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.

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

Citrix Synergy was a fantastic event last week. Citrix billed it as “the convergence between virtualization, networking and cloud computing and how it can solve real business problems” -- the event lived up to that and more. At Synergy, App-DNA™ talked with IT leaders about application compatibility and application remediation for Windows 7 projects, Citrix server migrations, XenApp work and more.  App-DNA is truly enjoying the interest brought by winning the Citrix Synergy Best of Show and Process Improvement Awards, but with that buzz comes many questions.  We wanted to answer the top questions we heard at Synergy, but also welcome more questions in the blog comments or via Twitter @appdna – we’ll answer them as fast as possible.

1.       Tell me more about what App-DNA does again? 

App-DNA designs, builds and sells the AppTitude™ software, which provides application compatibility, testing and remediation for enterprises adopting technologies like Windows 7, Citrix XenApp, Microsoft App-V, 64bit, Windows Server 2008 or IE8. Using AppTitude helps organizations avoid the expense and delay of traditional manual brute force based testing and cuts the time, cost and risks associated with deployment of OS migrations, software upgrades, and virtualization projects. App-DNA works directly with IT organizations and through worldwide SI partners and regional SI partners.

2.       How is AppTitude used for more than Windows 7 projects?

App compat is definitely a hot topic for Windows 7 projects, but application remediation is also vital for

-  App-V and XenApp projects  - determine the success rate of applications before you Sequence or Profile them, saving hours of testing and unnecessary tedious iterations.  Understand the potential issues with a package and address them in the initial package creation process

-  64-bit projects – whether Windows or in the data center

-  Server based computing, whether Windows Server 2008, XenApp, Terminal Services project

-  IE8 projects- still in beta, but consider how many web apps you’re looking to migrate? Test their compatibility before they go to IE8.

-  Business as Usual –new apps are added to your enterprise all the time, you need to ensure they will work well

-  Determining what technology to use for specific applications – AppTitude can show you the “best fit” – if an app won’t run well on Windows 7, should you try it on XenApp or App-V?  The understanding of how to best deliver an application in your enterprise environment will go a very long way when it comes to moving away from the physical desktop and organizations start leveraging technologies that provide virtual desktops such as XenClient.

3.       How do you align with the app compat info like Microsoft ACT and the Citrix XenApp compatibility list?

AppTitude complements the information that you find in the available tools. In fact, in addition to the information that App-DNA has collected over years of experience and the intelligence determined by our “DNA” research about the applications, AppTitude looks to external data sources like Microsoft ACT and the Microsoft app compat white list.  App-DNA is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Citrix parter ( Citrix consultants use AppTitude in the field), so we work closely with both companies. For more information, check out this video featuring Chris Jackson, Microsoft’s “app compat guy.”

4.       Okay, where can I see App-DNA and AppTitude?

Check out these videos:

-  If you have 5 minutes: CitrixTV recorded an AppTitude demo at Citrix Synergy

-  If you have 15 minutes:  BrianMadden.com recorded an AppTitude demo at the Microsoft MMS conference

-  If you speak French: here’s a demo from Microsoft TechDays in Paris

-  If you’re interested in server management: view this Dublin PubForum overview

-  If you want a full web demo from AppDNA, contact us using the information below

If you’re attending Microsoft #TechEd, App-DNA will be exhibiting at booth #2244. Stop by and share your app compat questions and see AppTitude in action.

Intrigued? More questions? Use the comments, Twitter @appdna or contact us at info@app-dna.com

Ok, by now most people have good stories to tell or have at least heard that Windows 7 is a good thing. Right? Well I though I'd add my own anecdotal experience to the mix.

In my role I have the opportunity to talk to many organisations in varying stages of Windows Vista or Windows 7 adoption or planning. From the outset Windows 7 just felt better and much of the early testing is bearing out expectations for these organisations and in truth its been a bit surprising how strong early adoption has been for Windows 7.

For myself, I have some challenges in the way I use Windows. As evangelist for App-DNA™ I need to regularly demo and discuss our solution so a stable and responsive OS to support our own product is important. I'm also often testing and demoing early versions of our own software and the combination of OS betas and pre-release software can be challenging at times. Anyone who demos as part of their day jobs knows what I'm talking about.

In the latter part of 2009 when I got my hands on the 64bit RTM bits for Windows 7 combined with a shiny new laptop with a solid state drive (SSD) and things took a turn for the better. I expected some improved performance but the level of improvement was quite surprising. Even more surprising was the lack of issues for running the 64bit version of Windows 7 knowing how problematic driver availability generally is around the release of a new OS.

For those of you not yet familiar with 64bit Windows, here are a few interesting aspects.

1. 16bit apps

16 bit code cannot run on 64 bit Windows. Generally, 16bit apps date back to pre-XP days. There are various reasons for incompatibility but one of the key ones is the passing of 'handles' - these are references which programs use for (amongst other things) the visual windows which you use to interact with the applications. Attempting to pass handles from a 64bit environment to 16bit apps causes loss of data and causes application failure. Some organisations maintain old apps over long periods of time and the presence of 16bit code can sometimes be a bit surprising but for most home users 16bit issue are less likely to be a primary consideration.

1. 32bit apps
   64bit Windows 7 runs 32bit code using the WOW64 (Windows-On-Windows) subsystem. This means that most of your current apps (almost certain to be 32bit) will just run on the 64bit platform. WOW64 translates 32bit calls via an intermediate layer to the 64bit kernel. In general users see nothing of this and apps continue to run as they did on 32bit systems. This is a very smart way of bridging these systems. The only real visible cues for users are in the %ProgramFiles% and %windir%\System32 locations. On 64 bit systems you will now have a "Program Files (x86)" and "%windir%\SysWOW64" folders for the 32bit apps. This change can have an impact for some poorly constructed apps which expect the previous path to exist but this should be a generally rare case.
    
2. 32bit Registry
   The registry also caters for a parallel system for 32bit apps, the: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node  is a visible sign of Windows registry redirection to cater for 32bit applications.  Windows redirects calls to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE to this sub-key so that the 32bit registry can be maintained in parallel with the 64bit. Additional keys under: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes follow the same re-direction.

1. Drivers
   This is one of the areas where its not generally possible to provide a translation layer (like WOW64) as drivers communicate too directly with the kernel. The result is that 32bit drivers fail on a 64bit platform. I've been pleasantly surprised, however, by the availability of compatible 64bit drivers for all of my peripherals (including a home inkjet printer) and as time moves on hardware vendors will continue to extended availability of drivers.

The net result has been a very compatible OS at both the application and 64bit compatibility levels and performance from the SSD has meant the common stuff like boot-up, shutdown, access to mail and general Office related tasks has been blisteringly fast. Vista used to just feel sluggish with so many wait states as indeterminate background tasks seemed to get in the way - all of that is gone away and as a user I'm back to being master of my machine (as opposed to the other way round).