How to run Windows Apps on Azure
From Mohoro to Frame
Back in the summer of 2013, rumors started circulating about a mysterious “Project Mohoro” that was in early development at Microsoft. Leaks promised that Mohoro would be a pay-per-use Windows Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) hosted in Azure. It would be Microsoft’s entry into a services model for delivering Windows desktops and apps from the cloud — a monumental step for a company that grew up around the PC as the central device for delivering apps.
A year later, in May of 2014, Mohoro launched as “Azure RemoteApp” (also known as ARA) in a free tech preview. Many were surprised that it focused on applications, and not the full desktop OS. But it came as no surprise to us at Frame: we’d been hearing the same thing for a long time from enterprise users and IT admins. “It’s all about the apps,” they told us. The underlying OS was simply less important to them. Microsoft got that part right and launched the full Azure RemoteApp service with a monthly subscription pricing model in late 2014.
ARA, however, was based on Microsoft’s long-standing technology called remote desktop services (RDS, also known as “terminal services”) and RDP/RemoteFX protocols. With RDS, multiple users work off of the same server at the same time — sharing the operating system.
This meant that you had to scale your RemoteApp system in “chunks” of 20 users and that application performance wasn’t consistent for each user. Also, not all applications are compatible with RDS, especially rich graphics apps. Finally, users needed to connect from devices with RDP/RemoteFX software clients that had to be installed locally on the device. ARA saw considerable adoption, but its architectural limitations ultimately held it back.
Roll forward to August 2016, when Microsoft announced that it would discontinue Azure RemoteApp. New subscriptions stopped selling after October 1, 2016, and all existing customers would have to transition to other options by August 31, 2017.
Did this mean Microsoft was giving up on the concept? No. They would instead focus on their core Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offerings, which could then be used by their partners to offer DaaS and application streaming services. For example, Microsoft’s new Azure Resource Manager APIs, Azure File storage services, N-series GPU-backed instances, and other IaaS developments would all serve to better enable platform providers like Frame to deliver the best possible app delivery solutions.
Transitioning from ARA to Frame
By the summer of 2016, we were already running production workloads on Azure. We partnered with Microsoft and ANSYS to deliver their engineering software to thousands of students in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), led by Cornell University.
The end of ARA meant that we could work even closer with Microsoft on delivering Frame on Azure — which is available now.
Other vendors looked to fill the void, too. As an alternative to ARA, Citrix announced the yet-to-be-released Citrix XenApp Express (which, in the meantime, was renamed to XenApp Essentials). The name change had no effect on availability, though; as of February 2017, XenApp Essentials is still not available.
The team at Microsoft has been very proactive in helping the existing ARA customers transition to other solutions by the August 31, 2017 EOL date. We are happy to be working closely together with them. In the last few weeks, we’ve joined a series of Microsoft webinars that educate current ARA customers on how Frame on Azure works. Last week, we ran a similar webinar on running Frame on Azure for our own set of customers, and we plan to do it again soon. If you missed it, sign up at fra.me/azure to learn more.
What’s next?
Many former ARA customers are already enjoying running workloads on Frame. John Bleasdale, Chief Architect at RM Results, summed it up:
“Migrating from RemoteApp to Frame was fast and easy. The Frame API and sandbox approach allowed us to publish our app quickly and seamlessly for our end users.”
From day one, Frame has been focused on delivering the best possible performance from the cloud in the easiest way possible. It’s all we do, and all we think about day in and day out.
Our architectural decisions, such as browser-first delivery (no local client software needed) and automatic scaling in units of one (no sharing of an OS), have found an enthusiastic audience. We’re flattered to see other vendors, like Citrix and Amazon, following our lead.
Frame is already the top choice of companies like Adobe, Autodesk, SOLIDWORKS, and HP. It’s now the best and easiest solution for existing Azure RemoteApp customers to migrate to. And it’s why you, too, should kick off your app delivery with Frame on Azure today.
