Published on the 04/07/2013 | Written by Newsdesk
The University of Adelaide has successfully trialled a 500-user desktop virtualisation initiative, with plans to roll it out for 20,000 users, delivering lessons for big businesses planning for BYOD…
Enterprises planning to use a desktop virtualisation approach to support secure and robust Bring your Own Device (BYOD) programmes need to deliver an experience for the end user that is the same or better than was possible on enterprise-supplied technology or the initiative will flounder.
That was one of the key lessons learned by the University of Adelaide when it rolled out a trial of Citrix desktop virtualisation software to 2500 of its students, allowing up to 500 concurrent users to access the system. Ian Willis, acting associate director of technical services for the university, led the initiative that allows students to use their own computers to access university applications which were previously only available on PCs located in the university’s student computer suites.
Willis said it was important to run an extensive trial to ensure that the “back end was stable and scaling,” before rolling it out more broadly.
Over the next three years the university plans to deploy the system to all 20,000 students at the university, and is currently stress testing its back end environment to ensure that it can support 10,000 users concurrently. While there are no plans to roll out a BYOD or desktop virtualisation programme for the university’s administrative staff, Willis said it had been designed with that as a possibility for the future.
At the core of the implementation is Citrix XenDesktop, XenServer and NetScaler. Willis said that it would in the future be possible for the university to deploy new software when it wanted, rather than being forced to wait for semester breaks. Besides delivering greater applications accessibility and flexibility for students, he said that it would be possible to deploy thin clients in the university’s student computing suites.
“If we can extend the life of 3000 $1000 machines by 25 percent there are significant savings to be made,” he said. The university also expects to reap savings in the form of reduced electricity consumption.
Willis said that the pilot had gone well, although it had been challenging to ensure that the user experience matched what they would have expected in student computing suites. There could however be no compromise of that goal as Willis said that the “experience for the user has to be the same or better,” compared with what was previously possible – something that organisations considering a similar move also need to ensure.
