Managing applications is a critical aspect of IT operations that directly impacts an organization’s security, efficiency, and overall productivity. Keeping applications updated is also a fundamental part of basic security hygiene, as it prevents vulnerabilities and incidents that could compromise sensitive data and disrupt business operations. However, the process of maintaining and managing these applications is time-consuming and unnecessarily tedious.
One of the primary challenges with modern application management is the sheer volume and variety of assets involved, including virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI), physical endpoints, and servers, each requiring distinct strategies and tools for effective management. This complexity is compounded by the need to potentially manage applications across multiple environments or departments, each with unique use cases and application needs.
The challenge
Historically, managing applications has been anything but straightforward. IT professionals might find themselves using a mix of methods, such as downloading from websites, maintaining a server-hosted repository of installers, or utilizing application management solutions, such as Chocolatey, remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools, and Microsoft Intune. The fragmented nature of these approaches reduces the ability to automate application management, making the process labor-intensive and error-prone.
Plus, with the growing number of virtual endpoints and organizations leveraging more business-critical applications, the challenges faced by IT teams only continue to increase.
A unified management approach can streamline the process, reduce complexity, and enhance security by ensuring that all applications are up-to-date and functioning optimally. In this post, we’ll explore how Microsoft and Nerdio can address application management challenges.
Part 1: WinGet for application management
WinGet, also known as the Windows Package Manager, is a Microsoft first-party technology that has been integrated into every version of Windows since Windows 10. It is a completely agentless solution, making it a fast and native way to simplify the process of managing, upgrading, installing, and uninstalling applications.
WinGet’s primary advantage is its ability to interact with multiple application repositories, which makes it much easier for IT to deploy applications to individual machines. Each repository contains an application manifest that tells WinGet how to retrieve, install, upgrade, and uninstall the application. This system allows for a standardized method of application management without the need for storing the actual binaries of the applications.
However, while the repositories simplify the process, the sheer volume of applications and repositories adds up quickly. Between private, community, and third-party repositories, such as the Microsoft store, plus Microsoft first-party applications, Intune, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), and package management tools, IT teams are still facing a seemingly insurmountable application management challenge.
Part 2: Unified Application Management
Imagine having all your application repositories aggregated into a single, unified management overlay. This is exactly what Nerdio’s Unified Application Management (UAM) feature now offers to complement the WinGet functionality. UAM enables IT administrators to take applications from all the previously mentioned sources and assign, deploy, and update them in a flexible, policy-driven manner. Some of the key benefits include:
- Visibility: UAM provides an exposed view of all applications from various repositories, consolidating them into one interface where administrators can see and manage all their applications.
- Deployment targets: IT administrators can deploy applications to a variety of targets, including Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) session hosts, individual machines, personal apps, host pools, images, servers, virtual machines (VMs), Windows 365, physical devices, and mobile devices.
- Policy-driven delivery: Policies constantly keep apps updated without manual intervention and ensure when new users join the organization, all necessary applications are deployed directly across all their devices.
- Elimination of image management: Allowing application deployment as part of VM deployments removes the need for image management in many scenarios.
The ultimate result of leveraging Nerdio’s UAM feature is a significant reduction in time and tools needed for application management while simultaneously improving overall security. With applications consistently updated and deployed across all devices, IT administrators can ensure that all endpoints are secure and running the latest versions of essential software.
Nerdio is here to help!
From the beginning, Nerdio’s mission has always been to empower IT professionals to build successful environments with the Microsoft Cloud. But we know it’s not always easy. Application management can be highly complicated and eats up valuable time and resources.
Nerdio’s Unified Application Management feature adds more functionality to the Nerdio platform, helps users better leverage native Microsoft tools, and enables customers to operate more efficiently, strategically, and securely. Users will now have even more visibility, flexibility, and automation across all applications and endpoints to manage their application ecosystems more effectively.
If you’d like to explore Unified Application Management further, check out our in-depth webinar that includes the benefits of WinGet and a step-by-step demo of UAM.
