Virtualization, Application Streaming & Private Cloud Computing In a Training Laboratory

In a typical I.T. training laboratory software applications and operating system are both installed onto each workstation. Its configuration management (server and workstation provisioning, de-commissioning and change control) often consumes a vast amount of resources such as time and human resources. Also, in a poorly managed lab environment, configuration management and its functional efficiency are usually the least to be looked at or measured upon. Systems virtualization and applications streaming thus provide a way to streamline the process of configuration management. Virtualization is designed to achieve maximum utilization of system resources such as network bandwidth, storage, CPU and RAM. In a private cloud, the operating system and applications are stored centrally and then streamed to the workstations, on-demand and in real time, but all processing is done behind the scene within the cloud infrastructure. The objective of this paper is to illustrate the key steps our project team will undertake to build a Private Cloud in order to improve upon the efficiency of configuration management within our I.T. training laboratories. Index Terms — I.T. Training Laboratory, Configuration Management, Provisioning, De-commissioning, Change Control, Consume Resources, Functional Efficiency, Virtualization, Application Streaming, Sequencing & Packaging, Bandwidth, Cloud Computing, Infrastructure, Regression Testing, Streamlined Maintenance, Network Load Balancing, Clustering, Dynamic Server Provisioning, Presentation Layer, Thin Client, Academic Institution