So after being introduced to App Volumes at PEX I thought it was absolutely amazing. I was finally released from the Thinapp hell that I was oh so accustomed to on a regular basis. After talking to each of the people in the panel I started to think of some things that should be implemented in the product that aren’t.
First off we need to understand the actual underlying framework for the product. App Volumes are client server based from everything that I have seen. You have to install the agent within the guest OS that you are either creating the App Stack on or provisioning the App Stack to and that agent checks in to the App Volumes Manager. Pretty simple right? This is what the overall architecture is from an extremely high level.
Applications are either provisioned to machine accounts or user accounts so application assignments or streaming really isn’t an issue with floating desktops. I think this is awesome except that there is just a vmdk attached to the VM in question when it is either powered on or the user logs in. This vmdk contains all of the applications that you installed during the provisioning process.
So let’s walk through what happens when we provision applications to an AppStack.