A: Gone are the days when installing an application required DVDs and shoe leather. Gone, too, are the days when installing an application actually involved . . . well . . . installing an application. Adding to the singular install, reboot, and repeat method of yesteryear are six modern application delivery approaches.
A Citrix XenApp or XenDesktop infrastructure can be used to accomplish these approaches, as can a growing array of products from other vendors. Here are the methods for application delivery you can use:
- An application can be streamed to a user's physical desktop by using an application virtualization solution.
- An application can be installed on a XenApp server, then presented to a user via a remote desktop.
- An application can be installed on a XenApp server, then presented to a user as a seamless application on the user's local desktop.
- An application can be streamed to a XenApp server by using an application virtualization solution, then presented to the user either within a remote desktop or as a seamless application.
- An application can be installed or streamed to a user's XenDesktop virtual desktop, then presented to that user via a remote desktop.
- Finally, an application can be streamed to a user's XenDesktop virtual desktop, then presented to that user as a seamless application.
Perhaps an even more important consideration than the method or infrastructure is personal experience. Figuring out the application delivery approach that works best in each use case is swiftly becoming one of IT's biggest design decisions
