Remote PCs with UDS Enterprise & OpenGnSys

This project is carried out using the virtual infrastructure that is already available at the University: UDS Enterprise connection broker and the Open Source manager of ICT classrooms OpenGnSys.The union of both tools allows to create this new functionality. The broker determines which images, classrooms and devices are accessible at any time and the services orchestrator is responsible for deploying images and equipment. OpenGnSys works as a hypervisor within UDS Enterprise and uses it to access the physical classroom and to turn on and off the computers or access to the data storage of each computer, in the same way that in a traditional VDI architecture.

UDS Enterprise sets a services provider, which in this case is the physical machines supplier, that allows to define a range of IPS for physical machines and connections to these computers using the RDP protocol. To configure OpenGnSys as UDS Enterprise service provider the acces server, users, passwords and connection ports are difined. Then, you can already define organizational units or groups of classrooms that can be accessed. Moreover, you can see all the PCs that are available at each moment and the caches, so you can program the switching on/off on demand, obtaining substantial energy savings. Furthermore, OpenGnSys allows to determine the image or operating system to be deployed, using the most suitable in each case.

The University of Malaga unveiled the Remote PC project during the 25th RedIRIS Technical Conference. In forthcoming articles we will reveal more details of this initiative, as well as the rest of features and how the access of students and teachers are managed.