Cloud Computing for the Academic Institution
Henry E. Schaffer
NC State University
Coordinator of Special IT Projects & Faculty Collaboration/OIT
Professor Emeritus of Genetics and Biomathematics
and
Sarah R. Stein
NC State University
VCL Academic Outreach and Collaboration
Associate Professor of Communication
The Virtual (Computer Lab)
Bringing the Computer Lab to You (Virtually)
over the Internet
Problems we faced at NC State
- Timely inclusion of new software in lab image
- improving relationship between instructors and lab staff
- Conflicts between 50+ apps in lab image (".dll wars")
- Costs to students of high-end apps - making them dependent on labs
- Assumption: students don't all have the newest, most powerful
personally owned computers
- Reality: students (nearly) all own or have access to some
computer
- Reality: many different models/configurations/ages/capabilities
of student computers
- Access at night - 24 hour access - safety issues
- Distance students can't get to the campus labs (actually we didn't
think of that at first. Why not? :-)
- New software versions - instructors affected by move/don't-move decisions
- Early adopters vs. caution
- Installation differs due to non-uniformity of lab computers
Considerations
- very low project budget -> maximize use of Open Source software
- write "glue code" in LAMP environment
- remember important engineering principle ~
KISS
- had IBM Blade Center in use for HPC
- CapEx vs. OpEx
- CapEx amortization - i.e. lifetime
- had expertise in Engineering - Computer Science and central IT
- Team includes Sam Averitt, Mikhai Bugaev, Marc Hoit, Andy Kurth,
Aaron Peeler, Henry Schaffer, Sarah Stein, Eric Sills, Josh
Thompson, Mladen Vouk - but only 3+ FTE
Overview of the VCL (the Virtual
Computer-Lab) Solution
- bring the lab to the student - over the internet ("virtually")
- Anytime, anywhere
- From any user computer - Windows/Mac/Linux
- focus on high end software - works well with almost any software
- make an image with one major app - always works! :-)
- extra privileges - incl. root / Administrator, with extra security
Architecture - an overview
Advantages - How/Why we get improved service at lower cost
(costs include personnel, hardware, software)
- Self-service to faculty - very low training need
- Responsiveness
- 7x24x365
- Sharing infrastructure (and costs) with HPC (out of phase use!)
- Operations and Maintenance experience - economies of scale
- Multiple software version availability
- Additional features - clusters, semester long reservations, etc.
Limitations
- network latency/speed
- video editing is not a good fit
- some applications require specialized computer hardware
- cultural acceptance of remote shared provision (more below)
- (Offsetting this are opportunity for IT to move up "the food chain",
partnership in pedagogy)
Barriers - especially Cultural Barriers
- Adoption of the new
- Cloud - can't touch it, feel it, see it
- Changes relationships with instructors and users
- Need to let go of the traditional
- Traditional methods are comfortable
- Moving to the new, but not getting the economy if keep all
the traditional
Walk-through - live via screen sharing
Screen Grabs
Conclusion
- Economical, affordable, scalable, shareable
- Open Source - Apache
- Production status plus many pilots moving to production
NC State - Spring Semester 2009 61,862 reservations - 107,139 hours
- 6,336 unique users
- You are welcome to try! Get involved in the
Apache VCL Community!
http://www.ncsu.edu/it/open_source/ccai.html
Copyright 2009 by Henry E. Schaffer & Sarah R. Stein Comments and
suggestions are welcome, and should go to hes@ncsu.edu and
sstein@ncsu.edu
Educause has permssion to publish and reproduce this material.
Last modified 7/12/2009
Disclaimer - Information is provided for your use. No endorsement
is implied.
