A Practical Approach for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Implementation in Educational Institutions

Laboratories play an important role in training and research at educational institutions. The demand regarding computers for laboratories is increasing in both quantity and performance. Investing in desktop computers with high configuration will encounter some problems in terms of funding, upgradeability, expansion and fixed layout. In the current context, when studying and working tend to be remote, using thin clients to access high-performance computers for work is one of the prominent trends. With virtualization technology, large server systems can be used to create many virtual machines with flexible configurations, helping to utilize infrastructure resources more effectively than traditional approaches. In addition, today’s rapidly developing network technologies also contribute to making the use of thin clients to work remotely much more convenient. Therefore, we propose a framework to implement Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for laboratories to optimize infrastructure resources, save investment costs, and create flexibility for end users. The Framework was implemented at Thu Dau Mot University (TDMU) as a proof-of-concept and has achieved positive results. The code bases and scripts are open and available at https://bitbucket.org/tdmudc/vdim/src/main/ .