Virtualization

I was told directly from a MS SG rep that this would be possible in the 4.5 release (2008) - we'll just all have to wait & see if they can pull it off.

It depends what you mean by 'communication'.. If you mean OLE, Copy and Paste etc then yes, they can communicate - if you mean 'integration', ie they can 'see' registry or file information, then BadShadd is correct in that you're gonna have to wait.. The latest date I have is actually 09!

It's interesting that there now seems to be differing information out about when inter-bubble (aka "context-support" in SoftGrid speak) feature is planned to be released.. Microsoft should really publish some sort of roadmaps regarding SoftGrid.

I sure hope tho that it's 4.5 instead of 5.0 or something like that. Previously it was supposed to be out by 4.1 (err, or even long before that as everyone with SoftGrid history will remember :-)) but then whole Microsoft thing happened and.. But it's very greatly needed feature indeed.

/Kalle

I was told by a Microsoft Softgrid guy that it's coming in 2009.

He also said it wouldn't be coming in 4.5.

OK - Either I had an optimistic salesman or I misunderstood the future of the SG releases (i.e. 4.1 SP1 to fix the Office 2007 virtualization issues, 4.2 will incorporate Vista certification, 4.5 ... , 5.0...) Oh well, it won't be addressed any time soon. ;^)

I got a roadmap first hand at MMS but they seem kinda secretive about it so I am not sure I can post anything too detailed without angering a few people. The context support is at least a year or more away. I would like it to happen sooner so maybe we should all complain publicly and show how badly we want this feature. [8D]

It isn't the end of the world but I would consider this to be one of my top wishes along with enterprise scalability. I was disappointed to not see a replication solution in the enterprise architecture session I was at. I know of sites running SQL replication but it is technically not going to be supported. All that really buys you is the ability to consolidate application usage to a central site and reduce the overhead associated with publishing an application across multiple sites. Again it isn't the end of the world but for the larger clients being able to consolidate that usage data into one report for the company does have some significant value.

Since I am complaining did I mention virtualization of fonts on terminal server? From what I know this is still broken.

Since I am complaining did I mention virtualization of fonts on terminal server? From what I know this is still broken.


Virtualization of fonts is not broken, it's just not supported ;-) On more serious note though, I wonder what reasoning lies behind the decision to not virtualize fonts on TS environment..? Can anyone with more TS knowledge suggest a good reason for this, performace related issues etc.?

i got a roadmap from our microsoft TAM. it looks like this:

4.2 - official vista support
4.5 (2008) - multi language support,...
5.0 (2009) - 64 bit support, context manager,...

although i have to admit, that multi language support is not really a lot of new features for a new version, so i guess we'll have to wait, if they try to integrate something from 5.0 already in 4.5.

The info I got for 4.5 said would have better scalability, security, performance and stability. I dunno why he mentioned stability because the platform is very stable IMO. But there were no details as to what that really meant.

Word on the street is Context Lite will be in 4.5. I believe you will be able to get certain inter-communication to happen. Full blown context support will not be until 5.0

HTH

The most recent answer Microsoft Provided was: F1 09. So it could be a while.

In the meantime all applications and their dependencies will need to be sequenced together.

Derek
http://www.softgridsolutions.com/

My implementations tend to follow the approach to leave very common middleware in the base and sequence applications that are task specific. So for example in the base you would find a .Net framework, C Runtime libraries, XML Parsers, Office, and an Oracle Client. You may add or remove stuff but basically you wind up with a core build that should be fairly stable for a non-virtual environment then all your business specific applications and some of their depenencies are delivered at a virtual layer. This helps reduce the number of sequences you have to patch when there is update which can be very time consuming with Office.

I don't think that inter bubble communication is a huge deal but would definately make SoftGrid more elegant from a design perspective when trying to achieve a pure virtual application environment. Having a select few set of common applications is a necessary compromise so that their isn't too much overhead when maintaining an environment and also prevents sequence sizes from getting out of control because an Oracle Client install can be as big as 330 meg! This is what every environment I have designed or supported has gone with so far but it would be nice to go as virtual as you can get.

Just in case you googled this thread version 4.5 of SoftGrid does have sequence to sequence communication feature.

Dynamic Suiting, enhanced virtual application interaction, is a new feature that will prove to be very useful in the near future. This will give secondary applications access to the Virtual Environment of the primary application. There is no communication restriction between two Virtual Environments. Dynamic Suiting is (easily) configured within the OSD file and the dependency is set with in the OSD file. Re-sequencing of applications is not necessary. Applications Sequenced with 4.2 can be used.
This feature is very useful for Middleware applications (JRE, Oracle, MDAC,..) or plug-ins like Microsoft Office plug-ins. The Microsoft Application Virtualization team worked closely with the Office team and tested 400+ plug-ins with the Dynamic Suiting functionality. Integration of two large applications like Microsoft Office and the Autodesk Suite is even possible (but is not yet a wise idea due to performance problems).
http://www.brianmadden.com/content/article/Microsoft-announces-Application-Virtualization-45
With regards, Ruben Spruijt