4-page Case Study - Posted 12/15/2008

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California State University

University Simplifies Application Management, Enhances Security with Virtualization

The IT staff for the Chancellor’s office at California State University (CSU) was facing difficult management issues for the 75 applications and 600 desktops it supports. Laborious deployments and extremely time-consuming upgrades required reboots, causing downtime for users. Many business applications required local administrator access to install, creating security risks. Some users, such as developers often needed multiple application versions, requiring IT to remove and reload applications after each usage. To simplify application management, the university deployed Microsoft® Application Virtualization 4.5. Now CSU has streamlined application deployment, making it much easier for users and faster for IT staff. Upgrades now take a fraction of the time they used to, and security has been improved. Users enjoy multiple version support, and IT has better disaster recovery capabilities.

Situation

The CSU Chancellor’s Office, which supports 75 applications for 600 desktops, faced several critical application management challenges:

Microsoft's unique virtualization solution eliminates application management complexities and helps us provide even better IT service to our constituency. Laura Guillory Director of User Services, California State University Chancellor’s Office

End users increasingly request business applications that require local administrator access to install, which opens the desktop and network to potential security issues. The Chancellor’s Office is committed to providing necessary business applications, and equally committed to mitigating security risks.

Some users need to run multiple versions of applications on their computer, such as PeopleTools, Crystal Reports, and Hyperion/Oracle data query tools. For instance, the developers who run Hyperion/Oracle seemed to continually change versions. Often, once one version of an application was installed, IT would have to completely reload in order to revert back to an earlier version of Oracle Developer or Designer. In addition, the Chancellor’s Office was challenged with supporting its IT training lab. Although it is set up with the Windows® XP operating system and Microsoft® Office 2003, some new employees need to be trained on Microsoft Office Outlook® 2000 messaging and collaboration client because they are using computers not yet scheduled for an operating system refresh. Because multiple versions of the same application will conflict when installed, IT had to keep two computers on a switch.

The Chancellor’s Office wanted a more efficient and secure way to deploy and manage its applications, and support its diverse base of end users. Looking ahead, IT wanted an application infrastructure that would allow it to scale for growth and a higher level of service quality.

Solution

While investigating ways to streamline desktop application deployment and improve desktop security, the CSU Chancellor’s Office evaluated Microsoft Application Virtualization, which at the time was called SoftGrid. During testing, the product enabled the Chancellor’s Office to reduce deployment time for applications such as PhotoShop CS2, from several days to just a few hours and helped reduce the number of local administrators. Based on the successful pilot, it decided to move ahead with a full implementation of Microsoft Application Virtualization.

Today, using Microsoft Application Virtualization, CSU transforms applications into centrally managed virtualized services, resulting in dynamic delivery of software that is never installed, never conflicts, and minimizes tedious application compatibility testing.

Users and their application environments are no longer machine-specific, and the machines themselves are no longer user-specific. Applications are virtualized with the Application Virtualization Sequencer, a wizard-based tool that packages applications for real-time streaming. The Sequencer uses a once-per-application process to protect the application's integrity and does not modify its source code. Rather than "pushing" down and installing entire applications, the first time an application is requested by end users, the Microsoft Application Virtualization client "pulls" only the code needed to start the program. When the session terminates, application settings and profiles are saved in a per-use, per-application cache, providing instant access for subsequent use.

Microsoft Application Virtualization is an integral tool in the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, a solution that helps Software Assurance customers reduce application deployment costs, enable delivery of applications as services, and better manage and control enterprise-wide desktop environments.

Benefits

The CSU Chancellor’s Office has been using Microsoft Application Virtualization for several years. It has been benefitting from simplified deployments and upgrades, reduced application upgrade time, enhanced desktop security, multiple version support and new disaster recovery capabilities.

Often several developers work on the same project and they need the application they're using delivered quickly and configured consistently. Microsoft Application Virtualization makes this possible. Laura Guillory Director of User Services, California State University Chancellor’s Office

Simplified Application Deployment

With Microsoft Application Virtualization, managed software deployment is much more convenient for end users and requires much less time by IT. Users need only to select the new icon to receive the application at their convenience. Application updates are seamless. Whenever users click on the existing application, they receive the latest version with any changes. IT never has to get involved or coordinate schedules with the users.

Upgrading application is also much easier. For instance, the CSU Chancellor's Office is in the process of upgrading users from FileMaker 5.5 to version 9. Because Microsoft Application Virtualization enables them to run multiple versions on the same device, the IT staff did a local install of version 9 so they could test it against the older version—which was virtualized on the same computer—to make sure that the new version would work with the databases associated with FileMaker 5.5. When this proved successful, they disabled the old version on user desktops by simply removing it from the users' Active Directory® and clicked on version 9 to enable access.

The CSU Chancellor's Office has also virtualized many of the programming applications that its developers use and this, according to Laura Guillory, Director of User Services, CSU Chancellor's Office, "is a huge help. Often several developers work on the same project and they need the application they're using delivered quickly and configured consistently. Microsoft Application Virtualization makes this possible."

Guillory also notes that the ability to package applications once using Microsoft Application Virtualization and then deploy them on various operating systems, such as Windows XP or Windows 2000, also helps simplify application management.

"Microsoft's unique virtualization solution eliminates application management complexities and helps us provide even better IT service to our constituency," Guillory says.

Dramatically Reduced Upgrade Time

Microsoft Application Virtualization helps CSU accelerate upgrades on key applications, such as Oracle and PeopleTools. PeopleTools requires particular versions of Oracle. According to Guillory, Oracle best practices states that enterprises should not upgrade existing Oracle installations when new versions are required. Instead, Oracle recommends first refreshing the entire computer to make it a “clean machine” and then installing the new version. Guillory estimates this process would take about five to six hours per computer, and would have to be done on approximately 128 CSU machines. Instead, using Microsoft Application Virtualization, CSU puts the Oracle files on a server, virtualizes PeopleTools and points it to the server for the appropriate Oracle files. When IT upgrades Oracle, CSU simply replaces the files on the server instead of having to redeploy 128 new systems with the new Oracle version. The entire process takes about 10 hours, rather than the 700 hours it would require without Microsoft Application Virtualization.

Enhanced Desktop Security

Microsoft Application Virtualization minimizes the need for local administrator access. It handles the administrative rights issue by eliminating local installation of applications that would require administrative privileges to install—something that was previously not possible—protecting both the network and desktops from unintentional or malicious damage. "Improving desktop security is very important," Guillory comments. "Microsoft offers important advantages by enabling us to deliver applications without admin rights. We've already started using this capability with several application and hope to use it even more extensively in the future."

In addition, the change of spyware and viruses infiltrating computers is minimized because applications aren't installed on the client.

Multiple Version Support

Because application conflicts are eliminated with Microsoft Application Virtualization, multiple versions of the same software can run on the same computer at the same time. This facilitates quick turnaround on new PeopleTools versions, for instance, with no disruption to the end-user, and enables developers to use multiple Hyperion/Oracle data query tools without any problems. The Chancellor’s Office no longer has to worry about uninstalling multiple versions, which often left footprints and created problems for later version installations. In addition, Microsoft Application Virtualization multiple version support makes it easier for the Chancellor’s Office to manage its training lab, where it can run multiple versions of software such as Microsoft Office Outlook on the same computer.

Simplified Disaster Recovery

The CSU Chancellor’s Office is in the process of putting a disaster recovery plan in place and sees Microsoft Application Virtualization as a key part of this effort. “Application virtualization is critical. It will enable us to have a simplified model where we can give users a vanilla computer and instantly deliver their applications to the new machine,” Guillory says. “And if a site is down for an extended period, we’ll also be able to quickly provision upgrades and patches to the DR machines—easily supporting the users even if they’re not able to access their original computers.”

The Microsoft Application Virtualization sequencer significantly reduces the time and skill level for application packaging. CSU estimates a reduction of 75 percent for some applications.

Windows Vista
Windows Vista can help your organization use information technology to gain a competitive advantage in today’s new world of work. Your people will be able to find and use information more effectively. You will be able to support your mobile work force with better access to shared data and collaboration tools. And your IT staff will have better tools and technologies to enhance corporate IT security, data protection, and more efficient deployment and management.

For more information about Windows Vista, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsvista

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about California State University, visit the Web site at:
www.calstate.edu