email article printer friendly

Avoiding Application Deployment Hangovers
by Rich Bentley

Posted January 23, 2004

Chances are good that your organization has implemented some type of automated software-distribution system. The return on investment for these tools is significant and easy to quantify. You can realize huge savings in terms of reduced IT efforts and increased user productivity by eliminating the need to visit each desktop or to have users install software manually.

However, there is one catch. You can do more harm than good by automating your deployments if you don't have a good process for preparing and testing these applications before you distribute them. The pain could prove worse than a hangover and cost you time and money to undo.

For example, consider the real-life case of a major energy company (which shall remain nameless) that did a large-scale rollout of an update to one of its key applications. This company used its automated software-distribution tool to push the application out to a thousand desktops overnight. Unfortunately, the company missed a significant bug in its testing. The installation didn't follow proper versioning rules, so a shared DLL file that was used by several other applications was replaced by an older version of the same file. The company was cast into what is commonly known as DLL hell. This error meant a thousand users were unable to access many of their business-critical applications until the situation was corrected later that day. The company estimated the cost of this single incident to be approximately $10 million.

Software distribution tools solve a key part of the application deployment problem, but not all of it. Distribution tools automate the delivery of applications to the enterprise, but they can't ensure that the application is installed and configured according to corporate or industry standards. They also can't ensure that the application is tested and certified to work in the company's operating environment.

Enterprise software packaging is crucial for making application deployments run smoothly. It stems from the fact that the goals of software vendors differ dramatically from those of desktop-management teams with regards to application deployment. Software vendors want to give you the ultimate in flexibility. They want you to choose which components to install, where to install them, and what shortcuts to create. Users of such tools often want exactly the opposite: They want a standardized installation with no options for users. The fewer options to users, the fewer chances something can go wrong.

Software vendors want to test their application thoroughly to ensure they are bug-free and work according to specification. However, they can't test a given application to make sure it coexists peacefully in your operating environment. Only your desktop-management team has the requisite knowledge to perform this testing.

Software vendors are in no rush to support Microsoft's latest standards like Windows Installer. The real value of Windows Installer is evident in features such as self-healing, install-on-demand, and advertising of applications. These features benefit the people who manage and support the desktops, not development teams. Ultimately, if you want standardized applications that support Microsoft's latest manageability features and are tested to work in your environment, then it's up to you to make it happen.

Implementing an enterprise software packaging process isn't difficult, but it does require organizational buy-in and planning to be effective. Management needs to understand the value of software packaging and assign dedicated resources to this task. Your standard packaging process must be documented and well understood. You should implement formal quality assurance procedures that include documented test plans executed by someone not involved in the packaging. This helps eliminate any bias on the part of the people responsible for creating the package.

The delivery of reliable, standardized applications is vital to reducing desktop-management costs and meeting service-level agreements. A proven approach for accomplishing these goals includes both automated software-distribution and enterprise software packaging as core components of an integrated IT lifecycle management solution.

About the Author
Rich Bentley is the strategic market manager for Wise Solutions Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Altiris Inc. Wise Solutions is a leading provider of application management and packaging solutions. Rich has more than 15 years of experience in the IT industry, including positions at EDS and IBM prior to joining Wise in 2000.