Bye Bye Java Web Start... Hello Docker Container and Direct Download says the VDI Calculator

Since I started tracking the VDI Calculator usage, back in 2013, there have been over 66,000 application launches, and since I released the current VDI Calculator back in 2013 I have been using Java Web Start to facilitate the launch of the application. Java Web Start allows you to download and run Java applications from the web with an easy, one-click activation of applications and it guarantees that you are always running the latest version of the application.

However, Java Web Start stopped being supported with Java 1.7 EOL in April 2015. Until now I have been maintaining Java 1.7 supportability, but with most Java IDEs not supporting Java 1.7 any longer and due to many security issues with Java 1.7 I have now been forced to move the VDI Calculator support to a newer Java version.

With this decision, I am now providing the VDI Calculator using two different approaches:

1. Direct download of a .JAR file here. A .JAR file is a Java Archive file used for storing Java programs in a single file. The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) must be installed in order to open executable JAR files. Once installed, you can just double-click the JAR file to open it.
2. A Docker Container here containing the VDI Calculator and an x11 display. This option eliminates the need to install the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) directly on the machine.

The main VDI Calculator page also has been updated (here) and the GitHub with the open-source version of the calculator is here.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net