Busting Common Myths Around On-demand Application Delivery – Myth 2: Applications Won’t Run Offline

Today, thousands of applications are delivered using Citrix XenApp. But despite broad adoption of on-demand application delivery within enterprises, we still find a host of common myths still circulating that inhibit organizations from fully utilizing all of its capabilities. In the first segment of this series, we explored the myth that many applications don’t work with XenApp - and we think we sufficiently “busted” the myth. If you haven’t had a chance, please take a look at the article and give us your comments. In this segment, we will explore the second common myth - that users can only use applications when they are connected to the network.

“I’d like to use XenApp for more apps, but…”

“…It only works when my users are connected and I have lots of users who need to work offline.”

We’ll tackle this myth head-on.

According to an IDC study, almost half of PC users require the ability to use their devices and applications in situations where they do not have network connectivity. Ironically, the most difficult items to maintain for mobile users are applications, which is also the most critical component of a mobile-user’s device.

When XenApp was originally developed, it was used to centrally-manage applications and deliver them on-demand to remote users, even over low-bandwidth/high-latency networks.  This resulted in application management savings up to 50 percent and tremendous IT agility. But a network connection was required. IT organizations wanted to extend this benefit to the growing numbers of mobile workers - from salespeople to field technicians – who needed access to applications while disconnected from the network.

In Presentation Server 4.0, Citrix first introduced the ability to virtualize and isolate applications for simpler management on the servers. Prior to that, Citrix partnered with Softricity and recommended its SoftGrid product (now part of Microsoft and called App-V). The next logical step was to extend this application virtualization to the end-user device.

In Presentation Server 4.5 (released in March 2007) Citrix introduced the second generation of application virtualization and introduced streaming. This not only enabled centrally-managed applications to run on servers in the datacenter, but also to be streamed to end-user devices so they could be run locally and while disconnected from the network. The revolution here was that the applications were never installed on the end-user device. They ran in an isolation environment or “execution bubble” so they would not interfere with other applications. This provided tremendous application management benefits for IT by dramatically reducing application testing.

With XenApp 5 (the follow-on to Presentation Server) and the subsequent feature packs, introduced in 2008 and 2009, Citrix further improved application virtualization and streaming functionality and performance. Today, XenApp can deliver any Windows application on-demand.

Remember I said earlier that XenApp worked with SoftGrid (now App-V from Microsoft)? Well the good news is that it still does. In fact, in July of 2009, Citrix and Microsoft committed to further integration of App-V and XenApp. Customers can use either or both application virtualization technologies with XenApp with the confidence that they will work together seamlessly.

Enough about history, let’s dig a little deeper.

How does Application Virtualization and Streaming Work?