Hi, I’m Karri Alexion-Tiernan, Director of Product Management for Microsoft Desktop Virtualization, and today I’d like to share some updates around Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V). As customers continue to plan for and migrate to Windows 7, they go through a process of evaluating application compatibility and identifying solutions that are available to assist them with simplifying the process. A few months ago, we shared that MED-V 2.0 Beta would be available in Q4CY2010. I am happy to announce that you can download the MED-V 2.0 Beta today!
You might be asking yourself “How does MED-V 2.0 help me migrate to Windows 7?” Let’s discuss that for a moment so that you can better understand the value of mixing virtualization technologies into your desktop strategy for the future.
Today, many customers are deploying and managing desktops in a traditional manner. By “traditional,” I mean using methods that they have fine-tuned over the years with large all-inclusive system images containing applications and hardware dependencies. In the best cases, some organizations have developed a more modular approach where regional settings, languages, drivers, updates and applications are determined dynamically at install time, but even those approaches can be refined with newer approaches and technologies that abstract applications and user data from the base desktop image and instead bring them together dynamically based on policies.
When migrating or upgrading to a new operating system, IT evaluates which applications are incompatible. They create a plan to deprecate incompatible applications, upgrade them, or leave a legacy operating system running on old hardware to ensure that users can continue to use them. If it is determined that the application cannot run natively in Windows 7 or costs to upgrade/recode the application are prohibitive, customers can bridge the gap with alternate solutions.
New approaches are now available in the form of Desktop Virtualization. With Microsoft’s Desktop Virtualization, we have broken the bonds between the OS, Applications, and Data and User Settings. With virtualization solutions in each of these areas, we provide our customers with the ability to take advantage of the best solution depending on their specific need. MED-V delivers a solution specifically for virtualizing a guest operating system on a local Windows device to address application to operating system compatibility issues.
Enter MED-V … MED-V is a bridge to help you create a longer term plan for your more complex applications that may not be compatible with Windows 7 and are too costly to migrate at this exact moment. MED-V can accelerate your migration to Windows 7 by removing legacy application barriers. It delivers a seamless user experience, consolidates legacy desktop hardware and allows users to access the legacy applications from a single desktop experience. It also enables the business to move all desktops to a better performing, more secure operating system, Windows 7.
Harbor Wholesale Grocery is one example of a customer using MED-V to ease the rollout of Windows 7 and continue support of an existing application in their portfolio, eTIME. Users will not have to open a separate virtual machine, as they would have had to do with Virtual PC. Harbor Wholesale IT staff created a desktop shortcut for eTIME, and users will simply click the icon to launch the application. Here is what Tony Caufield, Computer Operations Manager, Harbor Wholesale Grocery, says about using MED-V:
“MED-V makes everything easier … Using MED-V is helping make our upgrade to Windows 7 a more streamlined process. I’m confident that with Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization and Application Virtualization we will be able to handle any compatibility issues that may come up in the future.”With MED-V 2.0 Beta, we have been listening to customer feedback to further simplify the MED-V experience by enabling one-time sign on to the MED-V workspace. The only time you ever re-enter your password is when you change your Windows password. In addition, we recognize that more infrastructure is not always better so we’ve enabled you to leverage your existing software distribution system as the delivery mechanism for the MED-V workspaces. This means that System Center Configuration Manager integration was a priority for us as we want to extend the value of the infrastructure you already have. Last but certainly not least, customers told us that they are moving toward virtualization of their applications as their primary strategy for the future. Naturally, they want to be able to use App-V in conjunction with MED-V so that they have a consistent packaging methodology, regardless of the target. Now, App-V and MED-V are fully tested together and virtual apps can be deployed and managed within the MED-V 2.0 Beta workspaces.
For more information about other features, and there are many more, please visit the MDOP Blog. For more on how Harbor Wholesale and other customers are taking advantage of MED-V in their environments, check out the case studies.
We hope you enjoy this latest version of MED-V and take advantage of how it can help you move to Windows 7 faster. Please send us feedback so we can keep improving!
Karri Alexion-Tiernan
Director of Product Management
Microsoft Desktop Virtualization
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