Undergraduate Engineering Computing Virtualization

A new virtualised computer lab has been implemented for Engineering 1 students at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The laboratory infrastructure was deployed in two stages with the goal of providing a user experience that was indistinguishable from a traditional computing lab. The first stage was a one-to-one mapping between 56 thin clients and 56 Blade servers using the Teradici communication protocol. The second stage was a true virtualised platform with 56 thin clients and 3 Blade servers using the PCover-IP (PCoIP) communication protocol. We surveyed several laboratory sections on usability and user experience of a popular visual programming development environment and a solid modelling CAD package. Students were asked to compare their current “workstation” performance against previous performance and the performance of other computing facilities on campus. When conducting the survey, students were not aware whether the machine they were seated at was a stage-1 or stage-2 configuration. The results show the majority of users believe the stage-2 virtualised implementation is as good or better than stage-1 or other facilities on campus. We have also compared resource requirements for the traditional computer lab and the virtualised computer lab. Operational resources are reduced by several orders of magnitude and administration has become significantly more efficient. In the current third stage of deployment we will be allowing students to connect to the virtualised laboratory from outside the physical lab. Our paper will cover the motivation and benefits for developing this laboratory, the structure of our virtualised laboratory, the student survey results, and the calculations of operational savings using this new laboratory model. The implementation of a virtualised laboratory structure provides new flexibility on the accessibility to computing laboratories, which we believe will be of interest to all levels of engineering education