Adventures in home working

Brian Badden has made available a huge range of presentations and videos from his BriForum events in 2006. He plans to make the sessions from 2005 available soon and right now you can also order the 2007 sessions on DVD. 

However many of the 2006 sessions will still be very useful unless you are on the bleeding edge.

Download them here.  I spend most of my lunchtimes virtually attending tech conference from my home office, broadening my skill set and saving the planet!

Microsoft reveal a lot of useful info about terminal services improvements in Longhorn in this chat,  I can see myself making a lot of use of this on my lab servers at home as well as for customers:

Brian Madden has a lot of useful comments on each feature, my favourites are in bold.

When I work on desktop transformation projects I am continually amazed by the number of applications that we find installed in an enterprise.  It’s not unusual to find several thousand in a medium sized company, most of them used by less than 10 people.  However as Rod Boothby points out this is the tip of the ice berg, because once we go beyond packaged applications and include the non trivial spreadsheets, macro enabled documents and databases we find an order of magnitude more.

Now Rod thinks that these ‘Office’ applications will be displaced by tools like blogs, wikis and Microsoft’s Excel services.  I partially agree I think these tools will just complement the traditional Office applications and extend their reach beyond the desktop and the network file server.  Here are some (mostly Microsoft)examples:

1. Applications built by using custom searches, probably encoded in the URL, against Internet and intranet search engines.  Expect to see this particularly in situations where the search engines let you reach into databases and document metadata
2. Applications built using the incredible versatility of SharePoint custom lists and workflow
3. Applications built by combining InfoPath, Word, Excel XML documents with data selectively promoted from the XML into SharePoint lists
4. Applications built processing RSS data from all manner of applications and then mashing it up with other data, or pulling it into Office or web based analysis tools
5. Applications built using the next generation of web based 4GLs like DabbleDb and Coghead
6. Composite applications built by integrating portal components, including some or the above, like Intalio’s, built from Dabble DB, FeedBurner, FeedDigest Flickr, Google Analytics, LinkedIn, Technorati, WordPress,Zoho Writer.

This is the true long tail of software,  traditional office applications enhanced and integrated with web office, collaboration and line of business applications.  However lets not forget the humble desktop application.  Its had a bad reputation in the past – largely because of DLL hell – but as new classes of applications appear that don’t need to be installed in the traditional sense but can just be streamed down to the PC, cached and executed I expect that desktop apps will get a new lease of life in the enterprise. 

Ron Oglesby has written an interesting article on the Brian Madden blog about the future of Virtualization, I highly recommend that you read all the comments as well.  One of the points raised in the comments concerns the over use of the Virtualization word, which I fully agree with,  it seems that any technique that is used to achieve isolation or abstraction now needs to be replaced by virtualization – very annoying!

Brian Madden describes how Citrix is evolving from being an Access company to an Application Delivery company:

We want to be the single company to provide access to all applications, regardless of what type they are. For Windows client/server applications, you can use Citrix Presentation Server. For web applications, you can optimize them with NetScaler appliances. For full client or offline applications, you can use desktop streaming.

I like this positioning,  within my company I have been promoting a similar change in focus away from delivering technology services, more in the direction of application delivery, in fact I used the phrase:

Delivering capabilities to productive people and teams

which is pretty snappy, and goes beyond applications because I wanted to cover more than just applications, and include data, devices, voice etc into our scope and it also allows us to break down every term to provide a lot more detail.

A few weeks ago I had a planning session with Microsoft where we discussed requirements for the version of windows to follow Vista.  During that meeting I used newsgator as an example of my ideal service, it embodies in principle – and increasingly in execution – all that I see as good in the new world of service enabled software.

I thought it would be useful to describe some of the characteristics of the newsgator approach:

• A loosely integrated client and services platform
• The services platform only asserts itself when it can add value to the user,  otherwise it gets out of the way and lets me get on with the job
• An eco-system of different client software optimised to address different platforms, user-types and user preferences, some supplied by newsgator but others just integrated with the services platform using their APIs
• Different installations of newsgator online enabled software are aware of activities on the other clients, for example my work client is aware of what I have already read or subscribed to at home
• Each installation of a client can optionally have a different configuration, so my work client could be configured differently to my home client if that’s what I wanted 
• A complementary web interface for when an optimised smart client is not available, or for when a web interface is the optimised solution
• All of my configuration data is held by the services platform and be easily extracted and moved some place else, in fact other systems can use it in place as it is all url addressable
• All (actually nearly all but they are moving in the right direction) configuration data is held by the services platform, so that once I have authenticated to it from a freshly installed client it seems like my environment again
• Higher performance than would be possible with a client only approach

In summary, the approach provides me with considerable freedom of choice, great performance, optimisation without sacrificing flexibility and openness, pretty inspiring!

Now if Microsoft can do the same thing by utilising Windows Live to make the experience of multiple personal PC’s, work and personal PCs, a household of PCs, PCs and Mobiles, multiple identities, sharing data, PC migrations and upgrades etc more seamless and deliver freedom of choice, great performance, optimisation without sacrificing flexibility and openness then I will be very impressed. 

It’s interesting that watching Ray Ozzie perform at the Financial Analyst meeting recently he definitely seems to have a newsgator-like vision for the eco-system of Microsoft products and services, and some of his recent innovations around the use of Live Clipboard and RSS and Simple List Extensions seem to indicate that he sees the value in delivering these innovations using standards so there may be hope.

The only thing I really need to round off the newsgator experience is for every bit of configuration data to persist server side (flags, snippets, saved searches etc) and applications that stream down to my new PC automatically with no possibility of conflicts with other applications and no administrative rights to run or install, for that I guess we need them to be .Net ClickOnce applications or wait for Microsoft to build Softgrid like virtualization support into their operating systems and Softgrid like streaming into their packaging approach and yes I do know that Microsoft has just acquired Softricity!

This would be a vision for Software as a Service that would really appeal to me!

I have Office 2007 running now on my Tablet and Laptop, both running XP,  but my desktop machine (2003 server) is not something I would risk putting Office 2007 on yet, mainly because I collaborate with too many people who are on previous versions of Office.  At least that was my logic until last night when I finally got around to installing SVS from Altiris.  Here is my step by step experience:

First try

• Terminal served into my desktop (2003 server remember) as admin
• Installed SVS
• Rebooted
• Tried to install Office 2007 in a layer, a layer is an SVS term that describes a way of isolating an application (by means of a file system redirector) from any dependencies on your PC and also isolating your PC from any changes that the application tries to make.  In other words – its safe!
• Install failed,  which is perhaps not surprising as I already have close to a hundred applications installed including OneNote 2007 and Altiris recommend installing on a clean machine.
• Started again

Second try

• Created an XP SP2 Virtual machine using VMware 5.5
• Installed all patches and VMware tools
• Installed SVS
• Rebooted
• Installed Office 2007 into a layer, worked fine
• Exported the layer to network drive (failed)
• Exported the layer to the VMware Virtual drive (worked)
• Copied the exported file to network drive
• Terminal served into my desktop (2003 server remember) as admin
• Imported the exported file into a layer on my desktop
• Activated the layer
• Went back to my normal user account
• Double clicked a PowerPoint file,  PowerPoint 2007 opened and ran fine (very limited testing)
• Clicked on PowerPoint 12 icon in Start Menu, worked fine (very limited testing)
• Went back to my admin account
• Deactivated the layer
• Double clicked on a PowerPoint file, PowerPoint 2003 opened
• Note: In the above activate and deactivate actions I did not need to log-off or reboot

So I now have Office 2003 installed on my desktop, and office 2007 available as a layer that I can activate as required.  I am impressed enough that next time I rebuild my desktop,  I will probably install all applications as layers,  although except for testing out new applications I don’t think I will use SVS extensively until then.  I will also look forward to some admin utilities being developed that allow me to copy files around between machines or do bulk imports and activates, so that maintaining multiple machines and rebuilding them becomes less of a chore.  Of course Altiris has enterprise scale tools to do this,  but I only have 9 physical PC’s on my home network

The way you deliver applications to your clients is the fundamental issue of debate in this article.  Web client, Server Based Computing, Smart Clients, Thin Client computing, Consolidated Client Architectures are all terms that are used and misused in this context.  This article attempts to just cover the key concepts, talk to me or comment if you want to discuss further.  This is a an article I wrote a couple of years ago, but I thought it was worth a repost as it complements a previous post where I commented on a useful discussion by Brian Madden.

It’s very important to note that Server based Computing is not the only approach, this document discusses all of the mainstream and the main evolving approaches.  However because Server based Computing is the most popular generic term in use it has been reused here.

What problem is Server Based Computing trying to solve?

First we need to understand the issues we are trying to solve with these technologies:

• Installing applications on many client devices is difficult for a whole host of reasons but mainly because:
• the clients are not all exactly the same so what works on one does not work on all
• its difficult to predict who needs which applications
• some of the people we want to use our applications use client devices that are not under our control, so we are not able to install software on them
• it takes time and effort to package up an application in such a way that it can be automatically deployed and does not conflict with other applications or the PC operating system in undesirable ways
• Installing applications requires administrative privileges on the PC, most companies do not allow users to have these privileges because of the security, acceptable use compliance management and TCO implications.
• Once an application is installed it needs to be maintained with bug fixes, configuration changes and new versions
• When people move location, visit another location or work from home they want to be able to continue to access their environment
• When PC hardware fails people want to be able to just plug in a new machine, or sit at the desk next to them and carry on
• Deploying applications to many PC’s takes time, introduces risk, and costs money; these three factors create an inertia that resists change.  The result is the client software gets out of date, or different versions exist on different machines resulting in inflexibility.
• In environments where theft is a risk, PC’s are very attractive targets!
• Using appropriate technology SBC can provide desktop platform independence, and increase the usable life of desktop equipment.
• Eliminates the need to upgrade desktop hardware in order to support new applications services or upgrades.
• Using appropriate technology the solution can provide more predictable WAN utilisation.
• Centralised processing resources can be rapidly reassigned during temporary periods of increased utilisation of business critical application services. This mitigates the need to procure additional equipment to accommodate these periodic peaks in utilisation, for example year end processing.

Why do we continue to deploy PC’s

These problems are pretty serious ones, so next it’s important to understand why we still often deploy PC’s:

• Many applications do not work, or are not supported unless they are running locally on a PC
• Many applications can only be cost effectively deployed on PC’s
• We have automated management tools, packaging tools and conflict resolution tools that help us get closer to the objective of managing thousands of PC’s with a similar fixed cost to managing hundreds and a very small variable cost per extra PC.
• Many applications integrate at the client, so multiple applications delivered from different servers do not provide the same user experience
• Users often get confused by the extra complexity of some alternatives
• Some people need access to applications when they don’t have access to the network, or that connection is too slow or un-reliable

Where is Server Based Computing most popular today?

Despite some of the issues raised above Server Based Computing  is increasingly popular, and very popular for certain scenarios:

• Delivery of applications to clients that are unmanaged or managed by a third party
• Delivery of line of business applications to large numbers of casual users
• Delivery of software for test and evaluation
• Rapid, on demand deployment
• Rapid removal of application services
• Delivery of applications to unsupported locations like branch offices
• Delivery of applications to hostile environments, or high theft risk environments, or environments needing maximum flexibility
• Delivery of applications to task and Structured Task Workers with a small number of applications and well defined processes
• Enforces “business use only” disciplines
• Centralised data management and security
• Provides the flexibility to, rapidly, and securely enable access to business applications for external business partners or new business units, without having to invest in additional infrastructure.

What are the alternatives?

There are however a wide array of technologies that solve these problems, it’s worth restating the basic approaches to solving the traditional PC application delivery problem:

• True thin client.  Make the client device as simple as possible, ideally stateless, i.e. you can plug in another one and it will just work.  Don’t allow any applications to execute on the client, just allow presentation.  In this alternative all applications are server based.
• Re-buildable client. Maintain a record of the desired state of a device on a server, if a device fails for whatever reason then its ‘state’ can be recreated fairly rapidly from the server.  Many systems management tools allow this and Operating Systems are getting better at this all of the time .  In this alternative applications can be delivered using all of the techniques described below.
• Connect to your PC from anywhere, rather than run all of your applications on the server, its possible to use a traditional PC most of the time.  However when you are at home, or working at another business location connect over the network to your PC, and use remote display technologies.
• House your PC in the data centre, solutions are emerging that allow users to connect to an individual PC, (blade format device), housed in a data centre.  The PC system unit is accessed over the network.  If your PC fails its easy to swap to another.  This option is commonly described as Consolidated Client Infrastructure or CCI.
• Execute applications on the server, and run the minimum client side code to render the display and manage keyboard, mouse and peripheral connectivity.  X Windows, Windows Terminal Services and Terminal Emulation products all fall into this category.  More than 80% of Windows Terminal services and Citrix deployments are actually delivering applications to Windows clients rather than thin clients.
• Download web pages and scripts in real-time.  Clients that allow simple presentation and sometimes validation code to execute on the client, but download the application in real time, every time you need it .  The key thing is no change to the configuration of the client is needed for the application to download and run – many web applications fall into this category, the vast majority execute JavaScript/JScript on the client.
• Download applications that rely on client platform extensions.  Clients that have some fairly rich set of standard services installed that let application code be downloaded in real time execute safely, normally in the browser, but not as general purpose as .NET and Java.  Internet Explorer itself falls into this category as it includes significant functionality that’s not pure HTML and CSS .  Flash and other Active X controls or alternative Plug-in standard are more obvious examples.
• Download complex applications in real-time. Allow more complex application to execute on the client, but download the application in real time, every time you need it .  The key thing is no change to the configuration of the client is needed for the application to download and run, the applications are self maintaining, i.e. new versions are downloaded in real time from the server. Java applications and some Microsoft.NET Framework v2 applications using ClickOnce  deployment.

There is a variant of this option, where the application does change the configuration of the client, these applications often provide tight integration with the operating system, high performance graphics, integration with local peripherals etc.  However they are still deployed in real-time and self maintaining .

• Store the file on a file server, but execute it on the client.  Some applications will work that way, but often applications need to be installed on the client to run correctly.
• Package an application in such a way that it is installed in real-time when a user first invokes it.  Some Linux Distributions and SoftGrid for windows provide specialist tools to achieve this that provide application isolation features and optimise the packaging to minimise download delays.  These products also ensure that the configuration of the PC operating system is unchanged, ensuring that other applications are not affected by the installation and that the application can be automatically de-installed.
• Manual Installation.  manually install an application by running an installation script, a refinement of this is to provide some form of on-line catalogue from which people can download and then install applications.  For most applications (see above for different approaches) the application will change the configuration of the client (create shortcuts, install files into shared areas, change the registry) and will therefore require administrative priv.
• Push installation.  A refinement of the previous approach,  applications are automatically distributed to the persons PC using an automation tool (SMS, Unicenter, LanDesk) and the system executes the installation in the background.  The decision to distribute the application may be manual (a list of PC’s) or may be based on the PC being identified automatically as the result of matching a query (all Thinkpad x23s), being added to a group (everyone in finance) or a some other policy (everyone at location B).  A refinement of this is publishing; where a stub is installed which shows the applications icons, file type registrations etc.  When the application is first invoked it is installed on demand.
• Application appliances or virtual machines.  Using a technology like VMware Player a whole operating system and set of applications can be installed by copying a file, (or couple of files) to the PC.  This virtual environment may contain a whole managed or unmanaged PC in which case all of the above application delivery discussions apply equally to the Virtual PC.  However the Virtual PC may in fact be thought of as an application (or an appliance), examples might be a Virtual PC that is actually a complete functioning database server, or proxy server, or isolated (hence safe) web browsing environment.  using VMware ACE it is possible to provide PC appliance that is configured and locked down to provide very well defined role.

Which of mix of these approaches fits your business need will depend on trading off performance, flexibility, usability and cost.  It will also depend on your application portfolio and which of the approaches your applications support.

Brian Madden reports that CITRIX have demonstrated a web part that provides integration between SharePoint and Presentation Server.  It sounds pretty good:

One of the most exciting things I saw at Citrix iForum Edinburgh this year was a demo of a SharePoint web part from Citrix that will allow a SharePoint site to act as a web interface into Presentation Server farms. (This is called “WISP” for “Web Interface for SharePoint.”) Using WISP will be much simplier than trying to strip down the existing Web Interface to stick into a generic SharePoint HTML web part.

Citrix is making the WISP functionality available as a standard SharePoint web part. WISP will be composed of two pieces:

The first will contain an application area and a session control panel area that will hold the icons for applications that users can click on as well as basic workspace control options (Reconnect all, disconnect all, and logout).

The piece is an extension to the standard Microsoft document library web part. (The document library web part is a web part that displays files and documents stored on a SharePoint server.) Citrix has extended this web part so that it allows documents to be opened in remote Presentation Server sessions instead of on the local client. If the user clicks on a file but they don’t have that application installed on their client, the system will automatically open that file on a remote Presentation Server. (This is basically content redirection via the web client!)

If the user does have the application installed on their client then they can choose whether to open the document locally or remotely.

If you’re using SharePoint Portal Server (the one you have to pay for), then you can even use the Microsoft Single Sign-on Service to associate Citrix credentials with your SharePoint account. This will allow your credentials to be passed through to Citrix automatically for application enumeration and connection.

If you’re using Windows SharePoint Services (the free version of SharePoint) then you can’t use the single sign-on service. However, you can still use integrated authentication for the Citrix web page if you use Citrix Presentation Server’s Kerberos-based authentication.

WISP also lets you “drag and drop” both Presentation Server application icons and content onto your desktop directly from the web portal, and you can double-click on these at any time to launch the appropriate application or content.

One thing that’s interesting about WISP is that it allows the SharePoint server to act as the web interface for Presentation Server. It doesn’t integrate with Citrix’s Web Interface–it replaces Citrix Web Interface. This means that you’ll have .conf configuration files on your SharePoint server and that it will talk directly with the backend Presentation Servers via the XML service. (Of course this is all configured via a standard SharePoint web part configuration widget, so it’s really easy to setup.)

WISP was available for us to play with in the Tech Lab here at iForum. Citrix is planning to release a technology preview of WISP to customers via the mycitrix.com portal in upcoming months.

As of now, WISP requires SharePoint 2003 (either Portal Server or Windows Services versions) and Presentation Server 3 or 4.

These two great video (one and two) interviews with Scott Guthrie on IIS7 and ASP.NET show off Microsoft at its best, you might even go so far as saying a new Microsoft.  The IIS Team and the Indigo team seem to have learned some key lessons about standards compliance and compatibility (not always the same thing).  Of course it’s a key requirement of their market segment, and they don’t dominate it,  but its still nice to see the focus in these areas.  Two other things stand out for me in the interviews:

• The continued focus on making IIS a great platform upon which people can build additional infrastructure richness and of course great applications. This is achieved by modularising the platform and documenting the APIs of the standard modules and allowing new modules to be easily created.
• The second is that with IIS a raft of the most common open source applications are going to be provided, and integrated,  from forums to blogs, another really great move.

I just wish they had given him advanced notice of  the key question, “how do you differentiate yourself against apache” (which he didn’t really know how to answer) and asked him a follow up question of “how you differentiate against PHP and JSP” (which was probably the most important question).  That said I think this stuff is going to demo pretty impressively to developers!