For more: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/softgrid/default.mspx
Past from:
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/softgrid/evaluation/virtualization.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/softgrid/solutions/continuity.mspx
Application Virtualization
Realize greater efficiency and responsiveness for software deployments and updates — with or without a network
Application virtualization is at the heart of SoftGrid. It decouples applications from the operating system and enables them to run as network services.
Application virtualization can be layered on top of other virtualization technologies – network, storage, machine – to create a fully virtual IT environment where all computing resources can be dynamically allocated in real-time based on real-time needs. This is called the SystemGuard™ virtual application environment.
SystemGuard enables each application to bring its own set of configurations and run within a protective run-time "sandbox" on the client, so there is no dependency or effect on the configuration of the machine running them. However, since applications execute locally, they run with full performance, functionality, and access to local services – including cut and paste, OLE, printing, network drives and attached devices. Standard Operating System Environment:
Under standard environments, applications install their settings onto the host operating system, hard-coding the entire system to fit that application's needs. Other applications' settings can be overwritten, causing them to malfunction or break.
Standard Operating System Environment: Under standard environments, applications install their settings onto the host operating system, hard-coding the entire system to fit that application's needs. Other applications' settings can be overwritten, causing them to malfunction or break.
The Virtual Application Environment: With application virtualization, each application brings down its own set of configurations on-demand, and executes in a way so that only it sees its own settings. This leaves the host operating system and existing settings unaltered.
Side-by-Side Virtualization: Each SoftGrid-enabled application brings down its own set of configurations and can run side-by-side without the settings conflicting with each other — or the host operating system. Despite this separation, inter-application communication with other SoftGrid applications and those installed locally is preserved, allowing for cut and paste, OLE, and all other standard operations.
To be clear, SoftGrid's application virtualization is different than machine virtualization (such as Microsoft Virtual Server), which virtualizes the machine on which the operating system (and applications) are installed. Machine virtualization provides an abstraction layer between the hardware and the operating system that's running on top of it. It also allows managing and simultaneously operating multiple environments on a single machine.
Application virtualization takes this concept and moves it up the logical stack. In fact, many customers, such as Fidelity National Financial, use both SoftGrid and machine virtualization to maximize server and IT management efficiencies. The abstraction layer created by SoftGrid lies between the operating system and the applications that run within it. By virtualizing all the aspects of an application, it doesn't affect the operating system or other applications running on that machine. The power of SoftGrid is that it allows applications to be delivered dynamically as services that can be added or removed without leaving a trail on the client system. This in turn reduces the total cost of deploying and maintaining applications and systems.
SystemGuard provides the most extensive virtualization on the market. In addition to virtualizing Windows Services, it virtualizes per user, per application instance, every critical application component including the Registry, file system, DLLs, COM/IPC, .INI files, process environment and fonts:
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Registry: SystemGuard creates a virtual Registry for each application. Registry settings created by one application cannot be seen by other applications — including Regedit. Rather than copying the entire Registry, SystemGuard's virtual registry utilizes an "overlay" method — items in the real registry may be read by the application as long as a virtual copy of that item is not available. All application writes to the Registry are contained within the virtual Registry.
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File System: SystemGuard also handles requests made by applications to files in specific directories by redirecting the requests. For example, if an application looks for a file located in a specific directory on the local C drive, SystemGuard can redirect any requests to the corresponding directory inside of its virtual file system. Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) specifically needed by the application are made available within SystemGuard, avoiding conflicts with different versions of the same DLL that may be installed locally. These components are shared and tracked inside of the Virtual File System.
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COM/IPC: SystemGuard enables programs to redirect communication requests through services such as COM/ DCOM or IPC methods such as Named Pipes. This alleviates versioning problems and other conflicts at these interfaces.
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.INI: SystemGuard allows each application or instance to have private settings within virtual copies of standard Windows .ini files.
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Process Environment: SystemGuard stores private environment variables — including paths, port values and addresses.
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Fonts: Installation of fonts can consume valuable resources as they are done on a machine-wide basis. SystemGuard can make fonts available individually on a per-application basis.
SoftGrid's application virtualization can work in concert with other virtualization technologies – including machine virtualization – as part of a comprehensive utility computing solution.
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Build Business Continuity for Applications
By virtualizing applications, SoftGrid turns applications into data files. As a result, these virtualized applications can be treated — and replicated — just like data, making them much easier to manage.
Data isn't the only thing that suffers when you have a major outage. Applications are also impacted: end users are offline and productivity is severely hampered.
What if you could have users log into any computer and access their full desktop with the same locally running applications they had at their original location? This is a reality for organizations that build Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization into their disaster recovery plans.
Normally, rebuilding user systems is a complicated process that can take anywhere from a few hours to several days. Much time is spent customizing your company's core image to user, including installing user-specific applications and recreating the user's application preferences.
SoftGrid, on the other hand, virtualizes application, turning them into data files that can be treated – and replicated – just like data, making them much easier to manage:
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Applications can be kept up-to-date between live sites and back-up sites by automatically replicating virtualized applications files on the live sites' SoftGrid servers with the SoftGrid servers at the back-up site (using third-party tools).
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If administrators configure SoftGrid user profiles to persist on the network, all user-specific application preferences can also easily be replicated to a back-up site.
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SoftGrid separates the state of user interactions from the application's own state. This ensures user application profiles are consistent and easy to restore in case of application or hardware failures.
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Application check-pointing lets you periodically take the "preferred state" of applications – including all user preferences and application states – and easily back up and restore the application and state at a later time.
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This provides dramatic time savings; the alternative is to install applications to each terminal server and desktop at the back-up site each time a change is made at the live site. It also reduces end-user downtime to minutes instead of hours or days.
Desktop Recovery
This same capability also impacts day-to-day operations and recovering users from desktop failures. With SoftGrid, a user can simply sit down at a new desktop with just a core image loaded and upon logon, receive all the icons for their personalized applications. When the user clicks on an application icon, the software is brought down from the network on demand. The user's application preferences can automatically propagate to the new system, greatly reducing the amount of time the user and administrator spend on the rebuild.
