MDOP 2014 released

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We recently announced two major updates to Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) with the release of MDOP 2014 which includes MBAM 2.5 and secondly a separate significant spring update to App-V 5.0 SP2.

Following are details of the updates.

MDOP 2014 includes Microsoft BitLocker Administration and Monitoring tool (MBAM) 2.5, which represents a substantial update to our BitLocker management solution. MBAM is leveraged by organizations to simplify BitLocker deployment, key recovery, and compliance reporting. With this version, MBAM offers a series of improvements that will give businesses better control and help them achieve the highest level of compliance. MDOP 2014 is available for download here and includes:

  • Enhanced support for FIPS 140-2. For the very first time, MBAM now includes support for organizations that must adhere to Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS).
  • Improved compliance and enforcement policies. MBAM 2.5 gives IT greater control with the ability to better enforce compliance with company policies.
  • Support for enterprise scenarios and topologies. MBAM can now be deployed on Windows Server in a high availability configuration. MBAM supports load balancing of its web components, and its databases can be deployed to SQL Server failover clusters.

In coordination with the MDOP 2014 release, we are also delighted to announce a significant spring update for Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) 5.0 SP2. This update is available for download here and includes a number of major product innovations focusing on virtualized desktop scenarios. We have also published new guidance on tuning and sizing your virtualized application infrastructure along with detailed descriptions of the App-V client internals:

  • Innovations to application publishing and launch. App-V now has a number of enhancements to application publishing/refresh and launch performance.
  • Support of parallel deployment and execution of application upgrades. Improvements to App-V, allowing you to simplify the test and execution of your upgraded virtualized applications.
  • Improvements to existing capabilities. Based on your feedback, we have also made a number of other updates to App-V, including: enhancements to the package conversion engine and sequencer, improving package conversion rates; and, support for a VFS write mode sequencer setting – which simplifies the virtualization of applications that require this capability
  • More deployment guidance and how-to guides. To help you learn, test, deploy and optimize App-V in your environment, there are now a number of how-to guides available here. These include a new App-V performance guide, a publishing guide and updates to our administration and sequencing guides.

More details on both MDOP 2014 and the App-V 5.0 SP2 spring update are available on the Springboard blog, you can also check out the announcement on the Windows for your Business Blog