4.7.3

Table Of Contents
VMware, Inc. 41
Chapter 3 Deploying Applications
3FromtheStartmenu,selectPrograms>AdministrativeTools>Services.
Yourvirtualserviceapplicationappearsinthelistofservices.
Youcanmanagetheserviceinthesamewayasanynativelyinstalledservice.
Using ThinApp Packages Streamed from the Network
Anynetworkstoragedevicecanserveasastreamingserverforhundredsorthousandsofclientcomputers.
SeeFigure 31.
Figure 3-1. Data Block Streaming over a Network Share
Ontheenduserdesktop,youcancreateshortcutsthatpointtothecentrallyhostedexecutablefilepackages.
Whentheuserclickstheshortcut,theapplicationbeginsstreamingtothe
clientcomputer.Duringtheinitial
streamingstartupprocess,theThinAppstatusbarinformstheuseroftheprogress.
How ThinApp Application Streaming Works
WhenyouplacecompressedThinAppexecutablefilesonanetworkshareorUSBflashdrive,thecontents
fromtheexecutablefilestreamtoclientcomputersinablockbasedfashion.Asanapplicationrequestsspecific
partsofdatafiles,ThinAppreadsthisinformationinthecompressedformatoverthenetworkusing
standard
Windowsfilesharingprotocol.Foraviewoftheprocess,seeFigure 32.
Afteraclientcomputerreceivesdata,ThinAppdecompress esthedatadirectlytomemory.BecauseThin Appdoes
notwrite datatothedisk,theprocessisfast.Alargepackagedoesnotnecessarilytakealongtime
toloadover
thenetworkandthepackagesizedoesnotaffectthestartuptimeofanapplication.Ifyouaddanextra20GB
filetoapackagethatisnotinuseatruntime,thepackageloadsatthesamespeed.Iftheapplicationopensand
reads32KBofdata
fromthe20GBfile,ThinApponlyrequests32KBofdata.
TheThinAppruntimeclientisasmallpartoftheexecutablefilepackage.WhenThinApploadstheruntime
client,itsetsuptheenvironmentandstartsthetargetexecutablefile.Thetargetexecutablefileaccessesother
partsoftheapplicationstored
inthevirtualoperatingsystem.Theruntimeclientinterceptssuchrequestsand
servesthembyloadingDLLsfromthevirtualoperatingsystem.
Theloadtimeoftheruntimeclientacrossanetworkisafewmilliseconds.AfterThinApploadstheruntime
clienttomemoryontheclientcomputer ,theenduser
computercalculateswhichblocksofdataarerequired
fromtheserverandreadsthembasedonapplicationactivity.
Whentheapplicationmakessubsequentreadrequestsforthesamedata,theWindowsdiskcacheprovides
datawithoutrequiringanetworkreadoperation.Iftheclientcomputerrunslowonmemory,Windows
discards
someofitsdiskcacheandprovidesthememoryresourcetootherapplications.
Sam’s
Sandbox
Joe’s
Sandbox
Jill’s
Sandbox
shared folder