Virtualization in Higher Education
Colleges and universities are adopting virtualization to improve data center efficiency, consolidate servers, save money, and reduce energy consumption. Here you'll find articles showcasing institutions that are moving to virtualized computing environments, along with news stories covering the latest technology developments.
Oracle has released its Solaris 11 operating system (OS), which the company previewed last month at the Oracle OpenWorld 2011 event in San Francisco. Solaris 11 provides built-in virtualization capabilities for OS, network, and storage resources and is designed to run enterprise applications in private, hybrid, or public clouds. Oracle described it as the first fully virtualized, cloud OS.
Leostream, a developer of virtual hosted desktop software, has launched its Leostream Mobile Desktops service, which provides subscription-based, cloud-hosted desktop services built on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).
Ericom has released a new addition to its AccessNow product family, Ericom AccessNow for Enterprise Portals, which provides secure, cross-platform Web access to Windows applications and desktops.
Microsoft has opened its Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 6.5 Beta review program.
AppSense, which develops products to help organizations virtualize user settings, is creating a set of programs to let users install applications without administrative rights even in lockdown situations.
Cisco and Citrix have formed a strategic alliance for large-scale desktop virtualization deployments. The first deliverable of this collaboration will be the optimization of Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) for Citrix XenDesktop.
Cisco has debuted two new Cisco Virtualization Experience Client (VXC) endpoints that enable high-quality voice and video in virtual desktop environments.
The proliferation of consumer technology on campuses has created new challenges for IT departments. Will the pendulum swing back toward centralized IT, or is consumerization knocking down the old ways forever?
Ericom AccessNow, a pure HTML5 remote desktop (RDP) client that runs within a Web browser without the need to install anything on the client device, has added the ability to access the Remote Desktop (RD) Connection Broker in Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services.
Freed-Hardeman University (FHU) has adopted a cloud-based service to provide virtual desktops to users. Among the uses: mobile computing labs, application access for student workers, and advancement staff armed with Apple iPads who can now access their department's unique applications while out and about meeting with potential donors.