The team partnered with Abilene Christian University to discuss and review the current challenges and positive aspects of virtualizing computers across campus.
At the recent national ACUTA conference, members of Elon’s Instructional & Campus Technologies Arif Khan, Dan Harder and Christopher Waters presented about the virtual computer infrastructure at Elon. The team partnered with Abilene Christian University to discuss and review the current challenges and positive aspects of virtualizing computers across campus.
The presentation covered a variety of topics addressing how Elon University (a 2012 ACUTA Institutional Excellence Award winner for their Virtual Computer Initiative) and Abilene Christian University (a 2013 ACUTA Institutional Excellence Award honorable mention for their Virtual Lab Pilot) have approached desktop virtualization with specific strategic goals. Universities shared the rational for virtualizing desktops, the challenges they experienced during implementation, lessons Elon and Abilene have learned along the way, benefits observed with their virtualization projects, and their future plans for desktop virtualization.
According to a 2009 survey conducted by Citrix, 82 percent of higher education IT professionals viewed virtual desktops as a solution for cost reduction and better use of IT resources. As a result, many institutions have experienced success in virtualizing servers within data centers and look to desktop virtualization as the next logical frontier.