Have you experienced this before? You need an application to help you with a project. You ask your manager if you can purchase the software and you get approval.  You go out and buy the software and install it onto your desktop and away you go to do your job.

This is a common situation, one I’ve done myself on many occasions. These applications make up the non-IT delivered application set of every organization, and it is a massive list.  This happens over and over again in every organization and in every department. So when you hear organizations say they have 10,000 or 20,000 applications, they are likely not exaggerating.  Out of that massive list, only 500-1,000 of those applications are IT-managed.

This brings about the main challenge with desktop virtualization, how do you deal with the non-IT delivered applications? With Citrix XenDesktop, if you use the recommended strategy of a single image for many users you lose the ability to install the application into the virtual desktop and have it persist across reboots.   This is a major issue that must be dealt with or users will not accept the virtual desktop.

First, you need an application assessment. You have a few options.

• Entire site assessment: By using a tool or doing a manual assessment you can get a list of applications deployed throughout the organization.  This will give you the data points, but the amount of data might be overwhelming. Imagine looking at a list of 20,000 applications. How do you even start determining your optimal solution.  This is information overload
• Department-by-Department assessment: By focusing at the departmental level, you get a better grasp of the applications without being overwhelmed from the start.  .  If you focus at a departmental or group level, your application list should be more manageable.
• Survey: Leave it up to the departments to create a list of what their users NEED to effectively do their job and not what they HAVE.  Many of the applications are outdated and unused.  By identifying what is needed, the number of applications can be better managed.

Regardless of the approach taken, the following is needed for each application:

1. User
2. Application
3. Dependencies
4. Mobility requirements

Second, it’s time for layoffs but this time we need to layoff applications.  If you ask your users what applications they have installed, they will miss most of them.  In fact, many of the applications installed on a typical desktop are not needed anymore.  By laying off applications, we can start to get control of our application set and give our IT organizations an opportunity to succeed.

Third, develop an application delivery strategy.  We can either install, host or stream.  Do you need all three? Potentially.  The point to remember is you need to be flexible. Certain strategies will work better in certain situations.   Think about it this way.

• Certain applications will be used by 100% of your users.  These applications are best served by installing into the virtual desktop image. Why add another process (streaming/hosting) for an application that will be used by everyone, everyday?
• Certain applications have such a massive memory footprint. Executing the application within a virtual desktop will result in massive amounts of RAM being consumed.  However, if that application were hosted on XenApp, those DLLs and EXEs could be shared between users, thus reducing the overall memory footprint required.
• Certain applications are used by a small group of users (1-2% of users).  These applications might best be served via the hosting model on XenApp or via application streaming into the virtual desktop.
• Certain applications go through constant updates (daily/weekly).  It would appear to be easier to use a single application image that can be distributed to any device when needed. Instead of maintaining hundreds/thousands of installations, the single package model would appear to be easier.

The point of all of this is if you going to be successful, you must have a strategy for delivering the applications into the virtual desktop.  The strategy is also dependent on how well your IT group can service the user requests for all of these applications.  If it is just not possible, your other alternative is to go down the Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) route.

In the BYOC model, my physical desktop is maintained and managed by myself.  I’m not part of the domain nor do I call support when I have an issue, I do it myself.  This also means that the non-IT delivered applications are installed on my own personal desktop.  So far, this model has worked for me but I’m a savvy user and know how to fix a lot of issues I run into to. This approach might be more difficult for those not used to self-supporting.  But if a user installed their own applications, then technically they are already self-supporting their non-IT delivered applications.

Remember, the desktop is the easy part.  Spend your time looking at your application set and remember the following:

1. Application Assessment
2. Application Layoffs
3. Application Delivery Strategy
   

What other application characteristics have you seen that would help determine your application delivery strategy?