Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Yep! This is how it's done. Thanks for sharing the info.
This is an oversimplified view, and I'll leave the why to you. Glassware definitely isn't perfect but this isn't correct logic. To reaffirm again.. Docker doens't work with windows applications. Also, Glassware and Docker, DC/OS, Swarm, etc address entirely different problems.
Yes, and I emphasize "As it is on Azure"
I truly believe their product has major benefits, but there's a large gap between us DIY and having to call their professional services team as it stands. If we can do it quickly in house it's much preferred to relying on vendors.
There are some applications that would be "nice" to virtualize immediately, but VDI and local installs does the job for now, so why bother? If we could do it easily ourselves that would be awesome, but that's not going to happen as it is now. We are much more likely to wait rather than jump onboard an immature technology.
The big clients who have a dire need for this will be the first movers, the smaller players <50 installs will have to come later, TCO isn't that high for them anyways... for 100's or 1000's, that's a different story.
I have a strategic hedged position on Sphere, yes.
Here's another concern: why are you all investing in technology stocks when you can't manage to test it yourself? It only takes a few clicks. Am I the only person here who has actually tested the software or actually understands the technologies involved? No wonder the stock has crashed from 10 to 1.
Stop the insults and sledging and bring me facts. I'm turning here for information that I have yet to discover.. let's share these so we can discuss and come up with a price for this black box.
And p.s. this comment doesn't really fly: "Sphere marketing materials says it works and this supersedes your experience or any other tech expert's insight."
I'm sorry but the way it is on Azure is not suitable for 95% of business software applications. I'm a software solutions architect and it's quite simply not gonna work out the way it is. It's useless to me for applications other than office and notepad...
Completely agree with you strut
These links are more or less just ads.
And yes, Windows Server 2016 will support Docker and docker containers.
Please read more:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowscontainers/quick_start/manage_docker
That's an old link - I wouldn't consider this page as proof that MSFT Engineers have "vetted the product" or its fitness for a particular purpose. Yes, it works enough for it not to be called a complete scam and it doesn't crash Azure.
I posted that link in my review.
In the end - it's relatively impressive what Sphere has managed to do. Windows containers will not be released until Q3 this year, so they've beaten MSFT in that respect. Though the extent to which we can call them containers is dubious. I cannot perform a thorough technical analysis but it seems they have hacked the Windows shell / user profile service most likely via WinAPI to achieve results similar to containerization. I'm not sure how the rest of the Glassware stack works with regards to multiple operating systems.
Either way, I'm not convinced that their version of Glassware on Azure will have a lot of traction yet. Though there is definitely a huge need for the services they claim to be able to provide.
Ps. any updates from the Sphere guy?
Also! If any of you want to test it out PM me and I'll shoot you the server info so you can connect and test out. (I have a low-tier paid VM setup)
This is not a setup.
I am just trying to find answers... same as everyone else.
Thank you.
Testing - Yes - this is indeed the case.
Moderators: I am humbly requesting that you please either sticky both of my posts or remove the first one as a sticky.
Thank you.
Glassware 2.0 Azure Testing Update
Bad news.. it actually doesn't work as fully claimed. In fact it seems to be just a demo.
Here are my findings:
1) You cannot join a domain with glassware. In fact, you can't do much of anything with the containers. RDP into host VM does not work, remote Powershell is not setup, workarounds I have tried by uploading my own software to configure the host OS have been futile (though not exhaustive yet). Their claims that it "supports active directory integration" are surface level. They support IMPORTING active directory users into their system, but it is not INTEGRATED with AD. Ie. NTLM/Kerberos auth is not going to happen. Which makes technical sense considering that users don't log into containers using their AD credentials.
2) The license key granted has the key "AZURE-DEMO" and I have 10,000 user licenses (that I have not paid any sort of premium for).
3) Connect via HTML5 is not available.
4) Indeed 16-bit applications don't work.
This also might explain why they don't want anyone reviewing what they've made available.
BUT, to answer your question...
"<<The companies who win from Sphere as it stands now will be the shops that utilize a lot of quasi-legacy data intensive software like financial, accounting, and project management systems. I.e. fat-clients that were developed 10-20 years ago but can still run on Win7 & 10.>>
Re this final comment in your post, can you name any software vendor that is still selling fat client software?"
Yes - there are tons of them.. TONS. You just won't hear about them every day. Every utility company, O&G, T&D, telecom, railroad, hospital, call center, financial institution, etc. etc. has a whole fleet of them for project management, accounting, financials, customer mgmt, fleet mgmt, issue tracking, etc. etc. Here are just a few big vendors: Accenture, Oracle (via acquisitions), Huron, Epic, ZmFs, Fiserv, in house solutions, .. the list is very much endless and I know of a few smaller ones (~250 employee firms) I omitted. You might think these big $ companies are high tech but quite frankly they're not. They have been struggling to move their **IT systems to newer platforms, and have been forking over millions and millions to unsuccessfully do so.
The only light that Sphere has for next earnings is the degree of success over their professional services engagements. Tons of fog between now and then though.
Hey thanks for this, you make some excellent points. To answer them:
"It has long been claimed that a major advantage of Glassware is simplicity. It is so simple that there is no need for on-site IT staff. Your experience certainly does not support that premise."
True - this claim is ridiculous. I can't imagine any non-IT staff being tasked to deploy this system. Managing the apps and permissions, etc, I think would be fine.
"Glassware only supports single executable apps."
Not true. My app has dozens of DLL's, and so would MSFT office and almost every other application. It only supports single executable installers - the key difference. But there are ways around this and I'm sure this will change in the future.
"But more importantly, it does NOT support legacy Windows apps (i.e.. WinXP) out of the box. As you say, to do so requires professional services assistance from Sphere. It took months for Sphere to get a simple app like Pearson Test Nav to work. I guess that means those thousands of WinXP applications and millions of WinXP users are out of scope."
Yes this is absolutely true. They are not quite there yet, which is a concern.
"Your test results also invalidated another claim, "6 clicks to virtualize any app". Your experience was far more work than a mere 6 clicks. Requiring professional services to virtualize a simple Win XP app is far beyond the simplicity of just 6 clicks."
Nothing in the scope of software and IT is ever as simple as 6 clicks. On the surface maybe but complications are always there.
"After five years of development and four months on Azure, you would think someone would have properly tested and documented the install procedures. This is a minor point but indicates a sloppy Quality Control process. Another bad sign for enterprise success."
The install process is documented by Sphere - see the links I posted. However it is surprising to me that this board seems to be one of the few places to find a decent bit of unaffiliated information.
"And you tested the apps on an iPad. What about an iPhone?"
I could not find an iPhone app for GW connect.
"How did printing work? Did you use a network printer or a local printer? What about other peripherals such as a scanner? More importantly for larger shops and schools, how did the system support Group Policies and Updates in Active Directory."
I did not get a chance to test out enterprise infrastructure integration. That will be next on my todo list.
"Let's be frank. Delivering simple text based productivity apps is a no-brainer in 2016, but what about more complex apps that require graphics, audio and real time or streaming video. Are any of those pre-installed? The are the apps that users rely on today in small and large business, healthcare and education."
That's a good question. My application does use Direct3D hardware acceleration and it had no issues but I have not tested beyond that.
---
The companies who win from Sphere as it stands now will be the shops that utilize a lot of quasi-legacy data intensive software like financial, accounting, and project management systems. I.e. fat-clients that were developed 10-20 years ago but can still run on Win7 & 10.
Glassware Tested - It works!
I set up and played around with Glassware during some down time at work. I work professionally as a solutions architect.
Here's my log from that:
I first created a new Sphere 3d virtual machine image in Azure using an A1 tier VM.
You can find the pricing overview here, broken down by resource pool utilization, showing Sphere's cut on the deal:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/partners/sphere3d/glassware/
I found this guide from sphere and decided to follow it during setup.
"G-Series Cloud Administrator's Guide for Virtual Machines on Microsoft Azure Powered by Glassware 2.0"
https://overlandstorage-public.hosted.jivesoftware.com/docs/DOC-3185
All docs from Sphere: https://community.sphere3d.com/search.jspa?q=glassware
Reading the doc you'll find the login steps are backwards, and this took me a while to find out. On the first login page you need to enter admin/admin and your setup uname and password on the second screen. In the mean time I had emailed support and got a response from a human in about 15 minutes (a good sign!) So far so good though..
More good info on containerization
http://sphere3d.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/S3D_Application_Containerization_SB_v1.0_101515_draft9.pdf
Anyways, I'm in the admin control panel now. So I'm going to test Glassware by uploading a piece of software I wrote. There's only one issue: glassware only likes single file executable installers, and my software's installer has many files. That's fine. I winrared everything into an SFX self-extracting installer archive and set the startup parameters appropriately... Let's see how well this works.
In the mean time I had tested out the pre-installed apps using their Chrome app, GW Connect. I had to update my Java after realizing that it was out of date. Great.
Now it doesn't like the folder I had set the archive to extract to (access is denied). Changed the SFX to extract to temp folder then run setup from there. It works!! This is sweet.
All good to go now. My app is installed and I'm using it from GW Connect on chrome. This is great!... looking forward to testing it from my iPad this evening!
All in all, this is a huge leap. I'm blown away with how simple this all is, relatively speaking. Surpisingly well polished and functional. I envision there will be more features to come as well.
Just noticed, though, that currently I could not get a 16-bit windows application "chip's challenge" to run on the container, nor could I find any trace of this backwards compatability. It appears that the container image is based on 2008 Server. I wonder when they will roll out support for legacy applications. Ah... then you look closely and find "Glassware 2.0 can also run many legacy applications including 16-bit applications written for Windows 3.1. Legacy applications require packaging assistance from Sphere 3D Consulting and Integration Services." - and this is where they get the money!
Just tested on my iPad - works absolutely beautifully. This is truly amazing how seamless it is across devices.
------- End of Log
What the end user sees is not novel, there are tons of implementations that cover some of Glassware+GCloud functionality: Terminal services (RDP), windows RemoteApp, Chrome Remote Desktop, and many other virtualization firms have done something like it. But here we have the whole solution in the form of easily deployable and scalable apps within containers. This is unparalleled and a huge step forward.
All in all, fantastic product, prompt service, and extremely simple implementation make this a no brainer for me. Though I must caution that I have not done rigorous testing on the product nor done an enterprise implementation. But from initial impressions, there is a huge need for this as it can make companies more technologically adaptive.
Disclosure: I am long ANY, make no guarantees to the legitimacy of any of these claims, and provide here only my unbiased observations. The burden of proof is entirely on the reader.
I wonder how much traction this has gained in the Azure App Store.. my gut feeling as an enterprise software developer is telling me that businesses, small and large, all over the world will benefit from this. How many active users do you think they have now now that it's available on the Azure app store?
I know there's a lot of competition but usually the simplest, most complete, easy-to-implement solution takes the cake. If we can spin it up ourselves in Azure in a day and test it out, that's 100x better than having a professional services engagement and architectural design meetings etc.. With sphere we also get a container based architecture which is the way of the future.
Seems like Sphere is really pushing the healthcare industry from a marketing expense perspective, and everyone here seems to be focusing on that. When in reality it's the development communities and the little (and/or big) business that will make up the largest volume of it's customers, and there will be thousands of them, or maybe tens of thousands+++??
Everyone mentions Docker and it's nice $1bil valuation, which is cool. But check out Chef, ServiceStack, MongoDb, Nginx, Puppet, or SteelHive Carbon, or how much they're worth. Docker is great for the enterprise but I see an even larger need for application virtualization solutions like what sphere has managed to put together vs. docker or anything else alone.
There are risks, but - just saying - an $80mil market cap sounds low. I'm going to test out their available software myself this weekend with my Azure.
What do you think?
I definitely agree. It fits perfectly into their ecosystem of enterprise tools and software, is already integrated with their cutting edge tech stack, and ultimately puts pressure on Apple..