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.

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

As enterprises start planning migrations to the Microsoft Optimized Desktop (Windows 7, App-V, IE8, and Office 2010), one of the most common challenges I hear is "how do I get started"?  And in reality, the answer to this question differs quite a bit between different organizations. 

One of the constants that remains is that the goal of these migration planning sessions is to understand the state of the existing application portfolio and the level of effort that it takes to create deployment ready application packages to roll out in Windows 7 and App-V.  AppTitude™ as a platform can help manage and deliver on that goal.

While AppTitude's application compatibility analysis and intelligent remediation has already provided enterprises with a great snapshot as to the state of their existing portfolio and what the necessary forward actions need to be taken to address outstanding issues, not everyone is aware of AppTitude's ability to create deployment ready packages in a variety of different formats (MSI, App-V, XenApp profiles, etc).

For applications that are not already packaged in the MSI format, the AppTitude Production Manager can spin up virtual machines and essentially capture the construct of an application.  This can be done using application owner input during the installation process or in an unattended mode for those apps that are being deployed silently.  The entire process is managed through "execution profiles", task-based execution sequences driven and customized using simple XML based commands on the back end.  Needless to say, with the level of flexibility associated with these execution profiles, many organizations have been able to take advantage of their existing packaging tools.  Many organizations have already leveraged these execution profiles to integrate with tools such as the Microsoft App-V Sequencer, Citrix XenApp Profiler, Flexera Software AdminStudio, Symantec Wise Package Studio, etc.,  to create deployment ready packages as part of the application planning and application migration process. And for those organizations that are looking to implement ITIL or MOF best practices, the entire capture and package creation process is automatically documented for use in your definitive software library for future releases and application updates.

To learn more about how AppTitude can help automate the application migration process by creating deployment ready packages, come talk with App-DNA™ at MMS Expo booth #437—we’ll be the ones in the (Illini) orange shirts.

Great write up from Network World here, as they revisit the organisations they singled out as ones to watch back in 2008.

Denise Dubie picks out highlights including our global framework agreements with both Microsoft and Citrix, read more here - http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/nsm/2009/121409nsm1.html?hpg1=bn

App-DNA presented the AppTitude™ product to Microsoft's technical teams at their internal technology showcase event - TechReady - earlier this year. Feedback from the event has now been released, and it's fantastic to see that the demo went down so well with the audience. See feedback from Chris Jackson, "The App Compat Guy", on his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/cjacks/archive/2009/12/08/techready-9-recap.aspx 

App-DNA has a global framework agreement with Microsoft for the use of AppTitude by Microsoft field and pre-sales teams, so it's great to see further evidence of very positive traction and that our product is delivering benefit for the Microsoft teams...

App-DNA™ is playing a key role in Microsoft's current Greenlight programme (http://www.app-dna.com/greenlight/greenlight.asp) a drive to assist ISVs in getting their applications compatible with Windows 7.

Through a simple process of uploading an app to our secure FTP site, we then test the apps compatibility on the new OS using our AppTitude™ product, we then provide the ISV with a green, amber or red result, and where necessary offer more detailed remediation advice to enable them to get their app ready.

We've already successfully tested a number of ISV apps and App-DNA Technical Solutions Consultant, Richard Edwards, will be on the blog shortly to discuss our overall findings so far.

In the meantime, use the link above to get your application tested!

The effort needed to migrate to Windows 7 and other platforms just got clearer! App-DNA™ has launched the Effort Calculator as part of it's AppTitude product. The Effort Calculator uses raw data sepcific to your organisation, generated by AppTitude, to show you the exact time and cost needed to get your apps migrated. Have a look at the demo here www.app-dna.com/effortcalculator

In previous OS migrations, the process for determining application compatibility was a manual one.  Applications were tested and if found to have errors, put through a further testing and remediation process.  This was a costly, risky, disruptive, time-consuming and ultimately a very expensive process, leading many organizations to subsequently skip OS upgrades (or delay as long as possible) due to the cost and pain of the experience.

With Windows 7 migration and the new testing tools available, the situation has improved considerably.  The opportunity to pre-scan applications before testing or remediation can make the whole process significantly more efficient.  Knowing which applications have issues before testing means expert resources can be applied directly to applications that need them – and only those.  Applications which do not have issues can be fast-tracked through light or user testing according to importance.  Time and resource planning can be based on accurate metrics rather than basic estimation, reducing the overall time to implementation.

If the process of testing and remediation is begun based on knowledge about the applications and their issues, the entire process becomes more manageable.  High volumes of applications can be addressed with fewer resources.  Timetables are compressed and output is more stable and thus the entire process becomes less risky for the business.

Discovering that an application has issues takes a lot less time than identifying and resolving those issues.  Finding issues with an application (which may require weeks or months to resolve) late in a project can jeopardize the whole project.  Therefore, early identification of issues and their causes saves more than just time.  Automation of application analysis is typically more accurate than basic compatibility testing, as all files within the application can be touched and analyzed with the same degree of depth.  This is not easily achieved whenever a user is required to interact with the application to perform the assessment.

Remediation can come in various forms, from modifications to the installer, shims, re-development, re-provisioning or modifications to the OS build.  Knowledge of the issue types makes resolution more direct.  The ability to incorporate application remediation via modifications to the OS build means that whole categories of issues, for example, missing or deprecated components, can be resolved without modification to individual applications.  This level of resolution further increases stability and efficiency, but may require collaboration between application teams and OS build teams who may have previously worked in isolation.

Organizations that implement and maintain application management processes, often put in place during migrations, benefit in the long term by being more agile.  Agility, in this sense, means being able to adapt to OS and technology changes more rapidly with less risk, less disruption and reduced cost.

Having an up-to-date view of applications means the portfolio size can be pruned and rationalized on an ongoing basis.  Packaging of applications allows for rapid analysis and modifications.  Virtualization can further increase stability and reduce testing as part of the ongoing application management cycle.

In migrating your OS, the challenge with applications starts with uncertainty.  Each application represents an unknown.  Multiply the unknown by the number of applications in the organization’s software portfolio and the size of the uncertainty grows, as does the risk.  Even though application compatibility for Windows Vista - and from early test results, Windows 7 - is generally high, determining which applications need remediation and what that remediation might be means assessing every application.  This testing process, when done manually, is very expensive and can take quite a long time.

Fortunately, there are now tools available to automate much of the initial assessment that also provide details for the remediation of the applications.  Deploying a solution that assesses all of the applications in advance of testing and remediation can dramatically reduce the time spent on the project, as well as eliminate much of the risk from the migration as a whole.

It is vital to have a clear view of how many applications are installed and run within the organization.  A variety of tools and technologies exist to provide this vital part of any migration and management activity.  Having a good inventory paves the way to the rationalization process.

The process of managing applications over time inevitably results in duplication.  New versions are acquired without retiring old ones, and new applications replace previous ones, which can eventually lead to a significant growth in the number of actual applications.  The process of rationalization cleans out the redundant applications and removes duplicates from the list to be managed and migrated.  This can save a significant amount of time in the testing and remediation phase as well as potentially reduce the licensing costs to the business.

Time spent in rationalizing the application inventory is well spent.  Decisions about which application version to chose may incorporate licensing considerations, version compatibility, existing user populations and the strategic importance of each application to the business.