School District Uses Virtualization to 'Kid-Proof' 10,000 Student PCs

You can read an excerpt of the article here:

The small IT staff of the Kent School District in Kent, Wash., has discovered a way to nearly kid-proof the thousands of notebook PCs it’s phasing in for all grade levels.

The district uses the notebooks simply as a repository for groups of applications that are virtualized using the Microsoft Application Virtualization software (formerly SoftGrid). Each application is packaged with Microsoft’s virtual runtime, stored on a server, and then downloaded to a notebook or desktop PC when a student logs on and clicks the corresponding icon. On a notebook, the package runs in a protective virtual “bubble,” instead of actually being installed on the PC.

That means district IT staff largely avoid the plague of application conflicts, changes, DLL snafus, and all the other software-based problems that are routine for large laptop deployments. Because the PCs share a common, standard Windows XP software image, spares can be stored at every school. If a student’s laptop stops working for any reason, he or she can swap it for a spare, fire it up, download the virtualized application set and get back to work.

Sidestepping the typical hardware and software support burden is critical to the district’s ambitious goal of equipping all students in grades 7-12 with a laptop PC that could be taken home. But to truly realize the notebook’s potential, district officials realized they also had to revamp the curriculum to make use of it, and train and support teachers to exploit both. The expanded laptop program got under way with an extensive pilot in September 2005.

Click to see: Diagram of Kent Schools use of virtualization

Currently there are about 10,000 computers for 27,000 students in 40 buildings spread over 72 square miles just south of Seattle. Of those machines, 3,000 are notebooks, the rest desktops. The district will be adding up to 2,500 notebooks per year until it reaches the target goal of 15,000 for the upper grades, says Thuan Nguyen, the district’s director of information technology. All are currently running Windows XP, but the district will be shifting to Vista in 2009.

As seen here the team from Login Consultants released a new version of their OSD editor and Softgrid Migration Tools to support Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5. There’s a brief overview lifted from there website and a download link below.

Login Consultants releases updated versions of the SoftGrid OSD Editor and SoftGrid Migration Tool to support the upcoming version of Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 (formerly SoftGrid) which is now still in beta.

New in the SoftGrid OSD Editor 2.1, besides some minor fixes, is the ability to support and manage Dynamic Suiting Composition in OSD files. This is a new feature of SoftGrid 4.5 which allows interaction between different virtualized applications which run in their own “sandboxed” environment. The SoftGrid Migration Tool (SGMT) 1.1 has also been updated to work with SoftGrid 4.5. This version of the SGMT also supports new features of the latest SoftGrid Sequencer version, like the ability to set type of Compression, Block Size and save a Virtual Application in Microsoft Installer (MSI) format.

The SoftGrid OSD Editor 2.1 and the SoftGrid Migration Tool 1.1 can be downloaded through our downloads section.

Recently I had the chance to start working with Softgrid, a Microsoft's application virtualization and I'm really stunned about the potential of virtualization in future. But let's stop the chit-chat and go to the fundamental point.

The goal was to sequence Internet Explorer 7 with JInitiator's plug-in in Windows Vista. It doesn't matter the version of JInitiator but what matters is that has to work. Well it's known that Oracle is not supporting JInitiator on Vista, so Softgrid is coming handy on this. So the steps are quite simple and if you follow them, you should get the job done.

1.Create a folder in "Q:" with the name you want. I've called it "JavaJInitiator". Inside create two folders. I've called them "Java" and "JInitiator".

2.Install Sofgrid's Sequencer on a Windows Vista with Internet Explorer 7.

3.Open the Sequencer and start a sequence task and give the name you want to give to each points. Remember: in the Path textbox you have to enter the same name on which later you will save the package. I've entered as "JavaJInitiator".

4.Start Begin Monitoring. Then install JRE (well I managed to work with the 1.5 version, but I guess any version should work) on "Q:JavaJInitiatorJava". When it finishes install JInitiator on "Q:JavaJInitiatorJInitiator".

5.What we're gonna do now is part of what does the trick so we can manage it to work on Vista. It's pretty simple. Only what you have to do is to open the folder: "Q:JavaJInitiatorJavainclient" and copy the file "jvm.dll" to the folder "Q:JavaJInitiatorJInitiatorinhotspot" and replace with the one that is there.

6.Now if needed, you should go to Control Panel and click on the JInitiator's icon to increase the cache size in order to guarantee your application doesn't fail. By default is 50mb.

7.So, now we're gonna test the application. Go and link to your Oracle Forms Application site and wait for the application to open. It may ask to register a .dll, do it and the application should open. Now, in order to guarantee that will work as virtualized you should go to Internet Explorer Tools, Internet Options, Programs and click Manage Add-Ons. There, choose Download ActiveX Controls (32 bit) and certify that JInitiator's plugin is Enabled, if not, enable it. Restart your Internet Explorer and test the application again. After, Stop Monitoring.

8.The next step is to choose the path, so select "Q:JavaJInitiator" . After that, when choosing what goes in the package, remove Java and JInitiator and just leave Internet Explorer on the list. Edit Internet Explorer and give the name "Internet Explorer with JInitiator", the Version "7" and give the OSD file name as "JavaJInitiator.osd".

9.Launch the application in order to test it and now you're ready to save it. Save your package as "JavaJInitiator" in the directory "C:JavaJInitiator".

10.Copy the package to "Content" folder of your Softgrid server, import it and you're ready to stream it.

Well, I hope it helps you understanding how softgrid can help you with the various versions of JInitiator and how to run multiple applications in Windows Vista with Internet Explorer 7.