Access IT Automation Blog

The technology industry is notorious for its love of acronyms, particularly when it comes to cloud computing. With cloud-based solutions becoming increasingly essential for every company and industry worldwide, three key cloud service models have emerged as the backbone of the cloud revolution: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The phrase "as-a-Service" refers to a wide variety of technology services delivered to companies or individuals via the internet by a third-party service provider. 

Microsoft's Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD), a relatively new technology released in late 2019, has proven to be a vital solution for many enterprises. During the pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders, companies found themselves needing to provide their employees overnight with an in-office experience at their home. Powered by Azure, this cloud-based application virtualization service provides users with a complete desktop experience with top level security and compliance — in the office, at home, or anywhere in the world. In addition, Windows Virtual Desktop has also saved companies time and money by eliminating issues that employees would face in an on-premise environment, and by creating a better user experience.

However, as with any new technology, there are still a few issues that can arise and persist, causing end-user inefficiencies and lost time. In due course, Microsoft will address them through improvements in the product but in the meantime, customers need quick, easy, and automated ways to fix them. In this post, I will take you through some of the issues and show you how Access Symphony can solve them in an automated fashion, rather than using the manual way Microsoft is prescribing.

When it comes to modern app management, a lot has changed in the last few years with the release of Windows 10 and the proliferation of cloud services. With the rapid pace of updates from Microsoft, app testing and deployment has never been more important to keep an enterprise running smoothly. Without keeping your apps up to date, you risk running an insecure IT environment, leaving the door wide open to cyber attacks. On the flip side, if you rush updates to mitigate security issues, you risk having line of business apps suddenly stop working properly, causing major delays and inefficiencies in your organization.

Over the past few years, Access IT Automation has continuously invested in the enablement of Microsoft technologies: Azure, MSIX, and Windows Virtual Desktop. A great example of this is our ongoing MSIX and Windows Virtual Desktop TAP (Technology Adoption Program) partnership with Microsoft. To further cement this partnership, Access is thrilled to announce that its application suitability tool, AppScan, is now hosted on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.

Today, I want to walk you through the benefits of Access AppScan on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, and highlight what this means for you, an Access client or an enterprise evaluating suitability testing and automated application packaging and testing tooling, as you move to modern application management.

Last week, we highlighted all the advantages you are bound to benefit from as you start your modern application management journey. And while there are many reasons why you should pursue this path as soon as possible, it isn't all "puppies and rainbows". We have to be realistic about our expectations and be aware of any potential speed bumps and pitfalls along the road. Today, I want to walk you through five very common, but often ignored challenges, namely:

When an enterprise does any kind of IT migration, such as an OS upgrade, it has to touch hundreds and sometimes even thousands of apps. Each app needs to be tested, repackaged, and tested again. Each application and version can take anywhere from a few hours to days to be tested. Then the entire process gets repeated every 6-12 months with each new Windows version release, depending on your chosen branch, it becomes quickly and painfully obvious that the time and manpower needed is a huge strain on IT.

One major benefit to a modern app management environment is that this part of the process is significantly trimmed down. But there are multiple other benefits to modern app management, and we will discuss nine (9) of them in this article.

Traditionally, application packaging and testing was a relatively siloed process done almost entirely by specialized teams. The application owners would submit a packaging or testing request and be available to supply further information, files, or data if needed. Other than that, they had to sit tight and wait. Also developers and technology and operations teams had to rely on the application packaging and testing teams — a process that could take weeks and hold up the development process or entire IT transformation projects.

Application packaging and testing isn't the same as it was 10 years ago. Traditionally, a somewhat siloed-off team took care of the actual process, but it would take days and sometimes weeks to find the right app owner, gather all the files and install instructions, and then cycle back with them again for UAT and sign-off. Now, with agile development and DevOps, this approach is impractical. For example, an internal developer might push out a new version of code three times a week and they cannot wait days every time to simply test it. Depending on what your development, packaging, testing, and release process looks like, you will need to choose a specific automation approach that is right for you.

According to a recent McKinsey study, 94% of the UK workforce lack the skills that will be required in 2030: "Without concerted action by employers, two-thirds of the UK workforce could lack basic digital skills by 2030, while more than 10 million people could be under-skilled in leadership, communication, and decision-making,” the report said.

This alone is a drastic issue to deal with — which only is made worse by new, additional challenges the country is facing: the wide-reaching effects on the general workforce and IT environments created by COVID and by the exit from the European Union at the end of the year (BREXIT), and new labour laws like IR35 which further narrows access to available resources. Let's have a closer look at the situation before we talk about some ways you can start to mitigate the associated risks. 

In the past 11 months, we have released a lot of new and exciting features and sometimes it is hard to keep track of them all. To make it easier for you, we have created an Access Capture Release Notes page. You can subscribe to it and always get the latest updates sent to your inbox as soon as they are posted. But we also wanted to take the opportunity today to highlight some of the most valuable and impressive features in a dedicated blog post. Our development team, headed up by Nik Maloney, has gone above and beyond and I am very proud of the outcome.