For those who follow my blog, you know that I do astrophotography. A big part of astrophotography is automation. Each galaxy, planetary nebula or cluster photo I create is based on capturing 30-60 pictures. Each photo is assessed for quality and then only the best images are aligned, rotated and stacked.
I use multiple pieces of software that integrate nicely together that helps me make decisions on what images to keep and what to discard as well perform many of the tedious and time consuming tasks like aligning and stacking my images.
Finding ways to integrate multiple pieces of software together makes for an even more compelling solution.
Let’s look at another example: Integrating with Microsoft App-V.
XenApp and XenDesktop can publish App-V sequences to virtual desktops without the need for the Microsoft App-V infrastructure (Management Server, Publishing Server and database).
Citrix AppDNA can help an administrator determine if an application is compatible with App-V.
Citrix AppDNA can automatically create App-V sequences
As we saw in the previous AppDisk video, creating and delivering an application layer to a VDI or RDS host is extremely easy due to the integration with Citrix Studio management console.
Create, Install, Seal.
But after watching the intro video, you might be left wondering a few things like
What is app layering?
How does AppDisk leverage AppDNA?
How does AppDisk identify compatibility with an operating system
How does AppDisk determine application interoperability?
This is all accomplished via the tight integration with Citrix AppDNA, as this video shows.
Since the dawn of the personal computing era, we have struggled to manage and maintain our applications. And many decades later, things are much more difficult because we not only have to figure out how to deliver the app but we also have to identify if the app is compatible with the underlying operating system and if the app will interoperate, or play nicely, with other applications.
With the XenApp and XenDesktop 7.8 release, there is a new way to help manage applications: AppDisk.
Before I get into the details, I felt it would first be worthwhile to see how we create and deploy an AppDisk to different groups of users without modifying the operating system image.
As I said, this video is simply an introduction to AppDisk. Look out for more videos as we take a closer look at AppDisk technology and the many integrations it has with AppDNA.
I love seeing crazy comparisons and statistics, especially if it has anything to do with science
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
If laid out end-to-end, all DNA within your body would go from the Earth to Pluto and back to the Earth (too bad Pluto is not a planet anymore.)
Humans share 99% of their DNA with everyone else (makes the 7 degrees of separation game kind of pointless.)
If you could type 60 words per minute, eight hours a day, it would take approximately 50 years to type the human genome (Well, I can type 61 words per minute).
Humans have roughly 40-50% of the same DNA as cabbage (I don’t like cabbage, which means I don’t like 1/2 of me).
Back in 2001, it cost roughly $100,000,000 to map the genome, while in 2014 the cost dropped to around $6,000
By understanding the DNA, we can better understand how something works and how it interacts with other things. However, trying to map the DNA is not something you would ever think about doing manually, it would take a lifetime and be prone to many mistakes (plus it would be a pretty boring life). By understanding how something works and how it interacts, we can take preventative actions.
Apps (Hello, World)
There are roughly 200,000 lines of code in a pacemaker
The Space Shuttle contained 400,000 lines of code
The Hubble Space Telescope has 2,000,000 lines of code
While Microsoft Office 2001 had 25,000,000 lines of code, Office 2013 has grown up to 45,000,000 lines
Guess what has the same number of lines of code as Windows Vista? How about the Large Hadron Collider. Each with roughly 50,000,000 lines
And to top things off, it is reported that the United States healthcare.gov website has 500,000,000 lines.
As we all know, upgrading from Windows XP to 7 to 10, from Windows 2003, to 2008 to 2012, from Office 2010 to 2013 to 2016 is not something we do overnight. Just look at the amount of code that is involved in these things. We often spend months and years debating if we should upgrade and then how we should upgrade. We do this because it is not easy as we have a nagging fear that our applications might not work, and for good reason considering Windows 7 had 40 million lines of code. We’ve been bitten too many times by the compatibility bug, so we are willing to forego the added value of the latest releases because we don’t want to experience that nasty bite again.
This is why understanding your application’s DNA is so important. This is why there were a couple of sessions at Citrix Synergy 2015 that focused on AppDNA.
SYN232: Get the most out of AppDNA for app migrations and updates
SYN320: Never let me down again: the future of XenApp and XenDesktop upgrades
To get you started, we’ve put together the following video demonstrating what you can do with AppDNA
Therefore, my question for you is “Why haven’t you looked at AppDNA to help you with Windows upgrades, XenApp upgrades, application upgrades?”