Novell announced the availability of Novell ZENworks Application Virtualization 9, a new release that provides an upgraded approach to "application harvesting" intended to enable enterprise IT staff to tap into a library of trusted resources and find the best stored version to build the necessary virtual application dynamically. By harvesting work that has already been done, IT users can scan a target endpoint and quickly build a set of needed virtual applications, saving time and ensuring quality, the vendor says.
ZENworks Application Virtualization 9 includes access to a number of pre-built templates for building virtual applications based upon tested and optimized application configurations. These Web-based templates provide IT administrators with access to a central repository that includes the most up-to-date versions of common applications.
Building applications using templates greatly reduces the manual labor necessary to configure virtual applications, while Web-based access eliminates the need to upgrade the version of ZENworks Application Virtualization each time an application needs to be updated, reducing IT labor and costs. "We provide an online repository of recipes that automate the harvesting and building of virtual applications," Andy Philp, ZENworks Product Manager for Novell, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "Once an application is built, all functions are accessed and run natively."
A new feature within ZENWorks is "Juke-Boxing," which affords the ability to launch individual products from within a single application stream for suite applications. This is turn reduces the time associated with downloading multiple sub-products that aren't being used in an enterprise. "Jukeboxing allows a single application to be built encapsulating an entire suite of products and allowing individual products to be executed directly," Philp explains. "For example, Microsoft Office can be virtualized as one executable, and Jukeboxing allows Word, PowerPoint and Excel to be launched directly from the same single executable."
Additional features include offline streaming support, and application control that helps ensure that IT can maintain compliance with its license agreements. Portable virtualized applications can now be configured to only execute for users who meet defined criteria, such as Microsoft Active Directory membership or if the device is being managed by ZENworks.
More information on ZENWorks is available at the Novell site.