The Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack (MDOP), while not exclusively to Windows 10, enables the user to modernise the solution used to package and deploy applications and also better manage the application lifestyle. It allows IT professionals to manage features within the Windows operating system; virtualise user-experience, applications and desktop functionality; and restore productivity in case of issues with the system.
MDOP comprises six key tools:
- App-V (Application Virtualisation)
- UE-V (User-Experience Virtualisation)
- MED-V (Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation)
- AGPM (Advanced Group Policy Management)
- MBAM (BitLocker Administration and Monitoring)
- DaRT (Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset)
Let’s take a closer look at Microsoft App-V.
App-V is also known as sequencing. It enables administrators to make applications available to end-users without them having to install the applications directly on the end-user’s computer. The administrator can take an application, its settings and dependencies and present it to the end-user as a network service, using local resources. This means that the application is untangled from the operating system.
Administrators can subsequently deploy, update and provide support to applications in real-time by using App-V. While the individual application is used as a locally installed product, it is transformed into a centrally managed system that is available whenever and wherever the end-user needs it and doesn’t require computers to be reconfigured or operating systems to be changed.
In addition, you can connect sequenced App-V applications and configure them to communicate among each via connection groups, giving you the best of both worlds: application conflicts and testing can be done remotely in the centrally managed system, while the applications can interact and communicate with each other as though locally installed in the same network system.
In short, Microsoft App-V brings the following benefits to the table:
- Application isolation
- Improved provisioning
- Improved auditing
- Improved IT control
- Improved end-user agility
- True portability
- Access anywhere at any time
- Hot-desking
Virtualisation can increase IT agility, flexibility and scalability while creating significant cost-savings. Workloads get deployed faster, performance and availability increases and operations become automated which results in IT becoming simpler to manage and less costly to own and operate.
