MSI compatibility is only the first step. Microsoft will likely do an even more thorough strip job as time goes on, dumping much of the existing management UI, which is awkward at best, in favor of an even more seamless integration with MSCCM (Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager). The company doesn’t think much of SoftGrid as a separate product, as evidenced by its decision to release what was essentially the entire Softricity product catalog as a set of free tools (the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance) for customers in the Microsoft Software Assurance program. Clearly, this is a product acquisition in which the sum of the parts is considered greater than the whole.

I tested SoftGrid 4.2 running under Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 (SP1). As with previous versions, the SoftGrid server components require a Microsoft Active Directory environment in order to function. There are a variety of additional requirements, including Microsoft Internet Information Services and Microsoft Management Console 3.0, the latter of which must be downloaded separately. The SoftGrid installer does a good job of flagging any missing pieces, but does not offer to install them from within the setup wizard -- an un-Microsoft behavior that will likely be fixed when the company further integrates SoftGrid with MSCCM.

During benchmark testing, SoftGrid streamed a virtualized Office 2003 package to the desktop with initial startup times of 13, 10, 9, and 12 seconds for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access respectively, all while consuming from 92Mbps to 110Mbps of network bandwidth. Subsequent streaming operations to support accessing additional functionality outside of the initial startup blocks triggered another 50Mbps to 80Mbps of network traffic. Caching the entire Office suite for offline use took just under two minutes while pushing peak bandwidth utilization to 124Mbps.

Overall, SoftGrid remains a solution with tremendous potential, but is marred by unresolved usability and compatibility issues. No doubt the compatibility issues will become moot as Microsoft narrows the product’s focus to its own delivery needs while the usability problems will be addressed when SoftGrid is eventually vivisected on the System Center chopping block.

Symantec SVS Pro 2.1
Symantec’s SVS (Software Virtualization Solution), acquired when the company purchased Altiris in late 2006, has long provided one of the easiest to use and most flexible application virtualization platforms (see my March 2006 review, "Altiris shakes up Windows configuration management"). Its effortless handling of headless services and other complex application types have made SVS the darling of the IT skunkworks crowd, as evidenced by the popularity of the Juice online developer community. However, in direct comparisons to SoftGrid and even Thinstall, SVS always came up short in the area of application delivery. Complex SVS “layers,” such as our Office 2003 test bed, can be quite large (150MB to 300MB or more, depending on configuration), making them impractical to deliver over large, geographically dispersed enterprises.

To address this deficiency, and to bring SVS more on par with SoftGrid, Symantec has partnered with AppStream to add a streaming delivery mechanism for SVS-packaged applications. However, as is often the case with mixed vendor/OEM solutions, the integration of the participating components is less than perfect, leaving the user to navigate disparate UIs rife with redundancy.