Review: Applications And OSes At Your Service

One of the key problems with provisioning in realtime is that rollouts are typically too complex to deploy. Ardence relieves this with its Software Streaming Platform 4.0. Priced at $250, the Ardence Platform 4.0 uses a new software streaming technique that delivers operating systems and application stacks from network storage to any device.

Unlike thin client architectures that require complex server configurations to deliver software, software streaming delivers all the pieces needed to run systems locally. Once a PC or server blade receives its stream, it boots up as if the software and operating systems are running locally.

The Ardence technology does not stream entire operating systems during the boot process. Instead of serving 2 GB or more of an OS, Platform 4.0 sends the first 70 MB of an OS along with applications. As applications make requests to an OS, Ardence delivers more pages of that OS to a device.

Once BIOS has been set to boot from a network, the Ardence streaming software takes over the booting process. During the initial loading phase, the Ardence software checks to see if the hardware MAC addresses match its list. The MAC address is also used for determining the right OS and applications that need to run on system. During read or writes to local discs, the Ardence software streams new pieces so that OS functions, such as paging, can process data.

The Ardence Platform provides a private and standard mode to deliver software to local machines. In private image mode, there is a one-to-one correspondence with a PC or server that can boot up from a single network image.

For instance, 10 PCs running in private image mode will have 10 separate images stored on a network repository. In standard mode, the Ardence software can deliver one image to many PCs. This capability sets the Ardence Platform well above competing vendor software, and allows administrators to deliver a single image to thousands of computers at once. What's more, software patches no longer need to be divided into individual images, even if problems occur during upgrades.

If there is a problem with the most recent image, Ardence provides rewind capabilities to go back in time to a previous image. Ardence's standard mode essentially eliminates all the risks involving forward roll outs and provides enterprises with zero touch administration (since administrators do not have to go out to fix upgrades).

The Ardence software also allows for virtual images to run inside a main image. By streaming virtual disks, administrators can create various load balancing techniques across servers. The amount of work hours that are saved could pay for this software.

In previous Ardence releases, images were only separated by chipsets in NIC cards. On most standard mode deployments, administrators had to create a handful of images, each corresponding to a specific chipset. With the release of 4.0, Ardence has now created a common image on top of its standard image. The common image takes a snapshot of standard images and runs a utility on each NIC card chipset to capture driver information.

When a PC is powered, a network boot setting runs a pre-execution environment, which makes a call through a NIC card to a network to receive an operating system. However, without knowing what network driver to load into an OS image, the Ardence software could not load an OS properly. A network driver needs to be present in an image at load time.

With Ardence 4.0, at load time, a new utility detects which NIC cards are present in a system. The Ardence software then finds the right bootstrap to load the OS image. Once the utility has all the driver information, it overloads drivers for the different chipsets on a standard image. From a single image, administrators can boot up physical and virtual desktops, regardless of which network chipsets are running in hardware systems. With this capability, administrators can run Lenovo, HP and IBM clients from the same image.

Administrators also can create all sorts of physical and image configurations because they do not have to concern themselves with individual network chipsets. Users can have physical desktops delivered at work and virtual ones streamed out through the Internet to their homes. In addition, image sharing will dramatically lessen the amount of drive space required to load OS and applications.