT, but when the partnership and proper perspective is built up front with the business, the vision and success can be achieved.

Next time, I’ll wrap up the business case aspects to consider. Meanwhile, I encourage you to share your stories around your early buy in conversations around desktop and related virtualization technologies.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a hot topic

By Randy Littleson

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is in the news a lot right now. There’s this article “VMware CEO flags VDI adoption barriers” where he claims storage costs derail VDI projects. There’s this video “Steve O’Donnell & Brian Madden – why VDI projects fail” that broadly discusses the source of failures and recommendations to succeed. And then on a more promising note are these articles: “Is Microsoft set to add hosted VDI to Azure?” and “Accelerating your BYOD strategy with VDI.”

There’s a lot of momentum behind VDI today, but it also can’t seem to get out from under the cloud of past failures? Why all the failures? There are many reasons, but one key one that sticks out is the faulty notion that VDI can be universally deployed to large groups of disparate desktops and user communities. Like so many technologies, VDI is good in some situations and bad in others, but too many early projects took the approach that VDI should be used more broadly. This is not surprising in that in some respects this followed the “standard image” for desktops mindset that has dominated thinking for years. 

But, as IT moves to a more user-centric computing model and looks to leverage new technologies like VDI, the mindset needs to shift to selectively utilizing the technology only where it makes sense. And, where it makes sense needs to be based on facts and data after analyzing user communities that have common usage patterns. Doing a virtual desktop assessment to analyze this data must be a part of the planning process to make informed, fact-based decisions on who to consider leveraging VDI with. Once this is done, the articles above offer a host of other great insights on best practices to ensure a successful virtual desktop infrastructure deployment.

Lessons Learned on the Journey to Successful Desktop Transformation

By Greg LaVigne

As the Client Computing/Desktop Architect of a Fortune 100 financial services company, I spearheaded a 5+ year journey to the next generation desktop and application delivery technologies. Our desktop transformation path included technologies such as Virtualized Desktops (both VDI based and RDS), Application Virtualization, User Profile Virtualization, Thin Clients, Windows 7 then mixed in BYOD with home PC’s and iPads to name a few. To summarize, if it was out there, we were reviewing it and most likely incorporated it into our eventual solution set.

This is the first of a series of postings where I’m going to share what worked well, and what maybe not so much. What I can tell you is that we enjoyed many successes, with “success” being measured by end user satisfaction, but there were trials and tribulations getting there. My hope is that these shared lessons can start a dialog while providing guidance for your journeys.

Lesson #1:  Business Case Analysis (Part 1)

Like any well thought out IT project that is considered for pursuit, a detailed business case and/or ROI analysis should be undertaken in order to be shared and ultimately gain leadership approval. In some cases, outside consultants or vendors may be brought in to assist with its development. Whether you build it yourself or gain outside assistance, be sure to be true to your environment. 

Two areas I would urge organizations to invest in up front, even during the business case development process, are use case analysis and application rationalization. The reality is that most organizations, even the most tightly managed and locked down, don’t understand their user bases and resultant use cases to the degree they should. During business case development, it’s easy to say there is simply a marketing use case and we’ll lump everyone together for financial modeling purposes. Not only will every marketing department user take offense to this approach (as they all bring their own uniqueness to the party), it’s simply not true. The point is there is a balance and be extra diligent in trying to summarize them for financial modeling purposes. Tools such as Flexera Software’s Virtual Desktop Assessment can assist in bringing this insight into the conversation and are easily implemented.

As for application rationalization, the same holds true. With today’s system management solutions such as SCCM, a detailed inventory of installed applications can be identified. While this information is often used, it doesn’t tell the full story of which apps are actually being used. Understanding there is a significant difference between what’s installed vs. what a user actually uses is big. This delta exacerbates itself when decisions are being made around how an app is going to be delivered (streamed vs. virtualized vs. locally packaged and installed), and the associated efforts that it will take to make it deliverable. Take the time up front to develop a true master application list that has been properly rationalized.

Next time I’ll get into a few other aspects of the business case development to consider. I’m curious to know what aspects of your business case development approach were unique or unexpected, so please share them. 

App Store Essentials: Leveraging Software Asset Data to Achieve Continuous License Compliance

By Laura Noonan

What comes to the business user’s mind when asked about the enterprise app store concept? An easy-to-browse online catalog. A shopping experience similar to Apple’s App Store or Google Play. Hassle-free and near-immediate delivery of apps.

But as an IT professional, what comes to your mind? Making sure every app is licensed properly and used in compliance with contract license terms. Using the enterprise investment in software wisely. Optimizing software spend while minimizing costs. These objectives aren’t always easy to achieve depending on the size and complexity of the IT environment and considering the variety and intricacies of software license models.

Fortunately, you can build an enterprise app store that meets user expectations and needs while also controlling costs and minimizing license compliance risks. Data is the key. A truly successful app store has access to comprehensive, detailed and up-to-date data on all software assets. Data makes it possible to handle software request, approval and fulfillment processes appropriately and automatically.

But where does the data come from? Gartner, Inc., recommends getting it by integrating the enterprise app store with internal software asset management and IT procurement systems. (Source: “Enterprise App Stores Reduce Risk and Improve Business Results,” Ian Finley, Gartner, 1 February 2012). With this kind of integration, your app store can ensure license compliance while keeping software costs under control.

So, what kind of data should your app store obtain from your software asset management and procurement systems? Here are some examples:

• Software asset data, including what and how many assets of each version and edition you own, how many are installed, where and on what devices, and the number of available licenses
• Metering data to identify which software installations are being used and which are not
• User data, such as user roles and access privileges as defined in Active Directory

When you make this kind of data available to your enterprise app store, you can accomplish much more than merely giving people convenient access to applications. This data powers your app store with the ability to address a variety of key IT needs such as:

• Checking license availability in real time and reserving a license at the time of the user request, if a license is available, or kicking off the procurement process to purchase additional licenses when they are needed
• Routing requests automatically for approval based on asset and user data, leveraging best-practice processes to minimize the risk of noncompliance with license contract terms
• Identifying applications that are installed but not being used and reclaiming them to optimize usage and avoid costly overbuying

Asset data makes all of this and much more possible. In the next blog in our App Store Essentials series, “Using Your App Store to Optimize Software Licenses,” we’ll offer guidance on how you can use features such as license reclamation and software leasing to optimize software usage and software spend. 

 

DevOps and Application Readiness

By Steve Schmidt

DevOps has become an increasingly hot topic. It was covered in the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2013 keynote as well as in a variety of sessions at that event, and has been in the news with recent acquisitions made by IBM and CA, and earlier acquisitions by BMC.

DevOps is a general concept, defined as:

DevOps is a software development method that stresses communication, collaboration and integration between software developers and information technology (IT) professionals. DevOps is a response to the interdependence of software development and IT operations. It aims to help an organization rapidly produce software products and services. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps 

At MMS, DevOps was described as an approach intended to solve the problems caused by some developers and operations people having different focus areas, and “a clear conflict of interests on many occasions”, as seen below…

Source: Microsoft MMS 2013

One example of a DevOps solution, demonstrated by Microsoft, was the ability for errors in deployed applications to be isolated by IT administrators and for tasks to be automatically assigned to developers upstream, right inside the Visual Studio interface.

Another example of DevOps solutions can be seen in the Application Release Automation market, where products are designed to enable web/cloud app developers to define new server app and middleware configurations for deployments. In this instance, operations personnel can review and edit these configurations, and the updates can be automatically deployed and tracked by both groups as part of a workflow.

Returning to the broader definition, the DevOps concepts are highly relevant to system administrators who are assessing and repackaging applications for deployment, whether they are server or client-based. They need to clearly see application components, dependencies, limitations, and configurable options, and be able to make required changes to create the best fit within their environment. They can be assisted in this by having the information delivered in a useful way by the developer of the applications, even if they never interact directly with the developers. 

According to Gartner, DevOps principles include:

• Separate code from configuration (recognize that both are equally important artifacts)
• Instrument pervasively (be able to detect trends as quickly as possible)

Solutions should enable both application developers and operations/system admins to create this type of configuration and instrumentation data, access it and update it. This should span all the formats that the application takes, whether traditional or virtualized. Using technology and formats that are common across the developer and operations/system administrator groups will aid in this effort.    

A final thought…most of the discussion around DevOps today refers to internally developed apps, where both the developers and operations personnel are in the same company. They are in the best position to communicate and work more collaboratively. The same concepts can apply, though, when one of the two parties is an outsourced organization. The organizational boundaries may add some challenges, but a similar set of DevOps benefits exist. The concepts can even be applied in the vendor to customer relationship, with the potential to impact the whole software market.

 

Mobile, Modern Apps and Macs: We’re not in MSI land anymore Toto!

By Logan Hutchinson

I’m often asked these question by concerned IT Managers and Administrators: “How do I manage mobile apps?” followed by “I’m approving a boatload of Macs every week, but have no idea where they are going.” or “How can I deploy mobile apps?” and “How do I test compatibility, and do I need to?”    

These are all valid concerns. The proliferation of Macs throughout the Enterprise is a direct result of the exponentially growing demand for mobile apps, be it smartphone or tablet. In the case of iOS, the only way to build these apps is through Xcode, an IDE developed exclusively for iOS and OSX apps that only runs on the OSX Operating System. This leaves most IT Admins in a quandary. They now have laptops and apps proliferating the organization that are not under management, or being tested in a common Application Readiness process.     

This raises new questions with regards to application readiness. What form factor is the target device? What OS does it support? What hardware on the device is it dependent up (front facing camera, accelerometer, display type, etc.)

IT Admins now rely on the software developers to package everything correctly, for both Line of Business (LOB) and store apps, which goes against everything that has been done in packaging for the last decade or so.  

The good news is that there are currently many tools that can help IT wade through these new mobile waters. The Casper Suite from Jamf Software is the de-facto standard for managing Macs in the Enterprise, and Microsoft Config Manager 2012 SP1 supports side loading of .appx (Windows Modern Apps) and .ipa (iOS apps) files. It also supports Mac app management.  

There are also a slew of startups and established organizations that have emerged in the Mobile Device Management (MDM) space including Citrix XenMobile, MobileIron, and Airwatch. These companies are certified Apple partners and have special permissions to get access to the MDM stack built into each iOS device, offering advanced functionality that is not publically available. I have personally seen many of the management interfaces for these tools and they are really good for offering full control to the IT Admin to push Line of Business (LOB) apps to a device, send app store deep links to a user for Store downloads, and manage volume purchasing from an App Store all while enabling IT to maintain the control they need for management and compliance. Developers can also embed MDM API’s on a public App Store app for management within the Enterprise. Through deep links, users can download apps from the store and IT can maintain full control over the app to protect corporate data. This includes things like disabling copy/paste on a corporate app, or not allowing printing of corporate documents outside the firewall.     

In summary, mobile apps, modern apps and Macs bring a whole new dimension to the packaging and deployment ecosystem. IT managers should be prepared to support these new app types and formats. It will mean learning new things outside the traditional MSI and application virtualization landscape, but it’s the path down which we are headed.  

 

App Store Essentials: Keeping Apps Ready for Intelligent, User-centric Deployment

By Laura Noonan

When you launch your enterprise app store, your users are likely to be full of enthusiasm. But that initial enthusiasm will only take you so far. If you want to ensure that the app-store-at-work concept succeeds in your enterprise, you have to offer a wide selection of applications that are available for fast, easy deployment. In fact, independent research firm Gartner, Inc., says that “application selection is just as important as the store mechanism itself.” (“Enterprise App Stores Reduce Risk and Improve Business Results,” Gartner, February 2012)

But how do you go about keeping your digital shelves stocked with apps that are ready for deployment? The best way is to tightly integrate the app store with your application readiness process so you can automate the publication of apps to your App Store catalog and the hand-off of apps for delivery by an enterprise deployment tool such as Systems Center 2012 Configuration Manager (SCCM).

Here are a few of the ways that integration of the app store with your application readiness processes can benefit your enterprise:

1. Creating a wide selection of deployment-ready apps. The process starts with repackaging applications using a solution that includes automated application compatibility testing and packaging for a variety deployment scenarios —physical and virtual, as well as application-centric and user-centric deployment models. The job will be easier if you have a single solution capable of handling multiple deployment types and formats.
2. Adding current apps to the app store catalog. One of the steps in preparing your app store for launch is adding apps to the online catalog. Your app store solution should automate this task so you don’t have to spend time creating catalog items manually.
3. Keeping the app store catalog up to date. As you acquire new apps, the apps are automatically added as items to the app store catalog at the same time they are handed off to your deployment system. As a result, there is no delay in making the apps available for request by employees.
4. Managing request and fulfillment. If you have the right kind of integration with your enterprise deployment system, you can define policies and relationship rules to evaluate user identity, application dependencies, device type and network connection so that each application is delivered to the user’s device of choice in the most appropriate way.

The bottom line is that integrating your app store into your application readiness process delivers many benefits, including greater choice and easier application access for users and greater efficiency for IT through the implementation of best practices.

The next blog in our App Store Essentials series, “Leveraging Software Asset Data to Achieve Continuous License Compliance,” we’ll provide guidance on how you can leverage software asset data — for example, how many licenses you own, how many are in use and how many are available — to help you maintain compliance with software license terms.