I had someone ask me why he'd ever want to virtualize his data. Applications he could easily see the benefit, but why data? After all you only ever want to have one copy of your data, right?

It got me thinking that possibly others aren't looking at this the same way I am. (Not always a bad thing BTW) So I stepped back a bit and thought, "How is it that I am looking at this such that virtualizing data seems like such an obvious thing that I'm surprised that it's even questioned?"

This essay, by Hugh Gallagher, won first prize in the humor category of the 1990 Scholastic Writing Awards. It appeared in the May issue of Literary Cavalcade, a magazine of contemporary fiction and student writing published by Scholastic in New York City. Gallagher, who is eighteen, grew up in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, and will attend New York University this fall.

Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by US Air Force pilots and the replies from the maintenance crews. "Squawks" are problem listings that pilots generally leave for maintenance crews.

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

Remember the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus? Here is a prime example offered by an English professor at Southern Methodist University, English 44A, Creative Writing, Prof. Miller:
In-class Assignment for Wednesday:

"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple: Each person will pair off with someone else. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

"The following was actually turned in by two of my English students: Rebecca - last name deleted, and Gary - last name deleted."

Way cool. .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 now both work in virtual packages.

The guys are at it again...

We've virtualized SQL server for a long time now, but its install ties it to the local machine. Jeremy, who worked at MS on SQL Server, knew of a script that would fix this up. So the testers built a SQL 2005 VSA and then set the script to "run once". Now when the layer is activated, the script runs, configures SQL for the local box, and presto -- you have a new SQL server. The nice thing about this configuration is that anytime you reset the app, the run once will run again. Very slick.

As compelling as SVS is as a product, I think it will be the integration of our virtualization technology with the other Altiris products and third party products that will have the biggest impact in the long run. Don't get me wrong, I do think that SVS and especially a Wise/SVS integration will have a huge impact on application installation and management.

Today Brian and Lance captured 20+ "starving student" pieces of software which is I guess a collection of GNU licensed applications. The thing that is cool about this is that if I want to try out one of the apps, all I have to do is download a VSA file, import the package, and activate it. The VSA format is a ZIP file that has the registry data and all of the files included. An import is simply an unzip of files into a clean area (no conflict resolution) and an import of the registry data. It is the fastest install that I know of. The VSA attempts to be portable through the use of variablization and does a pretty good job. However, the Wise team will help take this all the way in a future version.

My virtualization thoughts started many years ago when I was thinking hard about a particularly tough problem Windows users face a lot -- application uninstall. Windows application uninstalls are rarely 100% successful. Often the box is left cluttered with orphaned files or registry settings. This is sometimes referred to as "bit rot" or "registry rot". Anyway, the thought occurred to me, "What if the files and settings never really happened in the first place?"

Altiris Protect uses the same file and registry virtualization core technology as Altiris SVS. But where SVS does application virtualization, Protect does user session virtualization. The Protect product page is here. Protect is useful in environments where you want to let users have full access to the machine, but only while they are logged on. After they log off all changes they made simply disappear instantly. Protect is used in libraries, schools, labs, call centers, home PCs, etc.

SVS is a product for Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 that provides a new way for installing and managing applications. SVS solves file and registry conflicts between applications. It allows for the complete removal of an application along with any changes that the application made during its lifetime. SVS allows the backup or migration of applications -- complete with user settings. It allows multiple versions of software that would normally conflict to peacefully coexist. It allows applications to be managed as complete units and separates them from the underlying operating system. It does this in a way that preserves application compatibility -- the application and the OS run normally. OS installations are more stable because the applications that are used on the system do not change the base file system and registry.