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The App Migration Workbook The denitive guide to application compatibility testing for enterprises
Make sure your apps are ready!

Contents
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Answering the four big questions

03

Understanding your environment How many apps do you have out there? 04 What is app-compat all about? Why do you need it? Why manual testing isnt enough Manual migration How much it will cost How much time you need Before you migrate Best-practice steps 05 06 07 08 09 10

How automated app-compat testing works 1. Importing your apps 2. Analyze 3. Reporting 4. Remediation App-compat as part of Business as Usual Business as Usual The Savings Towards the Optimized Desktop Conclusion About App-DNA Resources Contact App-DNA

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 20 21 22 23

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Introduction

Answering the four big questions

Todays application estates are bigger, more complex and more inter-connected than ever. Before you make a move to a new platform whether its Windows 7, 64-bit computing, server-based computing or any avor of virtualization you need to know for sure that your apps are ready to come with you.
In trying to establish How do I get there from here? And Where do I start? You first need fast answers to four fairly important planning questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. Will each app work on the new platform(s)? What can I do about it if not? How else can I deliver any problem apps? How much time and money will it cost to migrate my estate?
If you can answer these questions up front, before migrating a single app, your migration will be relatively quick and painless. If you cant, youre ying blind and might come to ground with a resounding crash. The idea is not just to get a snapshot of your denitive application catalog. The idea is to build an effective action plan for moving your app estate to where it needs to go. This short eBook is here to help you move a step closer by giving you a crash course in App Migration in general and app-compatibility testing in particular. It wont do the work for you, but just might clarify your thinking about app migrations and application life cycle management so you make better decisions. Weve also included a few worksheets to help you calculate your own app migration metrics. We hope this workbook helps you do your job. Wed love to hear how youre using it and if youve got anything to add. Happy migrating

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Barrier
Application compatibility is the largest barrier to platform migration.

Understanding your environment How many apps do you have out there?
Before you can plan to migrate your application estate, it helps to know what youve got. We recommend using a survey tool to identify and categorize all your apps. You might already be using desktop management environments like Microsofts System Center Conguration Manager but there are other third-party audit tools out there (we also like Survey from Scalable).
For now, we just need a rough number:
<500 apps 501-1,000 apps 1,001 to 3,000 apps 3,001 to 5,000 apps >5,001 apps

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Worksheet

How controlled are your desktops?

Highly regulated companies and public sector organizations often lock down their desktops so users cant add applications on their own. Roughly how many of your desktops are locked down? % locked down / % unlocked The more locked down you are, the more likely it is that you know what apps you have and where they live. The more open you are, the more youre probably suffering from rampant app proliferation.

How much application churn do you have?

Your application portfolio is not a static thing. Think about your churn rates to get an idea of how many new applications are entering your estate each year. New apps requests per month x 12 = apps every year Revision of existing apps per month x 12 = modied apps every year New apps + Revised apps = Total throughput new

Youll also want to consider: How many applications need to be modied after theyre deployed due to issues with the build or with other applications? How many applications do not go cleanly through your application certication process?

04

Unknown unknowns
Many enterprises have lost track of their application estates because of three trends: App proliferation the sheer number of apps and versions App complexity dependencies, integrations, database and registry calls Mixed deployments physical, virtual, OS generations, web apps This application uncertainty may cause a bit of pain in day-to-day operations but its totally unsustainable and scales quite poorly when its time to migrate to a new platform.

What is app-compat all about?

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App-compat is more than testing apps to see if theyre compatible with a given platform and other applications. Thats part of it, but taken as a whole, app-compatibility includes these ve areas:
Pre-migration app-compat analysis
This is what most people think of when they think about app-compat: will my apps make it to my target platform?

Remediation and packaging acceleration

App-compat management also involves remediating any problem apps and speeding up the packaging process.

Business As Usual process improvement

This is a hugely valuable area for app-compat management: as an input to (and platform for) your dayto-day app management and provisioning processes. And if you re-use information collected during this migration and prevent the need for the upfront analysis in your next migration or technology adoption.

The top three challenges in Windows 7 migration? App compatibility, app compatibility and app compatibility.
Michael Silver Gartner See the video now

Finding the best platform for your app estate

Migration forecasting and budgeting

If you havent decided which platform or OS youre moving App-compat is a great tool for planning and budgeting to, app-compat management can help you decide (no use your migration or app transformation program with diving in only to nd your apps cant come with you). accuracy. It takes the rst-stage results from an appcompat analysis and adds a new layer: what will this cost and how long will it take? Good app-compat management will identify potential issues early in the packaging life cycle so you can direct resources appropriately.

As you travel down the app-compat road, it pays to think of all these areas not just migration acceleration (though this alone will more than justify any investment).

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Why do you need it?

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The benets of app-compat management are pretty compelling. Most enterprises wouldnt think about changing their app estates without it. And for good reason:
Make better decisions
Know which platform to migrate to, when to do it, how to manage and deliver any apps that wont make it to the target, and how to resource and budget your project.

Get there faster

App-compat routinely cuts testing time in half and packaging time by at even more.

Improve business as usual processes

By better understanding the impact of change as your app estate churns ahead. So youll reduce the cost of your next migration while also re-using your hard-earned migration knowledge to speed up existing processes.

Make application compatibility the rst priority.

Bernhard Huber Head of IT Workplace Systems, BMW

Minimize disruption
Keep application users on side and keep the critical business processes humming along. For many, this is far more important than the direct cost of migration.

Drive down costs

Accelerated testing and packaging plus signicantly fewer errors and less re-work adds up to months and millions saved for even a mid-sized app estate.

Five years ago, these benefits werent widely understood. Today, theyre taken almost as a given.

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Quick Tip:
App-compat testing tells you where to deploy your experts. With it, two experts can focus on your challenging remediation issues. Without it, 50-100 highly paid people will be needed to churn through your application estate (an expensive sledgehammer to crack a lot of little nuts).

Why manual testing isnt enough

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When application estates were fairly small and predictable, enterprise IT departments used to be able to manage migrations using manual testing alone. It may not have been cheap or easy; it may have caused some pretty unhappy users; but in the end, you got there.
Today, application estates are far too big, heterogeneous and inter-dependent to even consider using manual compatibility testing as the main source of knowledge. (Fortunately, there are now great automated tools to help). Manual testing is essentially blind testing you choose an app, load it on to the new platform, take it through some obvious tasks and see what happens. If it fails, you throw it over to the deep testing team to nd out why (which can take days, weeks, or even months). If it passes (either because its good to go or because you didnt manage to break it in this early smoke test), you hand it over to users and see how they get on. Its blind because the testers have no guide to what issues they ought to be testing for; and because they cant test every function of every app under all circumstances there isnt enough time or money (as the next worksheet demonstrates)

Targeted testing
The alternative is to use an app-compat tool to identify the issues that need attention we call it Targeted Testing and it has many advantages over Blind Testing:
Blind Testing Tester starts with nothing Manual and ad hoc Shallow and partial Same testing for all apps Inaccurate (60-70%) Expensive Slow, doesnt scale Risk of disruption to the business Targeted Testing Tester starts with compat issues Automated and systematic Comprehensive and granular Focus on problem apps Highly accurate (99%+) Cut testing costs by 65% Accelerate testing by >75% Minimal disruption risk

In short, blind testing leads you to test the wrong apps, miss the real issues and slow down the entire migration program.

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Manual migration How much it will cost

Without app-compat testing, it can cost anywhere from $1500 to $4000 to migrate an application to a new platform (including testing, packaging, QA and user acceptance).

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Worksheet

Environment Test (QA)

Packaging/ Vanilla imageTest

Certication/ UAT (QA)

Deployment/ (Operations)

With app-compat testing, this is typically driven down to Without automated app-compat testing below $450 per application by removing the environments/ smoke test, reducing iterations in the packaging process, Number of applications deployed and the accelerating user acceptance testing. X $2,000 per app = Work out the cost of manually testing your entire estate: $ Total manual migration cost

Sample calculation
Actual results from a recent migration of a 1,900application estate reduced migration costs from $2077 per app to $460 per app: Number of applications deployed x $2077 per app = x $460 per app = Savings 1,900 $3,946,300 $ 874,000 $3,072,300

With automated app-compat testing

Number of applications deployed X $450 per app = Total cost with app-compat $

This testing budget excludes the cost of packaging, quality assurance and user acceptance testing.

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Manual testing How much time youll need

On average, it takes anywhere from 8 to 40 hours to manually test an application for compatibility with a new platform (depending on its complexity).
App-compat testing routinely reduces this to two man hours per app by compressing smoke testing, packaging iterations and user acceptance testing. Work out how many man-hours and days it will take you to manually test your entire estate:

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Worksheet

Manual migration
Number of applications deployed x 15 man-hours per app = divided by 8 man-hours per day = divided by number of testers on your team = man-hours man-days elapsed working days

Sample time calculation

For a 4,000-application estate at low end of range (15 hours per app) and a team of ten testers: Number of applications deployed = x 15 man-hours per app = divided by 8 man-hours per day = divided by 10 testers = 4,000 60,000 man-hours 7,500 man-days 750 elapsed working days

Migration with automated app-compat

Number of applications deployed x 2 man-hours per app = divided by 8 man-hours per day = divided by number of testers on your team = man-hours man-days elapsed working days

This testing budget excludes the cost of packaging, quality assurance and user acceptance testing.

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Before you migrate Best-practice steps

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App-compat testing is often used to evaluate a portfolio of apps before a migration decision is made. Once the new platform has been decided on, a best-practice application migration program starts with three steps:
Application estate discovery to determine exactly what apps you have, where theyre deployed, who uses them and how much; this often includes an estate survey using a tool such as Scalable Survey or Microsoft SCCM. Application rationalization retiring all apps that arent being used or that neednt be used. Rationalizing saves in license costs and migration costs (including testing and packaging). OS Build considerations - apps dont exist in isolation, they run on the OS. Make sure youre testing against your own specic implementation of the target OS youll get much more accurate results about how theyll fare post-migration.

43% of IT professionals surveyed reported that operating system migrations impact the personal lives of IT staff.
Dimensional Research Windows 7 Adoption Survey

Once your application catalog is rationalized, comprehensive app-compat testing begins

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Forward path logic

App-compat testing doesnt just evaluate one single target platform. It can also compare different app delivery strategies, side by side, to show which is the best t for your specic application estate. The resulting forward path logic can make a great case for your best next move -- whether its virtualisation, server-based or a new OS.

How automated app-compat testing works

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App-compat testing is quite straightforward. It generally proceeds in four steps:

1. Import
Each application is loaded into the app-compat tool typically taking a few minutes per application.

2. Analyze
The software interrogates each application to create a prole, then runs the prole against the target platform or OS.

3. Report
A quick overview showing which apps will migrate easily, which will need help and which will present problems and why plus deep drill-downs for the technical detail of each issue.

4. Remediate
Guidance on exactly how to x most problems or auto-remediation where it makes sense.

Lets discuss each step

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1
How automated app-compat testing works

1. Importing your apps

Getting your apps into your app-compat tool should be as simple as installing them as you would on any PC.
Its extremely important that your app-compat tool can ingest all of your apps, not just the ones that exist in a specic form or need to be installed in a certain way. Some tools will only accept MSI-packaged apps, leaving manually-installed apps (like those you develop in-house) outside the testing regime (and forcing them into exhaustive manual testing). An enterprise-class app-compat solution should be able to accept every application whether MSI or non-MSI, packaged or in-house. For non-MSI apps, it helps if the tool can generate an MSI package automatically (this not only speeds up the process, it creates an asset for the packaging team and turbo-charges packaging tools like AdminStudio or PackageStudio).

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Quick Tip:
Make sure your app-compat tool can ingest 100% of your application estate some tools only accept MSI packaged apps.

Taking a sample
You dont have to load your entire application estate into an app-compat tool just to get an indication of your migration challenges. A good start is to load in a sample 100-200 apps to give you a quick picture of your estate and its readiness to migrate. (Ask us about the LaunchPad quick start program).

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Quick Tip:

How automated app-compat testing works

2. Analyze
The method an app-compat tool uses to interrogate an application is fundamental to its accuracy. Simple, rst-generation tools tend to look only for known issues as dened by a catalog of rules.
Much more powerful is a heuristic approach based on intelligent algorithms (the anti-virus world moved from rule stacks to heuristics years ago). Our own solution, AppTitude, uses what we call Deep Interrogation to establish each applications DNA a collection of over 68,000 data points per app, covering multiple critical dimensions: Static dimensions installer, text les, registry, API calls, etc Runtime dimensions permissions, le. Registry, connectivity, OS dimensions deprecated components, deprecated APIs Portfolio dimensions app-to-app dependencies, conicts This DNA is then run against the target platform or OS, using heuristic analysis. Deep Interrogation answers questions such as: Which functions provided by the old OS are no longer available in the new OS and which apps require them? Which applications have functions that contravene new security hardening? Will the application install and run on my target OS? Do my applications depend on resources provided by other applications in my portfolio? This means atomizing every app into its constituent parts including text les and analyzing each part.

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App-compat tools based on a series of rules quickly become unwieldy and difcult to manage (and accuracy suffers).

With a few smart algorithms, predictive heuristics can deliver higher accuracy than a 20,000-rule database.

And when a new service pack or OS version is introduced, instead of issuing changes to thousands of rules, we simply

update a few algorithm parameters. Hard-coded rule sets means throwing out all your current data and starting over.

How automated app-compat testing works

3. Reporting
Reporting depth and breadth is a critical dimension of any app-compat solution.
Good reporting tools should give you: A quick estate overview so you can see immediately which apps are ready for the target platform, which need further testing and which need remediation. Drill-downs by type of issue; by type of application; and by type of forward action needed for remediation Remediation advice detailed advice on xing each issue Insight for budgeting and forecasting so you can schedule and budget your entire migration (see below)

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How long will your migration take?

Red, amber and green trafc lights are useful for topline views but dont tell you much about how difcult each x will be. Your reporting should be able to categorize issues by how difcult, time consuming and costly they will be. Heres a shameless plug: AppTitudes Effort Calculator module lets you put in your real costs for things like testing, remediation and packaging (or use our benchmark values), then see just how long your entire app migration will take and how much it will cost.

Quick Tip:
The insight generated in these reports can provisioning processes its much more be extremely valuable in your Business than a migration tool (see How long will as Usual application management and your migration take?).

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Quick Tip:

How automated app-compat testing works

4. Remediation
App-compat testing happens for a reason: so you can x any problems that are identied and migrate smoothly to the target OS or virtualization platform.
Remediation is a critical stage in any app migration but its widely misunderstood. Simpler, rules-based tools tend to create the appearance of saving signicant time and energy by identifying benign, non-issues and then auto-xing them. Worse, they can auto-remediate hundreds or even thousands of apps with no documentation instead of suggesting a simple change to the OS that would solve them all (with minimal intervention).

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After hundreds of migration projects, App-DNA has developed a real-world approach to remediation called Intelligent Remediation . Its a blend of detailed remediation guidance, generated by the app-compat tool, and sensible, transparent auto-xes that keep control where it belongs: in the hands of the administrator (who knows the app estate and environment intimately). Intelligent Remediation also allows each IT department to determine its own strategies for each kind of compatibility issue. These can be invoked in three ways: automatically, as guidance points or through alerts to identied administrators.

The bottom line: application estates are complex ecosystems laced with inter-dependencies. Any piece of software that claims simple, no-touch auto-remediation could cause a lot more problems than it solves.

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Best-practice change management control frameworks such as ITIL or Microsoft Operational Framework insist on transparency and control. If not

handled properly, auto-remediation can undermine these controls something that can come back to haunt you when it comes to your next ITIL audit.

App-compat as part of Business as Usual

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App-compat tools tend to be brought in for a major migration, then (when the IT departments sees its value) kept on to help automate and streamline day-to-day app provisioning and management processes.
As you introduce anything new into your app estate whether a new application, a service pack or patch you need to ensure it wont break the things youve already deployed. Because you already have all the relevant data about your existing portfolio in your app-compat system, this impact analysis is greatly simplied and accelerated. Thats why enterprises should be thinking about appcompatibility testing for Business As Usual processes even before any major migration comes along.

The benets are clear:

Proactively assess the impact of change Respond to user app requests faster Establish compatibility before provisioning Automate smoke testing Minimize failures and iterations Accelerate Quality Assurance Add insight to your support desk If you use packaging tools like AdminStudio or Package Studio, app-compat results can turbo-charge these environments, getting more value for less manual input.

The bottom line: better app lifecycle management from the moment an app is requested to the day its retired.

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Business as Usual The Savings

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In a recent project, app-compat testing was able to reduce the Business As Usual application acquisition time from 36 hours per app to 12 hours per app.
In a portfolio that adds 80 apps per month (960 per year), this added up to:

Before app-compat
Packaging User functionality tests QA Certication Total X 960 apps = In-house cost @ $80/hr = Outsourced cost @ $30 = 12 hours 16 8 36 hours per app 34,560 hours $2,764,800 $1,036,800

After app-compat
Packaging User functionality tests QA Certication Total X 960 apps = In-house cost @ $80/hr = Outsourced cost @ $30 = Savings if all in-house: Savings if outsourced: 12 hours 0 4 16 hours per app 15,360 hours $1,228,800 $460,800 $1,536,000 $ 576,000

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Business as Usual The Savings

On average, it takes anywhere from 8 to 40 hours to manually test an application for compatibility with a new platform (depending on its complexity).
Try your own calculations:

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Worksheet

Before app-compat
Packaging User functionality tests QA Certication Total X apps = /hr = /HR = hours per app hours hours per app

After app-compat
Packaging User functionality tests QA Certication Total X apps = /hr = /HR = per year per year hours per app hours hours per app

In-house cost @ $ Outsourced cost @ $

In-house cost @ $ Outsourced cost @ $ Savings using in-house team: $ Savings using outsourcer: $

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Towards the Optimized Desktop

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Microsoft has published a comprehensive vision for application deployment called the Optimized Desktop. The vision outlines several user scenarios and suggests the best deployment strategy for each.
App-compat can play an important role in getting your organization to the Optimized Desktop because it helps you understand in detail the state of your current application catalogue and its readiness to move to the next stage of deployment optimization. Were big believers in the Optimized Desktop and have worked closely with Microsoft to develop our solutions so they map to this vision and get you there faster. Virtualization scenarios
When virtualization hit the market, some thought it would be the end of application packaging and migration headaches after all, putting each app in its own bubble should do away with compatibility issues, shouldnt it? In fact, although app virtualization does resolve application issues and can help optimize the desktop, it does have its own limitations and quirks to test for. Virtual apps still require access to the machine (and other apps) and these relationships can introduce complexity (for things like drivers accessing the kernel). For this reason, app-compat testing is an essential step in any virtualization program whether App-V, Citrix or server-based computing. A thorough app-compat step will show which apps are suitable for virtualization and will spot the dependencies that could cause iteration cycles in testing and sequencing.

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Conclusion
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With a clear app-compat testing strategy, you can answer the four big questions in a new way:
1. Will each app work on the new platform?
Automated app-compat testing will tell you exactly which apps are good to go and which arent and save you months of time and millions of dollars by knowing the answers up front.

3. How else can I serve any problem apps?

Best Fit analysis will give you the right serving strategy for each app that wont run easily on the main platform. So you make better-informed strategic decisions about your app estate (before spending millions on any one direction).

Over the last ten years, weve seen app-compat testing go from a radical new idea to accepted best practice for migrations in almost every IT department. And increasingly, this same thinking is being applied to Business As Usual app management processes. The business cases for both are air-tight and the evidence to support them fairly indisputable. If youre thinking about moving to a new operating system (like Windows 7), a virtualization platform, 64-bit computing or any other new deployment framework, app-compat should be your rst step. And if youre looking to optimize your application management processes, app-compat justies your investment, too.

2. What can I do about it if not?

Intelligent Remediation shows you exactly how to x problems or automates those xes based on your preferences and strategies. So testing is faster, packaging more accurate and the xes you choose are right for your specic environment and strategy.

4. How much time and money will it cost to migrate my estate?

Detailed cost and time reporting will let you budget and plan with accuracy based on your estate and its readiness. App-DNA works with many of the worlds leading systems Youll see how long your migration will take, how much integrators and outsourcers to deliver value to enterprise it will cost and how to best resource your program. migration and day-to-day process improvement projects. Talk to us about your next app transformation program.

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About App-DNA
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App-DNA is the world leader in app-compatibility management for enterprises.

We pioneered the application compatibility market in 2003 and weve been leading it ever since. AppTitude has played an important part in app transformation programs for major enterprises, including the BAE Systems, Diageo, We call this App Migration Optimization and it gets Citigroup, Exxon Mobil and Credit Suisse -- and for top you to your destination platform whether its Windows 7, integrators and outsourcers from IBM, CSC and HP virtualization, 64-bit or a combination faster, at lower cost to Wipro and Infosys. and with minimal disruption to users and the business. AppTitude is also used to help streamline and accelerate day-to-day application management and provisioning processes, saving millions every year for our largest customers. Our AppTitude software automates pre-migration application testing, so you spend dramatically less time in blind manual testing, packaging and remediation.

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Resources
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Some great blogs

A few videos

The killer app-compat tool

An overview of AppTitude The daddy of all app-compat management software

App-DNA Blog Gartners Michael Silver on Windows 7 Insights on app migration from our techies and their friends and app-compat Two short videos done with Michael Silver Chris Jacksons Blog and App-DNAs Paul Schnell and Mike Welling. The App Compat Guy really knows his stuff Brian Maddens Blog Clear, practical advice and insight on virtualization IT Expert Voice A Dell-sponsored site about deploying Windows 7 in large enterprises The Ofcial MDOP Blog For all things about the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack.

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Contact App-DNA
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North America
Telephone: +1-847-466-1832 Email: salesNA@app-dna.com

Europe
Telephone: +44 (0)207 562 1000 Email: sales@app-dna.com

Asia Pacic
Email: salesAPAC@app-dna.com

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