The benefits of software virtualisation

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Softricity also uses both isolation and streaming. The company's Softgrid technology holds application files on the server, again packaged with an isolating layer using a sequencing system that readies existing software for virtualisation. The applications are isolated from the operating system, but unlike Thinstall's system, there is a server software component to Softgrid. Packaged applications are held on a central server, and when an application is selected, the server software streams just the components necessary to meet the users' immediate needs. Components of the software are cached locally on the target machine, meaning that when the user boots up next time, there will be less of a wait to start using the software.

"If you have Powerpoint in your machine and you double clicked on it, only 15-20% of it goes into memory. So with streaming, it's similar. As you use more of the application, more comes down and is cached locally.", says David Greschler, director of Microsoft SoftGrid marketing.

Softricity has one big advantage over its competitors: Microsoft. The company was already able to tie its software closely into Microsoft's Systems Management Server (SMS) application distribution and management product, enabling the use of virtualised applications to be tightly controlled by the management software. Microsoft has now bought Softricity, which according to Greschler means that Softgrid will now be available as a module of System s Management Server, which Microsoft is rebranding under its new System Centre label.

Softricity also received a pricing boost when Microsoft purchased it. It plummeted from $200 per seat to just $30. That's a sign of the product's strategic importance to customers, suggest analysts. "Microsoft is about to release a new operating system and wants to see as many organisations migrating to that as possible," points out Gartner's Gammage. "They're using machine-level virtualisation as a lubricant for applications not ready to migrate. But there are other applications that might create application conflicts. For those, this application virtualisation approach with a single container for each will provide a ready solution."

New entrants to the virtual market

Even Adobe is getting into application virtualisation of sorts, via the rich internet application route. The company is developing Apollo, a software 'player' that will be an installable executable on the operating system. Other applications designed to run in Apollo may then be installed and run within a virtual machine. In using a player along with just in time compilation, however, this is closer to the Java virtual machine model than it is to the Thinstall or Softricity models, where applications are all wrapped individually and require no separate player.

Packaging these applications (also called 'sequencing') generally involves running the application through a sequencing program. In Thinstall's case, for example, the sequencing system examines an installed application configured to the user's requirements and then takes a snapshot of the registry and file system, says Clark.

Application virtualisation is not yet as established as operating system virtualisation. The latter gained its foothold on the server, where it is being used to maximize the use of CPU cycles, but has in some cases made its way to the client, where people are using it to run multiple operating systems on the same box. The former is gaining ground on the client side, where companies are hoping that it will help to minimize testing, deployment, and maintenance costs, but it has already found some success on the server, where it can be used to reduce application conflicts (Citrix's Presentation Server already uses server-side application virtualisation, for example). It all lends credence to the virtualisation concept as a whole, and as Microsoft puts it weight behind it, the concept can only continue to gain mindshare.

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