Planning and Prerequisites
Overview
AppsAnywhere is an app store-style platform that gives your students and staff easy access to the software they need, on and off-campus, including BYOD.
Multiple delivery methods are supported, to define the best way to deliver individual apps to your end-users, based on the device they are using and any app license restrictions.
This section of our documentation is designed to provide all the details you might need when preparing to deploy AppsAnywhere.
AppsAnywhere Cloud
AppsAnywhere Cloud utilizes Microsoft Azure and multiple Microsoft Azure components such as Azure Virtual Machines, Databases, Load Balancers, Networking and Storage to host AppsAnywhere.
The selection of locations from Choose the Right Azure Region for You | Microsoft Azure ensures that AppsAnywhere components are hosted in the customer’s local Azure region, are geo-redundant and split across different underlying hosts within an Azure datacenter.
All hosting is in accordance with Azure compliance documentation.
All AppsAnywhere and Cloudpaging infrastructure can be provisioned in AppsAnywhere Cloud.
Regardless of hosting, the infrastructure and traffic flow are the same.
Parallels RAS must be hosted on customer domain joined devices. See Parallels RAS Server Specifications for more information.
AppsAnywhere configuration (e.g. apps and provisions) cannot be migrated from an on-premises deployment to an AppsAnywhere Cloud deployment.
Existing applications (including Cloudpaging packages) can be reused and uploaded to AppsAnywhere Cloud.
Deployment
During new customer on-boarding, the AppsAnywhere team will discuss your specific requirements and provide a tailored AppsAnywhere Deployment Guide.
A Technical Call will then be arranged to answer any questions. Support is available from a dedicated consultant throughout your initial deployment.
To avoid additional effort, please do not deploy any servers or infrastructure until after you have received your Deployment Guide and discussed it with your Technical Consultant.
Infrastructure Components
AppsAnywhere infrastructure will include servers and services as shown in Infrastructure Diagrams.
All AppsAnywhere and Cloudpaging infrastructure can be provisioned in AppsAnywhere Cloud.
Customers will need to configure and provide information for the following when deploying in AppsAnywhere Cloud.
During the implementation, the AppsAnywhere team will work with customers to configure:
Further information is available on AppsAnywhere Deployment Guide.
AppsAnywhere Servers
AppsAnywhere provide AppsAnywhere servers as a virtual appliance, ready to import to your chosen hypervisor.
End-users will connect to your AppsAnywhere Portal to access and launch applications.
These servers also provide the Admin Portal where your app and system administrators can configure settings and deploy applications.
Additional servers will be required if Cloudpaging and Parallels RAS are included. Please see the Server Requirements section for more details.
Server backups are not a mandatory requirement as data is held in the database.
Servers should be split across multiple datacenters.
AppsAnywhere is designed to provide maximum redundancy (i.e. 99.9%)
Database
A Microsoft SQL database is required by AppsAnywhere to store configuration details for the applications and delivery methods, as well as usage records.
Please see the Database Requirements section for more details.
Networking and Load Balancing
End-users will need to be able to connect to your AppsAnywhere Portal both on and off-site, from any location.
As there are multiple AppsAnywhere Servers load balancing and fault tolerance/redundancy are required.
Please see the Connectivity Requirements, Load Balancer Configuration and SSL Certificates sections for more details.
Directory
A connection to Active Directory (LDAPS) is required to verify which apps users can access, and as the initial login authentication method.
Once an LDAPS connection has been configured, additional authentication and SSO methods can also be supported.
Please see the Directory Requirements section for more details.
Test Machine
A domain joined machine is required for the AppsAnywhere team to test AppsAnywhere, in particular that single sign on functionality is operational.
This can also be used as a management machine for Remote Access for AppsAnywhere Support.
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