I recently got the test credentials for the Saasplaza RTC testdrive that i have blogged about earlier (App-V streaming of Dynamics NAV) and decided today to give it a quick spin. Along with the install there is a great installation guide for the software that provides very easy to follow step by step installation for both XP and Win7 workstations. I did the Win7 x64 installation, and it took approx. 5 minutes to setup.
Installation is basically
- downloading the Microsoft Application Virtualization client
- setup credentials
- Setup serverinformation
-
Download updates
This blog post is mainly about the ease of installation, and my first hand experiences with installing App-V. I have never used Application Virtualization before. Here are some screenshots from my installation:
When i started the installer it needed to install some required components:
All required software was installed and then the installer for App V presented itself:
I choose the typical install (as per the documentation):
That all finished within a few seconds. Next step is setup some stored credentials for virtualized applications to use. The installation guide has sections for this for the various OS you can be installing on.
Next run the AppV client,
And setup the new connection via the provided URL. The icon for Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1 gets published to your desktop, and when running the first time it downloads updates:
As you can see it is the regular NAV2009 SP1 it is running – I thought R2 release was required for AppV.
And you are ready to go. I have not done any detailed benchmarking of the performance, but the client seems pretty responsive and pages open up quickly. And App-V it integrates perfectly with all of your local resources.
Back to some testing…
Thanks for the update Søren, however I still find it hard to see what benefits this provides. I only see it as an alternative way to deploy new NAV versions, and not an alternative to RDP/Citrix for multi-site enviroments. Is that correct? If so, then I can’t help wonder if there will be more updates to the NAV client than to the App-V client it self, or is the App-V client also ”self updating”, like i.e. Google Chrome?
Peter, im pretty sure this is an alternative to RDP/Citrix multi-site environments. I found some background information on App-V here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App-V.
I have not had any time this last week testing the features, as i have been onsite at a customers site all week. But im particularly interested in seeing how Automation controls etc. are handled.
As far as i can see the App-V client is updateable by Windows Update, so that makes updates pretty easy.
It seems there are several ways to use App-V. It can either execute the applications on the App-V Application Server or “cached” directly on the client. I guess the first method will give the same network benefits as a Citrix configuration, and therefore very usefull in a multi-site enviroment. Looking forward to see your results from testing COM – that could really make it a Citrix killer 🙂
Hi and thanks for discussing this info, I do not know about everyone else, but I can totally use it.
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