Welcome to Server Application Virtualization

Easy as pie. Like taking candy from a baby. A walk in the park. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

You hear those phrases all the time. But how often do you hear them applied to installing server applications in a datacenter? Sure, maybe you have some web app that’s easy to set up, but I’m talking about multi-tier, 300-page-runbook, 17-DVDs-inserted-in-the-correct-order server apps. Applications that take days to install, and help from 11 different vendors to get right.

Our mission is to change that. Microsoft Server Application Virtualization [Server App-V] is designed to dramatically simplify deploying and managing applications in the datacenter. We give you the ability to package an app up and move it around like a single file, with its state kept separate from any machine it runs on so it remains portable. Combine this with System Center Virtual Machine Manager and you have a solution that lets you build out complex services in no time.

How do we do it? That’s a little too much for a single blog post, but stay tuned and we will tell you. We’ll use this blog to share product news, talk about features, and give you tips and tricks to get the most out of Server App-V.

Our whole team of engineers is lined up waiting to contribute content to this blog. We’ve been working on Server App-V for quite a while. Now that it’s been announced at MMS 2011, we have a lot to share. We’ll start with deep dives into our core functionality, and we’ll spice it up with walk-throughs showing how we sequenced different apps.

So what’s on your schedule this week? Got a big app to deploy? A reconfiguration you’ve been dreading? Stick around and before you know it, you’ll be heading home from work early on a Friday, leaving your datacenter happily humming along and thinking to yourself, “Wow, that was as easy as pie.”

Eric Jewart, Principal Development Lead, Server App-V

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  @Colin: Server App-V apps still run in a bubble, like they do on the desktop, but we've greatly reduced the amount of isolation the bubble provides. For example, NT services that are part of a virtual package are registered with the local Service Control Manager, so the SCM can start services that are supposed to start up automatically when the system starts. Users don't have to click documents or shortcuts to launch server apps, since that's not generally how server apps get launched. Thanks for this question--it's an interesting one, and I will write up a more detailed post in the near future about isolation and state separation and what we've done with Server App-V that's a little different from the desktop App-V product.

• Anonymous
  March 28, 2011
  How does the technology in this relate to the desktop app-v 'bubble' concept.  With the app-v desktop you need an user to click on an FTA or shortcut to 'open' the 'bubble'.  Does this move away from this concept and adopt a similar approach to your competitors of using virtual 'layers' instead?