Planning Your Streaming Solution in an Electronic Software Distribution Implementation

If you decide to use streaming servers in conjunction with your ESD system to make application content available to your end user computers, you can choose from several alternatives, taking advantage of whatever infrastructure is already in place. For example, if your ESD system has software distribution shares on servers in your field branch offices, you can place the Application Virtualization \CONTENT share on those servers and then configure the clients to use that content share as their application content source. The supported options include using a file server or an IIS server. You could also install the Application Virtualization Streaming Server on an existing file server or IIS server.

The Application Virtualization Streaming Server provides support for the active upgrade feature in Application Virtualization. The active upgrade feature enables a new version of an application to be added to an App-V Management Server or Streaming Server without affecting users currently running the application. The App-V clients will automatically receive the latest version of the application from the App-V Management Server or Streaming Server the next time the user starts the application. Use of the RTSP(S) protocol is required for this feature. If you choose not to use the Application Virtualization Streaming Server, you will need to explicitly manage application package upgrades by using the ESD system.

Note   Access to the applications is controlled by means of Security Groups in Active Directory Domain Services, so you will need to plan a process for setting up a security group for each virtual application and for managing which users are added to each group. The Application Virtualization system administrator configures each streaming server to use these Active Directory groups by applying ACLs to the application directories under the CONTENT share, which controls access to the packages based on Active Directory group membership.

The characteristics of the available streaming options are summarized in the following table.

Server Type	Protocol	Advantages	Disadvantages	Links
File server	SMB	Simple low-cost solution to configure existing file server with \CONTENT share	No active upgrade	How to Configure the File Server
IIS server	HTTP/ HTTPS	Supports enhanced security using HTTPS protocol Supports streaming to remote computers across the Internet Only one port in firewall to open Scalable Familiar protocol	Need to manage IIS No active upgrade	How to Configure the Server for IIS
Application Virtualization Streaming Server	RTSP/ RTSPS	Active upgrade Supports enhanced security using RTSPS protocol Only one port in firewall to open	Dual infrastructure Server administration requirement	How to Configure the Application Virtualization Management Servers

Related topics

How to Configure Servers for ESD-Based Deployment

Security and Protection Overview

Publishing Virtual Applications Using Electronic Software Distribution