Application Access Over The Internet For Higher Education
Application Access Over The Internet For Higher Education
Application Access Over The Internet For Higher Education
www.wipro.com
www.wipro.com
Andrey Zhulenev
Client Partner Cloud Computing Strategy and Incubation
Sawan Deswal
Practice Manager Cloud Computing Services and Solutions
Authors
Andrey Zhulenev, Client Partner Cloud Computing Strategy and Incubation [email protected]
Andrey Zhulenev has 20 years of experience in management consulting and IT Services. Over the past eight years with Wipro Technologies, he has worked with customers in different industries, including Education, Banking, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Aerospace, Retail and Healthcare. Andrey brings a deep understanding of technology and practical expertise in IT services, BPO and Product Engineering. He is an expert in advanced delivery models and quality systems such as Lean and Six Sigma. Andrey is responsible for identifying and incubating next generation Wipro cloud solutions. The conceptualization of the cloud solutions starts with understanding of the industry needs, identifying core and non-core business processes, analyzing the most recent technology trends and studying the IT ecosystem of Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and cloud providers. Such analysis covers the business value and ROI aspects of potential solutions. Prior to Wipro, Andrey worked in a variety of roles with an IT services provider LUXOFT, AIG private equity fund and AT Kearney management consulting. He is based in Seattle, WA.
Sawan Deswal, Practice Manager Cloud Computing Services and Solutions [email protected]
Sawan Deswal has 10 years of cross-functional experience in the Software and IT Services industry. In his current role at Wipro, he is responsible for Product Marketing, Sales and Business Development, focused on cloud services and solutions. Sawan is an integral member of the team responsible for incubating next generation cloud solutions, supporting market analysis and defining product marketing and demand generation needs. Sawan has worked in Program Management, Product Marketing and Management, Sales and Business Development functions at both enterprises and start-ups. In his previous role as a Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft, he was responsible for the market launch of the latest technologies for Microsofts advertising platform adCenter and Bing. Prior to Microsoft, he was the Director of Product Development Services division for AskMe Corporation and helped bootstrap the services business. Earlier in his career, he worked for a VeriSign affiliate, Sify Limited, as a Sales Manager. He is based in Seattle, WA.
Cloud computing delivers all the benefits of desktop and application virtualization, helps further reduce the cost, eliminates the need for investments to deploy the technology and shortens the implementation timeline.
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Application Use in Higher Education ...................................................................................................................................... 5 Applications ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 5 Users ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Application Access Over Internet ................................................................................................................................ 5 User Experience ................................................................................................................................................................. 5 Application Licensing ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Benefits to User Groups ................................................................................................................................................... 7 Students ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Faculty ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 8 IT Department .................................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Implementation Options ................................................................................................................................................................ 9 Reference Case ................................................................................................................................................................... 9 System Integration ............................................................................................................................................................. 9 Cloud computing ............................................................................................................................................................................. 10 System Integration ............................................................................................................................................................... 11 Project Plan ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Total Cost of Ownership ............................................................................................................................................... 13 Investments ........................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Cloud Computing .................................................................................................................................................................... 15 Project Plan .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 Total Cost of Ownership ................................................................................................................................................ 17 Investments
Contents
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Introduction
Academic institutions are increasingly using technology to support the learning process and make it more efficient. Desktop applications are an integral part of the curriculum in the Higher Education. Computer Labs Application Virtualization Cloud Computing
Computer labs used to be the only way for students to get access to computer-based training. Today, students have personal computers with access to the Internet at home, and many possess a personal laptop that they bring to campus. Application and desktop virtualization technology enables remote access to desktop applications over the Internet. There is great value for students to be able to access applications anytime, anywhere and from any device. This technology significantly reduces the cost of providing application access to students as compared to traditional computer labs. There are a number of successful implementations of this technology by colleges, but these deployments require complex IT system integration work. This is an obstacle for a broader adoption of this technology in the Higher Education. Cloud computing delivers all the benefits of desktop and application virtualization and helps further reduce the cost, eliminates the need for investments to deploy the technology and shortens implementation timeline. Application Virtualization $250 $500 18 months
Key Metrics Annual cost per seat Investment per seat Implementation time
Annual cost In traditional computer labs, the total cost of ownership (TCO) per seat is about $500 per year. Application virtualization deployed through an in-house implementation project reduces the cost per seat to about $250 per year. With cloud computing, these costs are further reduced to about $225. Investment With cloud computing, there is no need to allocate investment budget for technology adoption since the service can be procured on a subscription basis. In-house implementations, though, require about $500 investment per seat. Implementation time An in-house executed project typically requires about 18 months in implementation time. Colleges can procure the required seat capacity from a cloud services provider almost instantly and increase it over time as the user demand increases. A cloud computing service provider can deliver an application virtualization solution at a lower cost while offering more sophisticated functionality, enhanced performance and increased reliability.
Other Learning Filemaker Pro Learning Management System Grammar Test Tools (like Blackboard) Oracle Student Information Systems Web Browsers and reporting Windows Explorer
Content management systems and eLearning systems are often also virtualized and delivered through the same user portal. Though some of these are web applications, there is still a value in providing access to students and teachers through the same interface as the other desktop and client-server applications.
Users
Students are the larger user group and their focus is primarily on accessing applications for study purposes. The faculty as a user group is primarily leveraging applications for teaching purposes.
Student
Faculty
In order to access applications, users go to a specified URL and install a receiver plug-in. Then, they use a Web browser to login to the portal, select the needed application from the list and launch it. The access to the portal is controlled by a username and password based authentication mechanism.
Standard Citrix Login Screen After successful login to the portal, the user is shown the icons of relevant applications in the browser window. An example in the figure below shows Microsoft Office and other general purpose applications grouped in one folder. The portal provides access control mechanisms to enable access only to the applications which are approved for that specific user.
Standard Citrix Application Window The user clicks on one of these icons and an application opens up in a separate window; he or she then interacts with the application through the keyboard and mouse. The receiver plugin installed on the client device transfers the keyboard and mouse commands over the Internet to the application running on the server. The user interface screenshots from the application are then transferred over the Internet and displayed on the end users computer. Under optimal network conditions, the user looks at the graphical interface and may not even notice any difference as compared to an application that is physically installed on the client device.
The student can work with the application, create an output file and save it to a shared folder located in the datacenter. The teaching professor can use the same access to the application, select the same file from the shared folder, open it, review the work done by the student and make any necessary changes. Apart from applications, students also have access to a Windows Explorer utility which lets users access their files in My Documents folder and move files between the folders. A typical use-case for assignment submission is a shared folder, where students and faculty can submit and view all the assignments. Students are also able to download the files to their computer or email files from the shared folder.
Application Licensing
Today, most software applications are licensed on a per user or per device model. With application virtualization, there is a need to change licensing agreements to a concurrent user-based pricing model. This requires colleges to get in touch with the application vendors and amend the licensing agreements. Most Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) are accepting the concurrent user-based pricing model at the same price level. Typically, the planned number of concurrent users per application stays the same as the number of applications previously installed in the computer labs. For some applications, the number of licenses may increase, and for other applications, the deployed count is reduced according to demand. Accordingly, the cost of application licensing typically remains the same after application virtualization is implemented.
Device independent Students are able to use almost any device to access applications. It can be a desktop, laptop, tablet, or even a smartphone. Application virtualization also allows running Windows applications on the Macintosh end user devices. Cost of buying applications To complete their homework, traditionally, students would have to buy some software to work on their own computer at home. Now, students can work with applications from home without the need to buy them. The cost of software applications with a student discount is in the range of $50-$100 or even higher. If the application is used only for one course or to gain a basic understanding of its capabilities, there is no practical reason for the students to buy an application. Improved file management With an integrated central storage system, students can access their files centrally through the same system that enables application virtualization. Faculty members get remote access to the same files in the shared folders and can review the homework without any hassle of managing files across different devices.
Faculty
Easier access to students assignments With online resources centrally located, students are able to submit their assignments online. In turn, this helps the faculty to manage these submissions. The faculty also benefits from being able to access applications and files from anywhere and at anytime. Digital classroom Computer labs are used either for teaching or self-study purposes. Certain courses require each student to work on an individual computer in the classroom during the class. Given that more and more students have a personal laptop and bring it to campus, the need for classic computer labs with pre-installed applications is diminishing. For certain courses, it is even mandatory for students to have a personal laptop. Computer labs are then converted to a classroom where students can connect their laptops to power and access applications. Online curriculum with online applications Teachers are now able to use desktop applications which were previously not accessible remotely to students, improving the teaching methodology and its effectiveness. Speed of adding new applications Traditionally, the faculty was dependent on the IT staff to install applications in computer labs. This required significant management efforts and was a challenge. Now, as applications are centrally installed and delivered via virtualization, requests for additional applications are implemented and rolled out to users in no time. Reputation gain The colleges have seen significant gain in their reputation as an institution that cares for the students and uses technology to improve the education experience overall.
IT Department
Reduced desktop administration cost Because of central install and management of the OS, there is a significant reduction in PC administration effort. Reduced application management overhead Application virtualization technology eliminates the need to install and manage applications on multiple computers, a task that can be very complex and time consuming. Efficient use of application budget An application virtualization solution gives exact reporting on application usage. Colleges can now rearrange budgets to procure more licenses for applications that are widely used and reduce licensing spend on less frequently used applications.
Reduced PC hardware requirements When most students bring their own laptops or are able to access applications from a home computer, the number of PCs in computer labs can be significantly reduced. Extended PC refresh cycle The older Lab PCs can be re-used as thin client devices in combination with application and desktop virtualization. Low cost Thin Client devices There are cases when computer labs are still required, for example when students dont have laptops and must rely on the college-provided infrastructure. Given that most applications are virtualized and delivered over the network, there is no need to have a full scale desktop with pre-installed applications anymore. A cheaper category of Thin Client devices can be used. Reduced power consumption Reducing the number of desktops reduces power consumption, especially with the usage of Thin Clients in the labs to replace remaining desktops. Some colleges reported up to 80% cost savings towards energy bills. Faster implementation of new applications A centralized implementation methodology enables IT teams to deploy the new applications much faster and make them available to faculty and students in just a few days. Optimal utilization of software licenses IT teams are able to monitor the usage pattern of applications and optimize the number of software licenses procured. Secure computing environment Application virtualization technology provides complete isolation of client devices from applications and data, providing increased security while enabling wider collaboration. Improved data backup and disaster recovery With a central storage solution along with application virtualization, the IT team is able to establish better backup and disaster recovery policies and procedures.
Implementation Options
Reference Case
The Wipro research team created a reference case based on information collected from multiple colleges with an objective to represent the most typical in-house implementation experience. In this reference case, a college has about 10,000 students, 2,500 faculty and college administration staff, and originally has about 500 desktops in computer labs. About 100 applications are provided to students for study purposes. The implemented application virtualization solution is able to support up to 700 concurrent users and the computer labs can be downsized to 100 desktops, offering a total of 800 seats.
System Integration
The traditional way of deploying application and desktop virtualization solution is to execute an in-house system integration project. In this case, the college IT team takes responsibility for defining scope, creating the overall project plan, doing a cost estimate, identifying and securing the required budget, executing the project and rolling out the solution to the user base. This is how traditionally most of the IT projects have been done in the IT industry. Though both application and desktop virtualization technology have matured substantially over time, the road to a successful implementation is a complex task. Colleges, generally, need a System Integration partner who can guide them through the various phases of planning and execution.
For a successful implementation, the implementation team needs to be familiar with the latest technology across several disciplines: Server, storage, and network hardware Network configuration and monitoring Server virtualization software and operating systems Application and desktop virtualization software stack Infrastructure management software Application virtualization testing tools Client devices The various dynamics between hardware, software, networking, storage, web portal, and other components create a complex environment to design, deploy and manage. One of the most important elements of the overall system design is to create the right balance between the application workload and compute power for the planned number of concurrent users. There are best practices and reference architectures to deploy these solutions, but the technology is quickly evolving, so the older reference designs become sub-optimal within a short period of time.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a big driving force in the IT industry today. Software as a Service (SaaS) is one of the cloud models when software is provided as an online service over the Internet in a scalable fashion. There is no need to maintain an in-house infrastructure with servers, storage, and network elements, and there is no need of an upfront investment.
Home
Internet
Campus
Appliance
Datacenter
User access to applications over the Internet can be enabled from a service provider datacenter. Colleges will need to bring their application licenses, while the solution overall will be offered as a service. Students will have a portal to access applications. After logging in, students will get access to the applications that are registered with the service for that specific college. The service can be sized based on the number of seats required; in essence, the maximum number of concurrent users. Additionally to the data center, an appliance can be located on campus and connected directly to the Local Area Network (LAN). The appliance will include all the necessary hardware, software and applications, and will be managed remotely by the cloud service provider. It can deliver certain application and desktop virtualization technology on premises. An appliance can be used for multiple purposes: Integration point with the college Active Directory and Student Information Systems (SIS) Wide Area Network (WAN) acceleration Disaster recovery and backup
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System Integration
Project Plan
This section describes the project plan for implementing the Application access over the Internet solution in-house. The approach outlined below is a System Integration (SI) effort by a college IT department, in partnership with a specialist vendor. In most cases, such a partnership is a pre-requisite due to high complexity of the technology stack overall and required experience in architecting, configuring, and tuning the application and desktop virtualization solution. Typically these implementations have two tracks of activities and are done in a phased manner. Program Management: IT departments invest time for planning and the overall coordination. Over time, the focus changes to User Education. Technology Deployment: Work starts with Proof of Concept (POC), followed by Pilot Implementation that is exposed to a small user group and then Full Scale Deployment for the targeted user groups.
Planning
User Education
POC
Pilot
Full Scale
Planning The planning phase is focused on developing the overall business case and implementation plan. Funding sources need to be identified. Reaching out to different software vendors to amend the licensing terms is a time consuming exercise. The planning phase extends until completion of the POC and a go ahead decision to do a pilot implementation. Planning Develop the business case Identify budget sources Amend licensing agreements with application vendors 6 to 9 months
Proof of Concept The IT team needs to identify an SI partner with competency in application virtualization, evaluate alternatives, select the application virtualization technology, and then establish contractual relationship with the virtualization technology vendor. An evaluation of technology options during the POC is in itself a project with full life cycle from hardware procurement, installation of software to testing and analysis. Procurement of hardware alone often takes several months. POC Identify use cases Study technology options Identify a System Integrator Establish relationship with technology providers Procure hardware and setup the infrastructure Implement the solution Run User Acceptance Tests 3 to 6 months
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Pilot deployment The goal of the pilot phase is to design a technical solution and roll it out to an initial group of about 100 users. The objective is to gather experience with running a production environment and understand user behavior. Only a subset of applications is rolled out during the pilot. Creating solution architecture is a highly skilled and very critical activity that requires a combination of hardware architecture knowledge and familiarity with the latest server, storage and networking technologies. In depth knowledge of virtualization software is essential for proper performance tuning of the solution. Pilot Develop solution architecture Procure hardware Deploy the solution Run user acceptance tests 3 to 6 months
Full scale deployment Full scale deployment is focused on scaling the application virtualization solution up to the targeted number of concurrent users. While technically the solution has been proven during the pilot, it is still a separate project that needs to be executed through all its life-cycle steps. Full scale deployment Procure additional hardware Deploy the overall solution Execute scalability and performance tests Execute network performance tests Run user acceptance tests 3 to 6 months
User education User education starts with the pilot deployment, working with the pilot user group. After the full scale deployment is complete, the focus changes to driving broader user adoption. It takes a lot of marketing and user training effort to deliver information to students and to educate a broader population of students. User education Drive marketing initiatives Train the trainer sessions with the faculty Training sessions in classes 9 to 12 months
Achieving user adoption is not an easy task. This can fail on minor technology issues, incomplete solutions, or performance challenges with the solution. The best practices in user education include brown bag sessions, announcements in computer labs, converting computer labs to the new way of accessing applications, awards to pilot users, and train the trainer sessions with teachers.
POC
Pilot
Full Scale
Year 1
Year 2
Time
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The overall speed at which the application and desktop virtualization technology deployment happens depends on several factors. In many cases, the timeline is determined by the iterative nature of learning the technology, exposing it to users and making modifications to the solution based on user feedback. Another driving factor in this process is the budgeting cycle, since funding for deploying the full capacity is often spread out over several years.
Metric Hardware and Software Desktops Computer Lab Desktops Desktop Cost Desktop Depreciation Time Servers Server, Network, Storage Server Depreciation Time Software Number of concurrent users Computer Administration Desktops Administrators Servers Administrators Power Cost Total Cost of Ownership $/Year $/Year Count $ Years $/Year $ Years $/Year Count $/Year $/Year FTE $/Year FTE $/Year $/Year
Application Virtualization 120,000 10,000 100 800 8 60,000 180,000 3 50,000 700
60,000
140,000 140,000 3
10,000 250,000
5,000 200,000
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Power A typical desktop and monitor together consume about 100 Watt of electric power. Reducing the number of desktops in computer labs leads to a sizeable reduction in power consumption. For accurate accounting, we need to consider additional power consumption by the server solution and an increased number of students with laptops on campus. Overall, the power consumption can be reduced by half, leading to additional savings. With 500 desktops in traditional computer labs and the overall cost of $250,000, the cost per seat is about $500 per year. These costs include desktop hardware depreciation, computer administration and electric power. With application virtualization, the total number of seats implemented is typically higher than the eliminated seats in computer labs in order to provide students more flexibility and allow faculty users to use the same solution. In this reference case there are 800 seats. The overall annual cost is $200,000 and accordingly, the cost per seat is coming to $250 per year - an overall 50% reduction. Metric Computer Labs
Total cost of ownership Number of seats Cost per seat $/Year Count $/Year 250,000 500 500
There are several fundamental reasons why the seat cost with application virtualization is becoming substantially lower: Students are using their own personal laptops and the college doesnt need to provide any end user computing devices. An application hosting solution is replacing the traditional computer labs. The central server that replaces the individual desktops offers the computing power that is shared in a better way and can service more end users. By moving applications to a centrally managed server solution, there is no need for administrators to install, upgrade, and apply patches to multiple desktops across the campus one at a time. These changes are made to only one instance of the golden image, leading to a substantial reduction in the desktop administration effort.
Investments
The investment required to create an application virtualization solution in our reference case is in the range of $400,000. This includes two main cost items: Hardware and software: An application virtualization solution requires a server infrastructure, high performing storage and networking components, with the overall cost of about $200,000. Consulting and FTE cost: It takes a few years to implement the solution and reach the targeted levels of user adoption. External consulting is required due to complexity of the solution overall. An IT department typically invests several person years into implementation and user education. These costs all together can easily account to an additional $200,000. Given that the overall number of seats is about 800, the investment to implement application virtualization is about $500 per seat, which is half of the per seat investment in physical computer labs. Metric
Investment Number of seats Investment per seat $ Count $
Computer Labs
500,000 500 1000
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While the investment to implement application virtualization is large, colleges may not always require the full amount in form of additional funding. With the reduction in the number of desktops and increased life expectancy of the existing desktops, a large portion of the desktop refresh budget can be redirected towards the server solution. Reduction in computer administration efforts gives bandwidth to the existing staff for managing and implementing the application virtualization solution.
Cloud Computing
Project Plan
This section describes the project plan for the Application access over the Internet solution implemented leveraging a cloud computing model. There are two main tracks of activities: Program Management: The college IT team is responsible for Planning and User Education Technology Deployment: Since the technology solution is the responsibility of the cloud service provider, the scope of activities for the IT team here is mainly in testing and optional integration with the college infrastructure.
Program Management
Planning
User Education
Technology Deployment
Testing
Integration
Planning The planning phase is focused on developing the overall business case and work plan. Funding sources also need to be identified. The overall duration of the planning phase can be substantially shorter, since there is no need to wait for results of the POC on technology evaluation. Piloting with a small user group can start from day one and, given that the service has been fine tuned based on feedback from other customers, it shall be a much smoother overall experience. Planning Develop the business case Identify budget sources 3 months
Testing The IT team needs to test the performance of the service on the campus network and run general user acceptance tests. The objective is to make sure that there are no technical obstacles in delivering the service on campus and to students over the Internet. Planning Execute network performance tests Run user acceptance tests Amend licensing agreements with application vendors 3 months
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Integration While for basic use of the service, no technology integration is required, a larger college may step onto a path of integrating their Student Information System to address more advanced requirements on user access rights and automation of the overall administration. To optimize network performance, colleges may also choose to deploy WAN acceleration, a technical solution focused on reducing latency between the service provider datacenter and the on-campus network. Integration Setup the infrastructure Implement integration 1 month
User Education The college IT team can dedicate more time to user education and leverage materials and methodology from the cloud services provider to roll out the technology across the student population. User Education Drive marketing initiatives Train the trainer with faculty Training sessions in classes 3 to 6 months
Overall, the timeline of introducing a Cloud Computing Service to students and reaching the targeted level of user adoption can be much shorter than in a customized System Integration approach.
Year 1
Year 2
Time
Colleges can start offering the service in a matter of 3 months. The overall adoption time frame can be reduced to about six months. The only remaining time-consuming activity is amending the licensing agreements with application vendors.
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Computer Labs
Application Virtualization
The analysis of the total cost of ownership in our reference case of an application virtualization solution implemented in-house and cloud computing service is provided above. Hardware and Software The server solution, being located in a central data center, can achieve better utilization levels and hence the cost of hardware per user is reduced from $120,000 to $108,000. A cloud solution requires a customer portal for user account management, billing, reporting and other functions and it comes as an additional item in the cost structure of the cloud service provider. Computer Administration In the cloud solution, most server administration tasks are automated over time and accordingly the cost of infrastructure management goes down from $75,000 to $67,000. Power Although there will be some reduction of power consumption due to better hardware utilization, this will not impact the calculation substantially. The annual total cost of ownership with a cloud computing solution is approximately $180,000 per year. Given that we are accounting for a total capacity of 800 seats, the overall cost per seat is reduced to approximately $225 per year.
$500
$250
$225
Computer Labs
Application Virtualization
Cloud Computing
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The main reduction in operational costs comes from the fact that a cloud solution doesnt require new implementation each time a new customer is added. The technology implementation is done once in a scalable, multi-tenant architecture and supports additional customers without any substantial changes.
Investments
With a cloud computing service model, the required investment will be very minimal. There is no infrastructure investment required. There will be some expenses in program management and driving user education, yet, in most cases, they can be done by leveraging existing staff or with support from the cloud services provider.
$1000
$500
Desktop refresh budgets could be repurposed to cover the cost of the service. Colleges will encounter additional savings along the process, after computer labs are replaced with the Application access over the Internet solution.
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About Wipro
Wipro Technologies, a division of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT) is a leading global IT services organization and one of the largest product engineering service providers worldwide. The company offers comprehensive research and development services and IT solutions and services, including systems integration, information systems outsourcing, package implementation, software application management, and datacenter managed services to global corporations. Wipro is investing in the development and marketing of advanced cloud computing services and comprehensive service delivery platforms. The company has strategic alliances with all major technology providers and leverages the most advanced software products to build its solutions. Wipro partners with other players in the IT ecosystem to service its customers. For more information, please visit the Wipro website at www.wipro.com.
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