Conversation with AppSense
In preparation for the upcoming VMworld, I've been speaking with representatives of quite a few suppliers who are offering something in the virtualization software space.
A few days ago, I had the opportunity to speak with Martin Ingram, Vice President of Strategy for AppSense. Although I can't disclose a good deal of the conversation at this time, I enjoyed a discussion of the forces that would drive financial organizations, healthcare organizations and some government institutions to focus some energy to deliver published, virtual, streamed and local applications rather than merely installing a copy of every application on every desktop system. AppSense speaks about this as "User Environment Management." Furthermore, I really enjoyed Martin's sense of humor.
AppSense's description of User Environment Management
User Environment Management comprises three components - Profile Management, System Protection and Quality Of Service, all managed within a centralized Management Centre.
Profile Management enables consistent and contextual user environments through centralization of environment data and management tools.
System Protection is centralized management of user environment protection policies. Proactively control the applications that can be executed within a user environment, eliminating those that are disruptive such as viruses, games and animations.
Optimize the response times of key applications for key users at key times, providing a consistent Quality of Service across the network.
AppSense Management Center is a management console that enables centralized monitoring and management of all user environments across multiple application delivery mechanisms. The Management Center also provides secure and enterprise-scalable software deployment capabilities to ensure all users benefit from consistent, contextual, secure and responsive user environments.
Snapshot analysis
Organizations have been asking for the best of both a locked down, encapsulated environment and the ability to offer staff members to personalize their work environment. They've learned that if the IT organization proceeds down a path towards a fully locked down environment, they often appear heavy handed and insensitive to staff members' needs. In some organizations, this has lead to a "range war" between the IT department and the world at large. Everyone loses when the situation degenerates into open conflict.AppSense has developed the capability to detect what staff members have done to personalize their environments and then apply those changes to "golden" masters of applications, deployment environments and the operating system upon application delivery. This capability is designed to make it possible for organizations to both enjoy the protection of a locked-down environment and the ability to allow staff members to modify those environments to boost their overal productivity and job satisfaction.
As often the case in the world of virtualization technology, there are quite a few competitors offering the delivery of a desktop experience that is encapsulated and managed. Citrix, VMware and few others come to mind with only a bit of thought. Since AppSense has nearly a 10 year history of offering organizations optimization and security solutions based upon Citrix XenApp and Microsoft Terminal Server and now other technologies, it has a chance of distinguishing itself from the competition by presenting a long list of successful customer installations.
If you've not heard of AppSense, it might be good to visit their website and learn more.