Liquidware Labs Unveils “Micro Isolation” in FlexApp at Citrix Summit 2016

“Typically, when applications are layered on top of a base operating system, files and registry keys attempt to layer to the same areas of a desktop with identical names. Until now, the only way to avoid these conflicts were to carefully plan and test applications for compatibility,” said Jason Mattox, CTO at Liquidware Labs, “If conflicts occur, applications were either deemed incompatible or had to be packaged into a common layer, that is putting multiple applications in one VHD or VMDK.” According to Mattox, industry watchers have criticized the latter approach because it simply shifts desktop base image management to large layering management instead of allowing applications to be managed modularly, which is the much preferred path to reduce complexity in desktop environments.

FlexApp’s new Micro Isolation technology intelligently keeps track of and earmarks layered files and registry entries to keep them associated with the correct application. This new approach retains the benefits of streamlined base image management and provides Administrators with options to keep applications in separately managed layers.

“With Micro Isolation, we have chosen to solve the problem by eliminating these types of conflicts altogether. Each layer sees the versions of files and registry values that were put in place originally during the capture process,” said Mattox. “In other words, we’ve removed the limitation of a single file or registry value having only one set of contents, and as a result, FlexApp provides a better-than-native level of application compatibility."

“Although most mainstream commercial software can be virtualized without issue, it is worth noting that the same cannot be said about custom and other niche applications that many enterprises rely on. A 2015 IDC survey found that over 50% of companies using client virtualization had custom line-of-business applications that were internally developed. Application layering solutions and technologies such as Liquidware Labs’ Micro Isolation provides IT organizations with another tool that can be used to mitigate issues that may arise when virtualizing legacy and custom applications, particularly applications that conflict with one another,” said David Laing, Research Manager, IT Service Management and Client Virtualization, IDC.

The demand and popularity of the feature-rich ProfileUnity with FlexApp solution was validated in 2015 when this solution won both a Redmond Reader’s Choice award and an SVC award. Both of these awards rely on votes from actual users of the products to determine the best-of-breed in each category.

Another key update in ProfileUnity with FlexApp v6.5.1 includes basic support for Windows 10 operating systems.