A couple of weeks ago Microsoft (dare I say finally) released Softgrid 4.5, which is officially called App-V. This feature has a number of new features but one of the most important features is the support of streaming of applications over HTTP.
The ability to stream over HTTP alleviates the need to have a dedicated
App-V (streaming) server and allows you to just use an IIS box. Jan van der
Elst has written an insightful article on how exactly to configure this: "Streaming over HTTP has some
benefits where you can take advantage of. Besides that it's easy to set-up and
configure, there are some other benefits as well:
Administration is easy, IIS is well
known and of course implemented a lot.
Easy to configure a simple or
custom APP-V environment.
App-V Back-end components are
not needed (if you want to provide shortcuts and File Type Associations with
App-V then you will need a Management Server and back-end components. Eg. refresh and authenticate to central App-V Management Server and stream
from nearest HTTP server).
Streaming over TCP port 80 is
very useful when there is a firewall between the server and the client. (With
RTSP you have to open a range of TCP high ports which is not the case with
HTTP)."
