Altiris 'Revolutionizes' Software Management by Virtualizing Applications
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New Technology Eliminates Application Conflicts for Reduced Support Costs and Delivers On-Demand Application Provisioning for Business Agility
SALT LAKE CITY, Oct. 3 / -- Altiris, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATRS), a pioneer of IT lifecycle management solutions that reduce the total cost of owning IT resources, today announced 'revolutionary' new software management capabilities available with the upcoming release of Altiris(R) Software Virtualization Solution(TM) (SVS). This new Altiris technology reduces support costs and makes software operations more efficient while delivering business agility through on-demand application provisioning. SVS eliminates application conflicts, makes possible the instant repair of damaged applications and significantly reduces testing time for application rollouts.
Michael Silver, Gartner research VP, said, "Most companies have far more critical applications than they'd like. Efficiently and quickly testing, deploying and patching applications, and ensuring they don't conflict with or break one another is increasingly difficult. Application virtualization could allow organizations to deploy applications and fixes more quickly while protecting the integrity of the base operating system and other applications."
AmeriGas is the nation's largest propane company, serving more than 1.3 million residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural and motor fuel propane customers in nearly 50 states. Keith Hemenway, AmeriGas IT engineer, said, "Software Virtualization Solution is like nothing we have ever seen before and completely changes the way we think about software management. I show it to everybody and they ask, 'how did you do that?' Being able to turn applications on and off at a moment's notice will save us significant time, money and hassle. This product is revolutionary."
Bill Washburn, Cal State University San Marcos system administrator, is tasked with managing approximately 80 applications running on more than 1000 computers used by about 7000 students and faculty. Washburn said, "We've rolled out Altiris Software Virtualization Solution to help significantly improve application reliability, drive down application support costs and better serve the constantly evolving software requirements of our faculty and students.
"We operate on a tight budget and have limited resources to address application management. SVS allows us to immediately fill application requests and be comfortable that we won't break existing apps or create new problems. For instance, we are currently running two different versions of NetBeans on certain systems, with no conflicts, to accommodate the needs of various departments and students."
Stephen Tangalin, Kaua'i Island Utility Cooperative network specialist, said, "Our help desk technicians spend a great deal of time diagnosing and fixing application-related problems. Software Virtualization Solution will allow us to significantly reduce this effort by allowing technicians to instantly reset applications back to their original state."
Unlike existing hardware and system virtualization products, SVS abstracts the installation of an application's files and registry settings to allow the application to be deployed and used without altering the host operating system or conflicting with other applications. The solution also enables same-system, conflict-free hosting of multiple versions of the same application.
SVS can be centrally managed by the Altiris architecture to help customers benefit from integrated Altiris IT lifecycle management solutions. However, SVS does not require a proprietary management framework and is built with a flexible architecture to work with other desktop management tools.
SVS places applications and data into managed units that can be instantly activated, deactivated or reset based on business requirements. SVS only affects how application files and registry settings are installed and not how they are consumed or run, preserving application supportability. Applications continue to execute normally and behave as expected with negligible degradation of system or application performance. Virtualizing an application with SVS does not require application customization or specialized training.
NuSoft Solutions customers require quick and easy application deployment, a stable way to install and run untested applications, and the capability to run parallel versions of the same application on a single system. Ken Young, NuSoft Solutions VP of Technology, said, "We performed extensive testing of Software Virtualization Solution and determined that it provided application virtualization capabilities without loss of application or OS performance and was simple to use, both key considerations for our clients.
"In addition, I have begun using SVS on my personal PC. At first, it was a great way to test applications but now I have virtualized applications like Cisco VPN, Google Toolbar, various browsers, and three different versions of the Java JVM. We have also utilized the SVS API to create application installation and management scripts which performed flawlessly."
Steve Morton, Altiris VP of product management and marketing, said, "To help reduce software ownership costs, Altiris has added unique application virtualization technology to our leading configuration management technologies. Nobody else does software management like us."
Licensing and availability
Altiris Software Virtualization Solution will be available in Q4 at an MSRP of $29 per node with volume discounts available. SVS will be also available as a component of Altiris Client Management Suite(TM) Level 2. For more information, or to contact an Altiris sales representative, please visit www.altiris.com/sales.
About Altiris
Altiris, Inc. is a pioneer of IT lifecycle management software that allows IT organizations to easily manage, secure and service desktops, notebooks, thin clients, handhelds, industry-standard servers, and heterogeneous software including Windows, Linux and UNIX. Altiris automates and simplifies IT projects throughout the life of an asset to reduce the cost and complexity of management. Altiris client and mobile, server, security and IT asset management solutions natively integrate via a common Web-based console and repository. For more information, visit www.altiris.com.
Altiris is a registered trademark of Altiris, Inc. in the U.S. and in other countries. Software Virtualization Solution and Client Management Suite are trademarks of Altiris, Inc. The other company names or products mentioned are or may be trademarks of their respective owners.
CONTACT: Rhett Glauser of Altiris Inc., +1-801-805-1131, rglauser@altiris.com; or Tim Rush of Snapp Norris Group, +1-801-208-1100, tim.rush@sng.com, for Altiris, Inc.
