One of the somewhat surprising aspects of lifting the lid on web applications and migration to IE8 is determining just how many web applications are within organizations today. As App-DNA is talking with FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 enterprise IT teams, we are seeing hundreds and even thousands of web applications with ratios of traditional desktop applications to web applications approaching 1:1, sometimes more, sometimes less. This implies a huge proliferation of web-based applications over the past few years and, perhaps most worryingly, the web applications seem to have dropped through the cracks of the application management processes implemented to control, manage and optimize the traditional desktop apps. Most organizations are still on Windows XP and many are still on IE6, though some have already moved to IE7, so the impact of IE8 is widespread.

What's going on here?

Well, the thing is, it’s actually pretty easy to build and deploy a web application - you only have one machine to deploy to versus a possibly heterogeneous desktop environment, if it runs in the browser it just 'works' - no regression testing, no impact to other apps. The users just need a URL to access the application so there is no need to 'deploy' anything in a traditional sense so many of the standard application management processes can be easily circumvented. Now, when there is a possible breaking change to the browser a huge challenge for IT becomes:

1.       What's out there (and which sites/applications do I need to care about)?

2.       If there are issues, where is the application source, can I access it and can it be fixed at source?

3.       Is the application externally hosted or running as a service?

Even once the applications are identified and issues resolved (via the application or via alternative delivery methods), in many cases the applications are still not standards compliant. They are running in a mix of compatibility 'modes'. It is naturally desirable that all web application code converges on a common standard, widely implemented and adhered to by all browsers. Nirvana.

Web applications are only going to increase in number and importance. Managing, assessing and testing for browser compliance will become an increasingly important task for IT. Hot on the heels of IE8 is IE9. While this looks to be the smaller of the 2 transitions (IE6 to IE8 vs. IE8 to IE9) it still becomes relevant to understand the impact.

HTML5 standards introduced in IE9 as well as performance improvements will make the browser attractive and in some cases drive adoption where new applications require the new standards. Having a view not only of compatibility with the browser but also how close or far from optimum standards web applications are will become more and more important as more and more of enterprises service their business functionality through the browser. Understanding, mapping and where possible driving compliance and optimization will again fall back to organizational IT.

The importance of the browser as a platform cannot be underestimated and just getting to IE8 readiness is by no means the end. There is a lot more to come from the browser as a platform and so treating web applications as traditional applications makes adapting to browser and standards changes  easy to anticipate, prepare for and manage.

At App-DNA we are working with our customers and driving towards this portfolio view and management capability for web applications in the same way that we provide it for the traditional desktop portfolio. Our AppTitude application compatibility software platform extends seamlessly to report on compatibility and compliance for web applications and we are further extending our collection and import processes to reach into web application territory. The App-DNA IE8 application compatibility beta program is currently underway so watch closely for developments or get in touch if you would like to get involved.

Defining the difference between desktop apps and web apps is easy--desktop apps run on the Operating System (OS), and web apps run in the web browser. This seems obvious, but it is an important and perhaps somewhat subtle distinction. After all, the browser is just an app too which also runs on the OS. As the web has matured, organizations have been able to leverage the flexibility of delivering functionality via web applications vs traditional applications - no installation and  access from anywhere are among the benefits. Third party vendors too have embraced the web and more recently the ‘cloud’, as platforms to deliver apps.

What this translates to for IT departments in an OS migration is the new need to test applications which may no longer be directly within their control. IT is responsible for the desktop and desktop apps but the web applications may be supplied by external vendors or from parts of the organization they don’t manage. This requires a different approach to evaluating and testing applications. Web apps may be internally developed and hosted or simply 'rented' as services from third party providers.

As web applications become more dynamic they make use of technologies which require access to local OS resources and perform complex scripted functions which rely on the execution horsepower of the browser. It is here, on the boundary between the OS and the web, where hackers have found cracks and it is here where security hardening has meant applications which used to work may no longer automatically execute as before.

All is not lost, but for business continuity, it’s important to identify which applications may suffer and employ the most appropriate of the variety of remediation options available to rectify the problems.

App-DNA has extended the AppTitude platform to capture and assess web applications. Capture involves import and analysis of the web applications source files in combination with files captured during runtime (while the web application is browsed). This pioneering approach again makes App-DNA uniquely able to maximise the automation available to the task of web application assessment for IE8 and covers security, embedded components, scripting and standards compliance as well as rendering. The process involves both static and runtime analysis in conjunction with a user evaluation of the application rendering.

App-DNA has also developed a whole new class of algorithms to interrogate the captured web applications to expose known issues or potential issues using the classic traffic light system in various levels of reports (RAG). AppTitude also provides a view on how the traditional desktop application portfolio may overlap with the web browser in the form of plugins or web components and allows for holistic reporting of the entire portfolio of both desktop and web applications. So, while web apps are not desktops apps,  there is the opportunity to assess and manage them in the same coherent platform for current changes and future planning.

Watch out for the final part in this series "Preparing for IE9" for a view on the next browser iteration - yes, even as IE8 is landing IE9 is hot on its heels!

 First things first - if you’re planning to move to Windows 7 you’ll be moving to IE8 (unless you opt for an alternative browser). IE8 ships with Windows 7 and can’t be downgraded. It may be that you have already upgraded to IE7 while remaining on Windows XP and this will make the transition to IE8 easier, but there are still a considerable number of browser differences to consider. Application compatibility is one of the key challenges in Operating System (OS) migrations. Historically this has been thought of in terms of desktop applications which install and run on the OS – and until now the browser has generally not had a major impact on web application compatibility.

With IE7 and IE8 Microsoft has made a move towards the enforcement of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other web standards. Prior to IE7, although they were standards compliant, Microsoft were not strict in their enforcement of those standards. This meant that web coders could be somewhat relaxed in their development of web apps or web sites and the browser would 'forgivingly' execute the code and render the interface. In addition to standards enforcement, IE7 and IE8 implement a variety of security hardening protocols. This is a sensible move as the web browser has been a major attack vector for hacking into organizations -opening up the protected corporate network to outside influences.

So, standards compliance and security hardening are good things. Like the OS, the web browser is really just an application platform which should deliver a fast, secure and robust user experience and as more and more applications move online, browser security and performance will become ever more important. This means that organizations now need to consider their web applications in addition to desktop applications, when making the OS migrations to Windows 7 and beyond.  And this can be a significant undertaking. Some organizations have hundreds or even thousands of web apps to deliver to their users on the Windows/IE platform and as more apps migrate to the browser, ensuring business continuity means thorough testing and evaluating the impact of that migration.

Like traditional application testing methodologies manual testing of web applications is unlikely to be the most efficient approach. Ensuring that all aspects of the web application are 'surfaced' during the testing process can be prohibitively expensive and long winded, as well as error prone. Combining targeted runtime testing with automation techniques delivers the fastest most reliable assessment of the status of a web application portfolio.

Adoption of IE8 and the assessment of web applications should just be a natural part of the application testing cycle. For years App-DNA, pioneers of static application analysis, have helped deliver streamlined OS migration projects though automated, accurate compatibility assessments. App-DNA has now extended its AppTitude application assessment platform to achieve the same level of compatibility reporting for web applications.

If you are looking for a solution for assessing the compatibility of your web applications sign up for the App-DNA Beta program here: AppTitude IE compability Beta program 

part 2 "Why web apps aren't desktop apps"

Organizations today are in various stages of rolling out Windows 7, but no matter which stage they're in App-DNA technical resources often hear the same kinds of questions. You would expect questions like: Will my applications work when running on Windows 7? If there are application compatibility issues, can it be fixed and how do I implement that fix?

AppTitude solves these problems by providing application owners with detailed compatibility information about an application in just minutes. This core value alone accelerates Windows 7 deployments, reduces costs and eliminates risk by shining a light on the internals of every single application in an enterprise portfolio -- without having to manually test each and every one of the applications. This blog post isn't necessarily about manual testing for Windows 7 versus static analysis, but if you want to learn more about how AppTitude answers those questions, click here.

When working with App-DNA customers implementing the AppTitude application compatibility platform, another question that always bubbles up is *should* I fix an application or is it more cost-effective to replace or retire it? Whenever I get asked this question, the answer is always the same: “It depends.” This is a business decision that involves several parameters:

• What is the value of the application to the organization?
• Is the application expected to have a long remaining lifespan?
• Can the defects in the application even be fixed?
• For commercial applications, does the vendor have a Windows 7 compatible version?
• How much does it cost to upgrade to that compatible version and how does that cost compare to the cost of remediating and testing the existing version of your application?

AppTitude provides application intelligence to drive these business decisions. Generating this application intelligence manually without AppTitude would be a tedious, manual process that would require enterprise IT organizations to essentially incur the costs of trying to remediate a problem application in order to even determine if remediation is a cost effective solution. In basic terms, fix something to determine if you even want to keep it.  The reporting architecture in AppTitude provides intelligence to make these decisions at your fingertips. The most important reports for driving these decisions are AppTitude Action reports. AppTitude action reports give targeted information about which applications have defects, what those defects are, how they can be remediated, and the cost of implementing those remediations.  This information is invaluable in making a decision to remediate, upgrade, redevelop, mitigate or retire an application.

 Below is a very basic flow to highlight the kinds of decisions you have to make and where Application Intelligence is necessary to drive those decisions. The blue shapes are processes, decisions and data points driven entirely by AppTitude Application Intelligence. The  orange shapes represent decisions factoring in business specific data with Application Intelligence.  The green shapes represent processes that are optimized and streamlined.

The success of an application compatibility project is not measured just on moving the organization to Windows 7, but also in doing so in a cost effective and timely way.   Application Intelligence drives these cost decisions earlier in the project lifecycle where they can make a difference. AppTitude generates this Application Intelligence in just minutes per application.

Enterprises are off and running with Windows 7, App-V, XenApp and optimized desktop projects. The challenge comes in determining what applications to migrate, managing applications, application testing and application compatibility. Next week’s Microsoft World Partner Conference has an amazing track educating Microsoft partners on how to best help enterprises accelerate their move to Windows 7, as well as Internet Explorer 8, App-V and all of the related technologies.

What if Microsoft partners were given the opportunity to partner with App-DNA and, for no cost, access the award winning AppTitude application testing and application remediation platform to deliver to Proof of Concepts (POC)? What if it only took three days to assess application remediation issues?

App-DNA has a fantastic program that already exists today, called Launchpad and will provide a crystal clear view of an enterprise’s application estate.  This in turn will help systems integrators and service providers deliver the business case to move more quickly to the optimized desktop.  Partners will find more successful projects by gaining a truer understanding of what the enterprise application estate looks like, and better assessing the level of effort needed to properly give an accurate bid for the project. Customers and partners are more satisfied from a clear view of the project, an accurate price quote and a realistic timeline based on facts rather than “gut feel.”

App-DNA Launchpad is a quick-start application compatibility discovery program that brings together four high-value components:

EstateView™ - provides an instant portfolio readiness report on up to 1000 apps

EffortCalculator™ - details project scope and scale by using real metrics to calculate costs, duration and resource needs

CoreSample™ - assessment reports on 50 apps with full reports on 10 selected MSI apps with a deep ‘drill down’ on over 68,000 data points per app in 11 areas

What it means for Microsoft partner’s customers:

See exactly how ready a customer’s app estate is to migrate

Calculate what the migration proposal will cost and how long it will take

Guide resourcing decisions

Build an informed migration strategy – meet more deadlines

Interested in learning more about App-DNA Launchpad for Microsoft partners?  Drop us a line at info@app-dna.com to set up a time to talk at WPC next week or after the conference.

Microsoft announced at TechEd North America that Windows 7 SP1 beta would be released this month. IT groups everywhere are analyzing Windows 7 budgets, many of them giving quarter-end updates this week to let management know the status of the Windows 7, 64x and related application virtualization projects.  Much like the 10 p.m. news used to open with “It’s 10 p.m., do you know where your children are?” many CIOs are asking, “It’s July 1, do we know where our Windows 7 project is?”

One of the challenges IT teams face is how to determine the budget around application compatibility.  In a recent conversation, an industry leader told App-DNA that managing app migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 will be the single most expensive component of migration projects. Many articles and blogs have speculated hardware would be a big cost center, but many people underestimate the impact—and cost—of managing application migration and application compatibility for the Windows 7 project.

Get a handle on the reality of what’s needed for application testing and application compatibility – and the potential costs – with a free and straightforward Application Migration Workbook. App-DNA gathered insight from Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 customers, industry partners like Microsoft and Citrix, as well as systems integrator partners. The result is a resource guide complete with worksheets to help estimate the cost of manual testing vs. automation, the math on application churn, and the ROI on a day-to-day app management process.  Download the free ebook at http://app-dna.cambuilder.cw.com/Resources/eBooks/App-DNA-Migration-Workbook.aspx

Have your Windows 7 timeline figured out, but not enough pages left on the calendar this year? Check out how static analysis can speed the testing and remediation cycles of your project.

Comments? Questions? Worried about your timeline? Drop a line to info@app-dna.com or on Twitter @appdna – we’re happy to share insight to help you keep track of your Windows 7 project.

"What would you say if I were to tell you that migrating to a virtual desktop was no different than if you were going to migrate to Windows 7?” What a great question! Daniel Feller from Citrix explains in more detail in his blog post & his session this week at #BriForum  “Windows 7 and the Virtual Desktop Revolution.”

App-DNA also sees the similarities in virtual projects and Windows 7 migrations. Both have hurdles to clear, especially around application compatibility. The AppTitude application testing and application remediation software includes an Overview Summary Report – a dashboard that helps you clearly see where apps will be successful – if they won’t run well on Windows 7, will they run well on XenApp or App-V as an alternative?

Whenever we’re out with enterprise IT groups, talking with Windows 7 project managers or application virtualization user groups, we try to show them the AppTitude dashboard for determining the best platform and delivery model for each application. Usually eyes open wider, everyone steps in for a closer look, and the questions start rolling. It was one of my favorite AppTitude views to show last week at Microsoft #TechEd – so many project leaders are just now learning there is an automated approach to application compatibility – and determining what apps will be successful on what platforms. Take a look, let us know how you’d find this useful for the common bonds in your Windows 7 and application virtualization projects, either in the comments or via info@app-dna.com   

Just returning from last week's Microsoft Tech-ED 2010 in New Orleans, I was bombarded with many new announcements and technologies to check out.  One of those announcements comes from Attachmate, who I am sure much to the delight of Microsoft, is the first company to officially release their software, ready to go in Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) format (you can read more about this on the Microsoft MDOP team blog or the Attachmate  site ).  Always looking for interesting applications to run through App-DNA AppTitude, I stopped by their booth and they were kind enough to give me an evaluation version of their new release (and a stuffed flying monkey).

Many people do not know that in addition to running static analysis on installation media, AppTitude can also directly import App-V SFT files (the extension of the file containing the virtualized application bits) for analysis.  I loaded up the Attachmate Reflection 2011 SFT into the new AppTitude 4.5 release and let the AppTitude heuristic algorithms run the app through its paces.

As you can see from the application remediation screenshots below, Attachmate did a solid job with this package, pretty much green across the board with the new Windows OS releases and 64bit, and one minor warning under the AppTitude App-V RAG (Red/Amber/ Green) analysis module.  This warning is reminding us that “File Type Associations”, the communication to Windows that files with a certain extension belong to a certain application, need to be set correctly and it also provides the exact file entries to assist with this.  This would be something users or organizations can choose to determine what opens with what on their machines.   All in all, this looks to be a great release from Attachmate both from the standpoint of good execution and convenience for organizations looking to leverage App-V.  I would not be surprised to see more software vendors shortly follow suit.

Looking for more examples of what AppTitude can share in nifty boss-ready reports? Check out the new sample reports on the App-DNA website…and let us know your feedback on the AppTitude App-V capabilities with a note in the comments. 

Seeing is believing. Often when App-DNA talks to enterprises about application compatibility for Windows 7 migrations, App-V implementations or XenApp projects, IT directors really want more proof—like a demo of the software. If you’ve been reading about the new AppTitude 4.5 release or just looking to start learning the role of application testing and application remediation in migration projects, join App-DNA for a webinar (heavy on the demo) – “Achieving the Optimized Desktop with Application Remediation” on Tuesday, June 15.

Click here to register or to learn more about the webinar – and block 4pm GMT/10am US CDT in your calendar to learn how to knock out an application compatibility and application remediation project in a short timeframe. The technical presenters will also show how to employ application management standards as part of your business as usual process for long-term success as new applications enter your application estate.

To whet your appetite for the webinar, check out App-DNA featured in a new podcast with DABCC.com – Doug Brown and Samit Patel really dig into the details of why application compatibility is an important part of Windows 7 migrations and application virtualization projects, as well as 64x and server projects.  They also talk a bit about the future of application lifecycle management – and have fun.

Anything specific you’d like to see in the Jun 15 App-DNA webinar? Stop by and see App-DNA at Microsoft TechEd North America Booth #244, drop a line to info@app-dna.com or on Twitter @appdna

Exciting stuff happening here, App-DNA has just launched AppTitude v.4.5 and have added some great new features that will improve the ease of install and setup as well as scalability and reporting.

Added Application Compatibility Checks

·         Server 2008 R2 – The all new Server 2008 R2 module now allows organizations to check compatibility on the latest Windows Server build. 

·         App-V related checks – will reflect added App-V 4.6 capability for x64 bit apps.  We've also added some cool stuff to detect app dependencies that will help you to determine if you need to implement DSC (Dynamic Suiting Capability).

·         XenApp Streamed related checks – Will reflect added functionality delivered in XenApp 6.0 for capturing services, as well as minor tweaks to show compatibility with 16 bit DOS apps and handling of 64 bit apps.

Improved Installer and all new  “AppTitude Web Server”

·         Faster and simpler setup experience for new users

·         New "AppTitude Configuration" tool to assist in modifying server and client settings

·         System Check facility to verify successful setup of the web service

·         Now you can opt for an “express” alternative to IIS by choosing to install the AppTitude Web Server (for fast setup of local implementations)

More Scalable Reporting

·         Ability to define the number of applications to view in one page in the Assessment view ( very handy for large app portfolios)

New Remediation Level Action Reporting

·         Shows actions required to remediate each app for better remediation reports

·         This will help to get a better idea of how much work is actually involved in getting an app remediated

·         Gives users a way to add their own remediation actions – increases accuracy

Site & Database Switcher – connect to multiple AppTitude DBs

·         A new function within the AppTitude console under the Administration tab that will allow customers to easily add a new AppTitude database, export this and import to any clients required.

·         Improves ease of scalability

·         Once setup, the AppTitude Administrator can export the settings and send the XML config file to the appropriate users to very quickly get them ready to work on the new account.

Updated Import Screen

·         More scalable importing – no limit to the number of apps that can be queued to import

·         Improved layout of import screen -- ability to filter by column (import & export defined filters)

License Transfer – Between Machines

·         Easier to transfer AppTitude licenses from one machine to another

·         Faster, easier and more flexible management of licenses

·         New report navigation system

Auto Unlocker for Licenses:  to select a representative sample of apps

·         Helps select which apps to unlock in the "Apply Licenses" view

·         The result will be a 'random' selection of Red, Amber and Green applications in a defined ratio across all modules that are licensed

If you are one of our partners, check out the webcast on new features through the partner portal site:

http://portal.app-dna.com/Download.aspx#