Concept of virtualized environment for the provision of virtual machines for the Silesian University of Technology
For several years, the Silesian University of Technology has been using a production environment for delivering virtual desktops, applications and servers based on VMware solutions. This environment currently supports over 400 VDI stations and almost 300 virtual servers working on physical units located in three computing centres - CI (Computer Centre), CK (Computer Centre), CI-B (Silesian University of Technology Library), supplemented by Microsoft Windows Server terminal server farm and AppVolumes services publishing applications on the fly.
Due to the advantages of the environment, including a significant increase in automation and security compared to classical solutions, while reducing costs, VDI stations are now also provided outside the academic network for remote work (during the pandemic period in March and April 2020, the number of VDI machines provided exceeded 600 just for use in remote work), e.g. for the needs of the Central Administration, the Library, the Rector's Office, the Faculty of Architecture, the CZP, COS- BOS and other units of the Silesian University of Technology.
The virtualized IT environment can be used by any unit of the Silesian University of Technology, in particular in teaching rooms (currently, such rooms operate in the IT Centre and the Library and are being launched at the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Materials Science). The cost of installation and maintenance is much lower, and management is done centrally, which significantly reduces the required workload. The services offered to end users are run remotely, which does not require physical presence at the machine or any configuration on the part of the end user. Adding applications on the fly gives a number of additional possibilities, including the use of older software on the latest operating systems, automatic updates (both system and software), global customisation. It is also possible to run ZSI (DAX) and other Windows-only applications on computers running macOS or Linux.
