Tuesday, May 06, 2008 2:14 PM Brian S. Tucker

SoftGrid 4.5 and SCCM R2 - Better Together or Not? Time will Tell...

As many of you are well aware of the limitations of the current release of SCCM and SoftGrid 4.2, we now are on the horizon of both products working together. I have been on engagements where a client will want SCCM for all it's glory and Softgrid for application pushes. The reason my clients have opted for SoftGrid to deploy applications is because of the reduced amount of time it takes to deploy an application. Or does it? SoftGrid allows you to stream parts of the application in what's known as "Feature Block 1". FB1 is where you decide how much of the application streams to the client when the end user clicks on the application shortcut. An improperly designed SoftGrid environment can cause a long delay in the application opening if you put only a portion in FB1. If you have the entire application in FB1, then you have to pull the entire application down and then it should run. Now, when it comes to a virtualized application running in the "bubble" or "sandbox" as people call it, the SCCM client does not inventory those applications. This is a major problem in my opinion because I want to know everything running. Now I have to read the reports in SG and SCCM. When will the integration come?

We all know that the connector between SG and SMS was a bit of a bust. SG version 4.5 should be released Q2 of 2008, which is right around the corner. In order to run (from what I have read) is that in order to run SG version 4.5 with SCCM, you need SCCM SP1 and R2, which if you click here, you can download the beta for both. while you are there, I highly suggest you read the "What's New" for both SP1 and R2. Vista, Vista & more Vista support along with a small list of other items.

I was reading over at the Virtual World Blog, about how to setup a quick lab with SP1 and R2. It's actually a great read and I will link directly to the integration of SG 4.5 into the SCCM console here and also here in case you miss it. As I discussed before, you needed to look at your reports in 2 different places, now we can read them all in one.Based on the image for the reporting, I hope MSFT will make more canned reports as they have been getting better to do in recent past.

I still question on whether or not SCCM will be able to inventory clients in the same fashion with a virtualized application. The .mof will need to be upgraded to read that information.

I feel confident that SG is a cool product. You can Sequence (package) and application MUCH faster than any other tool that I have ever used and with greater success. When 4.5 comes out you can sequence the normal unusable files into an .msi which then can be deployed by SCCM. So, will there be a need for all the SG servers the 4.1 / 4.2 shops currently use? I don't know. More to come on that. I think when the all comes ahead, I will incorporate SG 4.5 into my Level 5 Guide on SCCM because I can see how people are already looking to align both products.

Interesting though.... for those of you who like the speed of SG deployments over SCCM, how many will integrate is the question I have and probably most of you.

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Comments

# re: SoftGrid 4.5 and SCCM R2 - Better Together or Not? Time will Tell...

Wednesday, May 07, 2008 7:28 AM by David M. Stein

I remember a lengthy discussion on this while I was out in Redmond taking MDOP training (a month or two after you went, if I'm not mistaken).  I thought it was a bit odd that they're trading off the streaming aspect for MSI features in order to make it more SCCM friendly.  That eliminates the biggest differentiator between SG and Thinstall.

You can bundle and deploy Thinstall apps using SMS or SCCM already.  Works great.  You also deploy them using scripts or GPO's if you want.  Same with SG.  You don't get any streaming FB1/FB2 benefits from Thinstall however.  But, and this is a big but (sorry, poor joke): Thinstall doesn't require Software Assurance, so anyone can get their hands on it from VMware.  

It will be interesting to see what happens with both products under their new owners.  The rumormill has it that SG will be extracted into a subsystem within Windows 7 in order to eliminate business adoption worries about app compatability.  That would be a smart move and would give VMware some serious challenges to face with Thinstall.  I think both products are going to end up morphing into other things very soon though.