Application Layering with VMware App Volumes

A step-by-step guide to designing, deploying and managing VMware App Volumes

Delivering applications within a virtual desktop environment has always proven to be a challenge given the stateless nature in which virtual desktops are deployed. How can organizations deliver applications each time end-user logs in to his or her desktop given that the desktop they just logged in to has been created as a brand-new machine and basically has nothing installed on it?

App Volumes delivers applications in real-time to virtual desktop machines, enabling VDI deployments to return even greater flexibility, agility and cost reduction. Enterprises can fully utilize the stateless virtual desktop model in all use VDI uses cases. For users such as developers who required a persistent, fully-stateful virtual desktop machine of their own, they too can take advantage of the advantages of a stateless virtual desktop model enabling better return on investment as well as centralized application delivery.

This book will guide you on a journey of how to deploy an App Volumes environment, with easy-to-follow step by step instructions with real-life screenshots based on a test lab environment that you can build as you go.

The book starts with an overview of what App Volumes delivers and the challenges it resolves. From there, we will start to explore the architecture and components that make up the solution, concentrating on how to design and plan your own environment.

Once you have understood the technology and use cases, then it's time to start installing and configuring the App Volumes software. Once installed we can then start to look more closely at the core components to the App Volumes solution and how to build your application layers. As part of this, we will also cover some of the more advanced management tasks for managing the environment.

Once you have built the core environment and created some examples of application layers, we will then look at how to integrate App Volumes with some of the other EUC technologies that are available in the market such as VMware ThinApp, Microsoft RDSH, Citrix XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), and Citrix XenDesktop (Citrix Virtual Desktop).

Throughout this book, we will provide you with useful hints and tips, along with best practices, all based on the experience of deploying App Volumes within the Enterprise.

At the end of the journey, you will have built a complete working App Volumes environment and will have acquired the skills and knowledge to deploy your own production environment.