In our training environment we have decided to use virtualized Windows applications to enable fast provisioning, upgrading, deprovisioning and PC building / re-building.
The remit was to have all the applications required to be trained on as available for the next term / year and not require any manual intervention in setting up the rooms for the next course other than tools to clear profiles.
I wanted to implement Network Apps streaming using pre-populated icons. This would give the impression of all the applications required to be trained on as being installed, but would only start streaming when their icon was clicked.
I thought that we could have the following:
1. all trainees click app icon and the app starts to stream and fire up, then
2. after the PowerPoint pre-amble by the teacher, the apps should be ready to use - so effectively the app would continue to stream in the background until fully cached.
But what I am seeing that once the initial blocks / streamlets have loaded and the app fires up, the streaming halts. It does not seem to resume until either the app is closed and opened and closed a coupled of times, or until you need to use a part of the app that hasn't streamed yet, when you get a very long delay, say up to a minute or so, when nothing happens while the relevant blocks are streamed. I am looking at the system tray app under the 'My Applications' tab to see the streaming progress. I have even tried putting the .xpa file on a second partition on the same SSD disk, but the streaming was still slow.
Is there a configuration I could use that would achieve pre-populated icons and once the app is fired up, have the streaming continue immediately until the whole app is fully cached?
Or is there another design that I should explore, for example like 'pre-pop style' icons that would import an XPF from the network into a layer on first click?
Notes:
- We have a 1GB fast network to the clients
- SWS Agent version 7.6.0.112
- SWV Agent version 7.6.112
Many thanks in advance,
Darren.
Darren Collins
Applications Packaging and Deployment for IT Services,
Oxford University, UK.