A virtual lab strategic plan

BRITISH COLUMIBA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

A Strategic Plan

To Create an Enterprise Level

Virtual Lab Environment

Bill Klug

Instructor

Computing and Academic Studies

November, 2010

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Fraser Robertson for his explanation of the Citrix environment at

BCIT, including hardware and software pricing.

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Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 5
Area for Intervention ............................................................................................................... 5
Policies and Programs ............................................................................................................. 6
Strengths .............................................................................................................................. 6

Weaknesses. ......................................................................................................................... 7

Related Work............................................................................................................................... 8
Single Workstations ................................................................................................................. 9
Hosted Applications .............................................................................................................. 13
Virtual Labs ........................................................................................................................... 15
Background ............................................................................................................................... 16
Population .............................................................................................................................. 18
Geographic Location ............................................................................................................. 19
Problems .................................................................................................................................... 20
Hard Drive Space................................................................................................................... 20
Virtual Machine Deletion ...................................................................................................... 20
Remote Access ...................................................................................................................... 21
Purpose ...................................................................................................................................... 21
Proposed Solutions ................................................................................................................ 22
Estimated Outcome of the Solutions ..................................................................................... 22
Analysis ..................................................................................................................................... 25
Comparable Solutions............................................................................................................ 27
Legal Issues ........................................................................................................................... 31
Ethical Issues ......................................................................................................................... 34
Social Concerns ..................................................................................................................... 35
Theoretical Interests .............................................................................................................. 36
Potential Solutions ................................................................................................................. 37
Prediction of Potential Solutions ........................................................................................... 38
Strategic Plan............................................................................................................................. 38

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Recommendations ................................................................................................................. 39
USB drive........................................................................................................................... 39

Hard drive .......................................................................................................................... 39

Virtual server environment ................................................................................................ 40

Pressures to Reduce Costs ..................................................................................................... 41
Cost Estimate for Solutions ................................................................................................... 43
Existing workstation configuration .................................................................................... 43

USB drive........................................................................................................................... 44

Hard drive .......................................................................................................................... 45


Citrix Solutions from Related Work ...................................................................................... 51
Non-Citrix Solutions from Related Work ............................................................................. 52
Cost Estimate for Implementation ......................................................................................... 55
USB drive........................................................................................................................... 55

Hard drive .......................................................................................................................... 55


Virtualization Solutions ......................................................................................................... 57
Cost Benefits of Virtualization .............................................................................................. 59
Implementation Plan ................................................................................................................. 62
Mission Statement ................................................................................................................. 63
Vision Statement.................................................................................................................... 63
Future State ............................................................................................................................ 63
Milestones .............................................................................................................................. 63
Timeline ................................................................................................................................. 64
BCIT‟s Five-Year Strategic Plan ........................................................................................... 64
Leadership and Management Actions ................................................................................... 67
“If you build it, they will come” ............................................................................................ 69
Proof-of-Concept Project ....................................................................................................... 71

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Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 73
References ................................................................................................................................. 76

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Introduction

Virtualization technologies are used in teaching computer classes in colleges and

universities in the United States, Europe, and Canada. At the British Columbia Institute of

Technology (BCIT) in Canada, virtualization products, such as VMware Workstation and

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, are used to teach system administration courses in Linux and

Microsoft Windows Server, and database courses in Oracle. As more instructors within the

School of Computing and Academic Studies at BCIT adopt the use of virtual machines in

teaching their courses, the demands placed on individual lab resources, including hardware,

system configuration, and maintenance, increases.

For an instructor to use virtual machines in their labs, the virtualization product must be

installed on the lab computer. Next, the instructor must create their own virtual machines or use

virtual machines that are provided with a course textbook or related courseware. Finally, the

instructor‟s virtual machines must be installed on each computer in the lab.

Although all of the computers in a lab are usually configured from a single image, the

time required for creating that image has increased in complexity with the use of multiple virtual

machines for a single course. More significantly is the amount of hard drive space required for a

disk image containing multiple virtual machines. The amount of time it takes to distribute a large

disk image over a network to all of the computers in the lab has increased in proportion to the

size of the images.

Area for Intervention

An enterprise-level, virtual server environment can be implemented for hosting the

virtual machines currently installed on the individual workstations in a computing lab. An

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excellent case study of the virtual computing initiative at North Carolina State University and

North Carolina Central University presents a replicable business model for building a virtual

computing environment (Li, 2009; Schaffer, Averitt, Holt, Peeler, Sills & Vouk, 2009; Seay &

Tucker, 2010; Vouk, 2008; Young, 2008). Instead of installing virtual machines on every

workstation in a lab, multiple instances of the virtual machines reside on a storage area network

(SAN) associated with a virtual server environment. Students have network access to the virtual

machines for their classes and a virtual server management system instantiates an instance of a

virtual machine from the SAN when a student needs to use it.

Policies and Programs

Implementing an enterprise-level virtual server environment for computing courses at

BCIT requires a change in the current delivery model of virtual machines to individual

workstations in computer labs. The Information Technology Services (ITS) department at BCIT

has built an enterprise-level virtual server environment. However, the environment is currently

only configured to host applications, not virtual machines used by instructors for their courses.

The environment can be configured to host virtual machines for the computing labs.

Strengths. Deploying virtual machines for the computing labs through an enterprise-

level virtual server environment has the following strengths or advantages:

1. Instructors will not have to worry about running out of hard drive space for their

virtual machines on lab workstations. This is currently happening.

2. Instructors will not have to worry about virtual machines being accidently deleted

from lab workstations. This is also occurring in the labs.

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3. Students will not have to purchase Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash drives to backup

their virtual machines. This is necessary because virtual machines are being deleted

from the lab workstations.

4. Instructors will have the flexibility of allowing students to use web browsers on their

own computers for accessing hosted virtual machines. Students will not be required

to use lab workstations to access their virtual machines.

5. ITS will not have to reimage lab workstations each school term (semester) with new

virtual machines.

6. The cost associated with adding new hard drives to lab workstations, to accommodate

more instructors using virtual machines or the size increases of existing virtual

machines, can be eliminated.

Weaknesses. There are weaknesses or disadvantages to deploying virtual machines

through an enterprise-level virtual server environment:

1. Students will lose control of copying and backing up their own virtual machines.

2. Instructors cannot remove a defective virtual machine on a lab workstation and

replace it with a fresh image in real time.

3. There could be performance issues with multiple virtual machines running in a

large, enterprise-level server environment.

4. Instructors may be limited to the size and number of virtual machines they deploy,

contingent upon the virtual server and SAN resources provided by the ITS group.

Instructors using virtual machines to teach courses at BCIT are limited by the resources

available on the individual workstations in each lab. Virtual machines can be accidently and

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intentionally deleted, resulting in students losing the work they have done on their virtual

machines. It is time consuming to reimage a workstation or reinstall virtual machines on a

workstation when loss of data or corruption occurs. One instructor does not have to compete

with another instructor for limited hard drive space on lab computers for hosting their virtual

machines.

Deploying virtual machines in an enterprise-level, virtual server environment means that

virtual machines do not have to be installed on individual lab workstations at the beginning of

each school term. Virtual machines are not in danger of being deleted from lab workstations.

Virtual deployment of virtual machines means that students can access their virtual machines

remotely. Instructors have more flexibility in how they want to conduct the lab portions of their

classes.

Related Work

Educators and researchers at colleges and universities in the United States and Europe are

using virtualization technologies in three primary methods. The first method is to install virtual

machines on single workstations in a physical lab (Albee, Campbell, Murray, Tongen, & Wolfe,

2007; Bullers, Burd, & Seazzu, 2006; Dobrilović & Odadžić, 2006; Li, 2009; Lunsford, 2009;

Stockman, Nyland, & Weed, 2005; Toppin, 2008; Vollrath & Jenkins, 2004; Yang, 2007). The

second method is to host applications in a an enterprise-level, server environment (Blezard,

2004; Einsmann & Patel, 2007; Kissler & Hoyt, 2005; Schaffer et al., 2009; Seay & Tucker,

2010; Vouk, 2008; Young, 2008; “Wired Brazil”, 2009; White, 2008). The third method is to

host virtual machines in an enterprise-level, virtual server environment (Border, 2007; Burd,

Seazzu, & Conway, 2009; Li, 2009; Rigby & Dark, 2006). The third method is referred to as a

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virtual lab. Much of this research into the use of virtual machines and virtual labs is being

conducted by educators and researches teaching networking and systems administration courses

(Albee et al., 2007; Border, 2007; Bullers et al., 2006; Dobrilović & Odadžić, 2006; Li, 2010; Li,

Toderick, & Lunsford, 2009; Rigby & Dark, 2006; Stackpole, 2008; Stackpole, Koppe, Haskell,

Guay, & Pan, 2008; Stockman et al., 2005; Vollrath & Jenkins, 2004; Yang, 2007). The author is

also using virtual machines to teach students networking principals and systems administration

courses at BCIT.

Single Workstations

Albee et al. (2007) at Central Michigan University created a student-managed networking

lab for teaching students in the undergraduate Information Technology (IT) program. They

adopted VMware Player to run their virtual machine images. Their motivation for adopting

virtualization technology included a shrinking budget for operating their computing lab,

supporting multiple courses with different operating requirements on a single workstation, and

overcrowding in the networking lab (Albee et al.). The use of virtual machines allowed them to

reduce the number of general-use computers from 200 to 40. They retained 16, course-specific

machines.

Stackpole et al. (2008) used VMware‟s virtualization platform in their 80 workstation lab

at Rochester Institute of Technology for teaching students in the Networking, Security and

Systems Administration Department. In Stackpole et al‟s. (2008) lab, workstations were re-

imaged for each class taught in the lab. Although the imaging process allowed students to save

their own unique copy of their lab exercises, the time to save and restore a workstation could

consume up to half of a lab period (Stackpole, et al.) In addition to the imaging time, Stackpole

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et al. experienced problems with managing the operating system images for each workstation as

well. The ability to uniquely configure the hardware reduced both the utilization and efficiency

of the lab. Lastly, computer resource utilization suffered: one machine was only running one

operating system. Stackpole et al. found that virtualization was the solution to their four

problems.

Vollrath and Jenkins (2004) used virtual machines at East Tennessee State University to

teach 60 students each semester in a course System Administration course. Like BCIT, both

Linux and Windows operating systems were taught in the System Administration course.

Vollrath and Jenkins decision to use virtual machines was motivated by four problems, the most

significant being that students did not have access to a dedicated lab machine to do their lab

exercises. (Students do not have dedicated lab computers at BCIT.) Other problems included

group assignments, which required a team of students to be in the lab a specific time, getting lab

assistants to check off students assignments during lab periods, and the grading of hands-on

examinations during a lab period. To solve these problems, Vollrath and Jenkins chose to

implement virtual machines running under Microsoft‟s Virtual PC platform.

Yang (2007) used virtual machines to teach a network administration at the University of

West Georgia. Yang used multiple virtual machines running in a Microsoft Virtual PC

environment. The Virtual PC technology allowed Yang to bypass the resource limitations of

setting “aside some specific computers, network devices, and lab space just for one or two

courses” (p. 138). Using virtualization allowed the university to reduce costs and achieve more

flexible lab access. Students could access the virtual machines from any computer in the lab. In

addition, students were given 24x7 physical access to the computer labs.

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Bullers et al. (2006) taught courses in network administration, database administration,

and information security and assurance at University of New Mexico. Prior to implementing

virtualization, workstations were partitioned for each class. This required lengthy reboots

between classes. Bullers et al. found that lab computers using virtualization were not

compromised by worms or viruses, each virtual machine could be individually configured, and

the VMware restore facility allowed students to recover from errors. Implementing virtual

machines using VMware Workstation on the individual machines in the lab allowed them to

create complex lab exercises for their courses and eliminated system reboots.

Stockman et al. (2005) taught networking and system administration courses at the

University of Cincinnati. The storage and delivery of virtual machine images became a problem

because the file sizes exceeded “the capacity of removable media formats (floppy, CD-R, Zip,

flash drives)” (p. 4). This created problems with the usability, management, and backup of the

virtual machines. Stockman et al. sought solutions to these problems through the use of a

network attached storage device that delivered the virtual machines to lab client systems when

requested by a student.

Dobrilović and Odadžić (2006) used virtual machines to teach computer networks course

at University of Novi Sad in Serbia and Montenegro. Dobrilović and Odadžić needed a “low-

cost and easy-to-use solution” to sharing computers in a “real computer laboratory” used for

several other courses (p. 128). Virtual machines were that solution; they were installed on every

single workstation in the physical computer lab.

Li (2009) found that physical labs at East Carolina University were “costly to build,

maintain and expand” (p. 4). The challenge was to “deliver remote hands-on laboratory courses

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efficiently and effectively with the limited budget.” (p. 4). Budget constraints also limited their

ability to upgrade physical labs with the latest technologies. Lab hours where limited for all

students. This had a negative impact, especially on students who didn‟t complete their labs in the

allotted lab time (two hours, like BCIT). To solve these problems, Li introduced a decentralized

lab model in 2006. Under this model, “virtual machines were installed and the hands-on

exercises were performed on the student‟s personal computer” (p. 4), not on lab servers or

campus machines.

Toppin (2008) took a similar approach at Winston-Salem State University to what Li

(2009) did, whereby students installed virtual machines on their personal computers. Toppin

built a server for the purpose of hosting the virtual machines used in his networking course.

Students logged into the server remotely and downloaded virtual machines bearing their name

(Toppin). Students were also able to download VMware Server, the virtual machine hosting

environment required to run the virtual machines. Toppin found that students had more control

of their laboratory assignments if they used virtual machines. Toppin‟s approach was to create a

remote model for his networking course so that students did not have to be on-campus to take his

course.

Lunsford (2009) used virtual machines to teach an information systems security course in

a computer lab at the University of Southern Mississippi. Each student was responsible for

creating their own virtual machine using VMware Workstation. The students installed Microsoft

Windows XP Service Pack 1 on the virtual machine. Lunsford found challenges with this

approach. These challenges included “the students‟ lack of experience using virtual machines,

educator control over students‟ virtual machines, … disk space and machine requirements, and

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the ability to make regular backups of virtual machines” (p. 345). Although the author at BCIT

provides the virtual machines for his courses to his students, he faces many of the same problems

as Lunsford, including sufficient disk space and no ability backup virtual machines.

Hosted Applications

Researchers and students at Virginia Commonwealth University wanted access to

licensed copies of mathematical and statistical software (Einsmann & Patel, 2007). In addition,

they wanted the software to run from any location on a variety of platforms, including Windows,

Mac, and Linux. However, the cost of individual licenses of the software, for all of the

researchers and students who wanted the software, was prohibitive for a campus-wide site

license. Instead, the Department of Technology Services created a virtual application hosting

environment called „app2go.‟ Researchers and students could access a variety of third party

applications, including mathematical and statistical software, from a variety of web browsers on

Windows, Mac, Linux, and UNIX platforms. Software licensing was then based on the number

of concurrent users instead of a per seat (workstation) basis. This reduced licensing costs.

At the University of West Florida (White, 2008), reductions in state university budgets

placed pressures on the operation of physical computer labs. The only computing facility on

campus that was open 24x7 had its operating hours cut in half (White). Open access to the lab

on weekends and at night was canceled (White). In response to the cost cutting, the university

launched an „eDesktop‟ virtual computer lab in September of 2007. The purpose of eDesktop

was to provide licensed software to all students, including distance learners, reduce software

costs, and reduce the costs of maintaining physical computer labs. White notes that “students

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who need access to specialized software could spend on the order of $3,000 [USD] or $4,000 or

more throughout their academic career” (p. 77).1

In 2004, North Carolina State University created a virtual computing lab (Li, 2009;

Schaffer et al., 2009; Seay & Tucker, 2010; Vouk, 2008; Young, 2008). The purpose of the lab

was to provide “on-demand applications anywhere/anytime” (Seay & Tucker, p. 75). Software

images or virtualized applications were installed onto blade servers in the computing lab‟s data

center. Virtualization allowed students, faculty and staff, using a web browser, access “to dozens

of desktop applications anywhere/anytime” (Seay & Tucker, p. 77).

Kissler and Hoyt (2005), at Valparaiso University, sought to reduce IT costs associated

with computer hardware and staff time related to deploying, maintaining, and supporting

workstations and users. The university deployed thin clients to reduce complexity and cost.

Applications were stored on a central server and thin-client devices, much lower in cost than an

individual workstation, were installed to allow users to access to applications over the campus

network.

Blezard (2004), at University of New Hampshire, was motivated to reduce the total cost

of ownership for computer services by lowering client hardware and management costs. Like

Kissler and Hoyt (2005), Blezard implemented thin-client technologies. All applications, such as

Microsoft Word and Excel, were hosted on a single server. Blezard used Microsoft‟s Terminal

Services to allow users to access the applications within a Windows desktop environment.

1
Monetary amounts are noted in either Canadian dollars (CDN) or United States dollars (USD). Only the first
amount in each paragraph identifies the currency. All other amounts in the paragraph are in the same currency.

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Students in Brazil used virtualized desktops (“Wired Brazil”, 2009). A hosted, virtual

environment allowed one computer to deploy virtual desktops to 10 workstations (“Wired

Brazil”, p. 13). A total of 18,750 workstations were configured using the virtual desktop model,

saving “60 percent in upfront costs” (“Wired Brazil”, p. 13).

Virtual Labs

Border (2007) taught networking, security, and systems administration classes at

Rochester Institute of Technology. He wanted to provide distance students the same

opportunities that local students had with access to physical labs. He also wanted to avoid

assigning a single workstation to a single student. Border developed a virtual lab environment

running multiple virtual machines configured with different versions of Microsoft Windows and

Linux operating systems. The virtual lab environment allowed students to configure different

network configurations and topologies. More importantly, the virtual lab environment allowed

remote access to the virtual machines for distance students.

Rigby and Dark (2006) recognized a significant increase in students enrolled in distance

learning. They also recognized the difficulty of offering hands-on lab experiences to distance

learners. Rigby and Dark implemented a virtual remote lab for networking students and

operating system courses at Purdue University and Brigham Young University -Idaho. They

used virtual machines hosted on remote lab servers. They found that use of the remote labs

lowered costs and increased lab utilization between courses.

In 2009, Li (2009) and Li et al. (2009) introduced an option to the decentralized lab

model created in 2006. Li et al. allowed students access to the Virtual Computing Lab (VCL) at

North Carolina State University (Vouk, 2008). Initially, the VCL was used as a place students

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could back up their virtual machines. Later, in 2009, students were given the opportunity to do

all of their assignments using the VCL. (The VCL hosted their virtual machines and students

were allowed remote access.) Li et al. found this model to be “a cost-effective way of delivering

remote labs efficiently” (p. 56).

Stackpole (2008) discussed the evolution of his virtualized lab environment (Stackpole et

al., 2008) to create a remote laboratory system to enable distance learning techniques. Stackpole

piloted a virtual lab based on operating a successful physical teaching lab. The evolution from

the physical lab to the virtual lab was motivated by the cost of maintaining a physical lab,

increasing the availability of the virtualized lab environment, improving computer performance,

and community outreach (Stackpole). Between 2005 and 2008, Stackpole successfully piloted

the remote virtual lab environment.

Burd et al. (2009) created a virtual lab at the University of New Mexico as part of an

“initiative to incorporate mobile computing throughout the curriculum” (p. IIP – 55). The lab

was designed to allow students remote access to school computing resources and applications,

including software that was installed in physical labs. The development of the virtual lab was

also driven by concerns for lab accessibility and the costs associated with supporting in-class

computer use (Burd et al.).

Background

The school of computing at BCIT has 12 labs with an average of 25 workstations in each

lab. The courses taught in the SE12-306 (building-room) lab use virtual machines extensively for

hands-on exercises. Virtual machines are used to teach system administration courses in Linux

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and Microsoft Windows Server, and two database courses in Oracle. A total of five sections of

the Oracle courses are taught during the day and at night.

Virtual machines used in the computing labs at BCIT range in size from five gigabytes

(GB) to 50GB. The use of virtual machines in the SE12-306 increased in 2008 when virtual

machines were introduced for the lab exercises in the Windows Server system administration

class. The introduction of an additional 100GB of virtual machines (two sections of classes at

50GB each) approached the capacity limits of the 135GB partition on the lab‟s workstations.

In 2010, a new version of Oracle, 11g, was introduced. (The prior version of Oracle used

was 10g.) This caused the size of the virtual machines for the Oracle classes to increase.

(Currently, the five Oracle virtual machines used in SE12-306 occupy 80GB of disk space.) The

cumulative total of all of the virtual machines used to teach courses in SE12-306 exceeded the

capacity of the hard drive partitions of the workstations. One set of virtual machines used to

teach one section of the Windows Server system administration class had to be deleted. (Each

student is assigned their own set of virtual machines on a workstation.) Students in the system

administration class had to work in teams of two, with one section assigned to odd-numbered

workstations and the other section assigned to even-numbered workstations. This remains a

problem heading into the January, 2011, term.

Toppin (2008) argues that the benefits of using virtual machines “far outweigh the

disadvantages” (p. 16). The use of virtual machines allows students to manage more servers and

clients than in a physical lab (Toppin). The use of virtual machines also allows students more

flexibility for completing their laboratory assignments outside of regularly scheduled laboratory

classes (Toppin).

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Terris (2010) notes that “more than 11% of colleges and universities are phasing out

computer laboratories or plan to do so” (p. 21). Laboratories are being replaced by virtual

environments or multi-purpose computer rooms (Terris). A major reason for this shift is the fact

that 83% of students in four-year colleges own laptops (Terris). Burd et al. (2009) note,

however, that the rise in laptop ownership among students “has not eliminated the need for

campus computing laboratories” (p. IIP – 56).

Population

The School of Computing and Academic Studies at BCIT offers two, two-year diploma

programs for post-secondary students pursuing careers in information technology. The

Computer Systems Technology (CST) program is geared towards students interested in

becoming software developers or system engineers. The Computer Information Technology

(CIT) program is designed for students interested in IT systems management and administration

jobs.

The CST program enrolls approximately 115 students each year. The CIT program

enrolls a maximum of 46. The students are divided into sets (cohorts). In the case of the CST

program, sets are based on students selecting an option (major), such as digital processing or data

communications. For the CIT program, there are no options. Students are divided into two

balanced sets by enrolment numbers. Students in both programs remain in their sets for the full,

two year sequence of courses.

Students in the CST program have dedicated laboratories for their options. Because the

CIT students are not in options, they do not have dedicated laboratories. However, many of the

computing classes for the CIT students are staged and delivered in the SE12-306 lab. The

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problems with the virtual machines have a direct impact on the 46 students in the CIT program

using the SE12-306 lab.

All classes in the CST and CIT programs consist of a lecture section and a lab section.

Classes are worth different credits. The number of credits determines the number of hours of

lecture and lab the student attends for that course each week. For example, the four credit course

in „System Administration using Linux‟ consists of two hours of lecture and two hours of lab

each week. The five credit course in „Operating Systems‟ consists of three hours of lecture and

two hours of lab. Because of this lecture-lab course structure, laboratories, like SE12-306, are

booked with classes from five to ten hours a day when school is in session. The labs are open

when not in use by a scheduled course.

BCIT also offers computing courses through its part-time studies program. Students can

take one or more courses in the evening and on weekends. For example, BCIT offers an evening

course in using the Oracle database system. This course is offered in the SE12-306 lab. The

students in the Oracle class use virtual machines. These virtual machines are stored on the same

hard drive partition as the virtual machines used during the day time classes. Therefore, students

taking part-time, evening classes in SE12-306 face the same risks to their virtual machines as day

time students.

Geographic Location

BCIT is located in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. (Burnaby is a contiguous city

with Vancouver.) BCIT is a public, post-secondary institution with approximately 16,000 full-

time and 31,000 part-time students attending on an annual basis. BCIT offers a wide range of

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certificates, diplomas, and degrees in a variety of disciplines. In addition, BCIT students

commute to campus. There is limited on-campus housing for international students.

Problems

There are three major problems with using virtual machines on the workstations in the

SE12-306 computing lab: (a) the size of the virtual machines exceeding the available hard drive

space, (b) virtual machines being deleted, and (c) students are unable to perform lab exercises on

the virtual machines outside of the physical lab.

Hard Drive Space

Instructors within the School of Computing and Academic Studies at BCIT, who use

virtual machines in the lab sections of their courses, want to expand the number and size of the

virtual machines. Between January, 2008, and August, 2010, the number of instructors using

virtual machines in SE12-306, increased from one to five. In the same period of time, the total

size the virtual machines used in this lab increased to between 105GBs and 135GBs. The total

size approached -- and exceeded -- the 135GB capacity of the hard drive partition on the

workstation.

Virtual machines used for teaching the Oracle courses expand as activities are performed

on them. In February, 2010, the total size of all of the virtual machines expanded to exceed the

capacity of the hard drive‟s partition. Virtual machines for a non-database course were deleted

and students had to work in teams on a different set of virtual machines.

Virtual Machine Deletion

Virtual machines can be accidently or intentionally deleted. Although the hard drives on

the workstations do not have to be reimaged, the virtual machines do have to be replaced with a

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new copy of the virtual machine. If replacement occurs in the middle of a term, a student loses

all of the work they have performed on the virtual machine that was deleted. In these situations,

the instructor usually asks the student to team with another student so they don‟t have to repeat

prior labs or bring a new virtual machine current.

Changing the password on the operating system used to create the virtual machine makes

the virtual machine inaccessible by other students. Students are not assigned their own

workstation in the lab, but they are encouraged to use the same workstation when they are using

the lab. A student‟s username and password can be used to access any workstation in any of the

12 computing labs. In situations where the password has changed or the student has forgotten

the password to a modified virtual machine, the virtual machine must be replaced or the student

is asked to work in a team with another student at a different workstation.

Remote Access

Students and instructors do not have remote access the virtual machines used in the lab.

Students must either complete lab exercises during their assigned lab period or complete their lab

exercises during open lab hours. Students are allowed to use their own laptops for doing lab

exercises. However, not every student with a laptop wants to install the virtual machine

environment, like VMware Workstation, and the virtual machines. Like a workstation in the lab,

their laptop may not have enough hard drive space for a virtual machine and its expansion.

Purpose

At the BCIT, instructors using virtual machines to teach the lab sections of their courses

in SE12-306 are having problems with virtual machines exceeding the capacity of the

workstation hard drives and virtual machines being accidently or intentionally deleted. When

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passwords are intentionally changed on virtual machines, preventing further access, the virtual

machines must be reinstalled. Because there is no remote access to virtual machines in SE12-

306, it is difficult for students to work on lab assignments outside of classroom hours.

Proposed Solutions

There are several possible solutions to the problems instructors and students are having in

SE12-306 with virtual machines exceeding the capacity of the workstation hard drives, virtual

machines being deleted, and the desire for remote access to lab virtual machines. One solution is

for students to purchase USB drives. The USB drive could be used as a backup device. The USB

drive could also be used as the primary storage unit for the student‟s virtual machines instead of

the hard drive partition on the lab‟s workstation.

A second solution is for BCIT to purchase and install larger hard drives on the

workstations in SE12-306. This solution would allow instructors to use more and larger virtual

machines. Larger hard drives would prevent instructors from having to compete for limited disk

space on the hard drive partitions.

A third solution is to host the virtual machines in an enterprise-level, virtual server

environment. Virtual machines would not be installed and stored on the hard drives of the

workstations in the lab. Instead, virtual machines would be stored on the SAN associated with

the virtual server environment. Students could access the virtual machines both from a lab

workstation and remotely, using their own computer.

Estimated Outcome of the Solutions

The author‟s review of the use of virtualization technologies by educators and researchers

at colleges and universities in the United States and Europe found three, primary methods in use:

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(a) installing virtual machines on single workstations in a physical lab, (b) hosting applications in

an enterprise-level, server environment, and (c) hosting virtual machines in a virtual server

environment. Educators teaching networking and systems administration courses have used

virtual machines with all three methods. Some educators are moving their workstation-based

virtual machines to hosted, virtual server environments.

After creating a decentralized lab model, in 2006, in which students ran virtual machines

on their personal computers, Li et al. (2009), in 2008, experimented with hosting the virtual

machines for three different classes using the Virtual Computing Lab (VCL) at North Carolina

State University (Vouk, 2008) Sixty-one students participated in the experiment. Twenty

students lived on campus and 41 were distance education or online students. Li et al. found that

the centralized remote lab model (i.e. the VCL) was flexible and efficient. It allowed faculty and

students 24/7 remote access and extended the boundaries of learning to students to study

anywhere at their pace. In a 2006 survey, when use of the VCL was optional, a majority of

students (89%) preferred decentralized model (Li, 2009). However, the main argument against

the VCL, at the time, was the need for an Internet connection (Li, 2009). Students found that use

of the VCL meant using fewer resources on their own computers (Li, 2009).

Stackpole (2008) piloted a remotely accessible, virtual lab environment in the fall of 2005

at Rochester Institute of Technology. The costs of maintaining a physical lab included the

physical space for the lab, heating and cooling, electricity, furniture, et cetera. There was labor

costs associated with maintaining the lab and lab equipment, after-hours security costs, et cetera.

Students did not have access to labs 24x7. This limited the students‟ ability to complete their lab

exercises during open lab periods. The performance of the machines in the physical lab was

24

affected by the fact that they were always one to two years behind the state-of-the art technology.

The virtual lab started as a proof-of-concept project, but it evolved into a useful and exciting

platform for students and faculty (Stackpole, 2008).

Stackpole (2008) was able to use ten, high-end workstations at no cost. The approximate

configuration of the workstations was a 2.5GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, and a

100base-T Ethernet connection. Microsoft Windows XP was installed as the host operating

system and VMware Workstation as the virtualization platform. Appropriate licenses were

available to the institute. VMware allowed a group of virtual machines to be created on each

workstation. One machine was assigned to one student during the pilot project. Students

connected to the machine using Remote Desktop.

Stackpole (2008) ran a second pilot during the winter quarter (term). After the first pilot,

the operating systems on the workstations were changed to Windows Server 2003 with Microsoft

Terminal Services. This allowed central administration of the workstations using Active

Directory. Twenty students were assigned to the second pilot and more than one student was

allowed simultaneous access to the virtual machines on a workstation. This caused a problem

because each student could allocate all of the available memory to their single session.

After a third pilot in the spring quarter, Stackpole (2008) obtained access to “a number of

blades” in a fully populated IBM blade server (p. 246). The blade server was attached to a SAN.

The plan was to use VMware Workstation and a Windows infrastructure. However, “the blade

server was not as economical a solution in terms of the number of VMs that could be supported”

(Stackpole, p. 246).

25

Stackpole (2008) noted that smaller institutions could not afford to build a similar virtual

lab infrastructure. As of 2008, Rochester Institute of Technology was working with other

colleges to help them develop virtual labs that could use their infrastructure. In August of 2008,

the original, ten workstation, virtual lab environment was decommissioned. It was replaced by a

“four SunFire servers and a NetApp SAN” (p. 247). Stackpole expects that instructors‟

coursework will continue to migrate to the new platform.

Stockman et al. (2005) solved problems related to the storage and delivery of virtual

machines to client workstations in a physical lab. In 2005, the authors began researching

extending the students‟ mobility (Stockman et al.). Mobility would be extended by allowing

students remote access to the virtual machines stored on a cluster of servers (Stockman et al.).

BCIT currently employs two of the three primary methods for using virtualization

technologies. The author uses virtual machines on single workstations in the SE12-306 physical

lab for teaching system administration courses in Linux and Windows Server. In September,

2010, BCIT launched the AppsAnywhere Project. The AppsAnywhere service hosts

applications from a virtual server environment, like app2go (Einsmann & Patel, 2007), eDesktop

(White, 2008), and the Virtual Computing Lab (Li, 2009; Schaffer et al., 2009; Seay & Tucker,

2010; Vouk, 2008; Young, 2008). The author is researching hosting the virtual machines used in

the SE12-306 on the Citrix-based, virtual server environment used for the AppsAnywhere

Project.

Analysis

There are three possible solutions to the problems related to virtual machines in the

SE12-306 lab at BCIT: (a) students purchase USB drives, (b) install larger hard drives in the lab

26

workstations, and (c) host virtual machines in an enterprise-level, virtual server environment.

The solutions and the likelihood of each solution to resolve the problems are presented in Table

1. The solutions are considered to be the key success factors (KSFs) to solving the problems with

the virtual machines in SE12-306.

All three solutions provide increased storage space for the expanded use of virtual

machines by instructors in SE12-306. The three solutions also allow for the increase in size of

virtual machines that are used for database courses. Neither the use of USB drives nor the

installation of larger hard drives on the lab‟s workstations prevent deletion of virtual machines or

allow for remote access. Using an enterprise-level, virtual server environment provides a

solution for all three problems. However, the fact that one solution meets all of the solution

criteria is necessary, but not sufficient, to be selected as the final solution. Other factors, such as

cost and access to BCIT Information Technology Services‟ resources, need to be examined.

Table 1
Comparison of KSFs for the virtual machines in SE12-306

Prevents deletion Increases storage Allows for
Solution of virtual machines space for virtual remote access
machines

Students purchase No Yes No
USB drives
Install larger hard No Yes No
drives on lab
workstations
Host virtual machines Yes Yes Yes
in an enterprise-level,
virtual server
environment

27

Comparable Solutions

Stockman et al. (2005) recognized the problems of virtual machines stored on a local

computer. The size of the virtual machines “regularly exceed the capacity of removable media

formats” on local computers (p. 4). Students were restricted to using a single lab workstation

during normal lab periods. If another student was using the workstation during an open lab

period, the student was not able to continue their lab assignment. These problems are similar to

those occurring at BCIT. Stockman et al. also recognized that hard drives on workstations using

virtual machines must be sufficient to allow for backups of each student‟s virtual machine

images. (BCIT does not provide for backup space on the existing workstations.)

Stockman et al.‟s (2005) lab consisted of 18 host systems. Nine courses were taught in

the lab, equating “to 12-20 two hour lab sections per quarter” (p. 4). Each host system had

150GB of storage to accommodate virtual machines ranging in size from 2-6GB. Instructors

used between one to eight virtual machines in each course.

One alterative proposed by Stockman et al. (2005) was to have students purchase a USB

flash drive. A 20GB could be purchased from $100 USD to $200. They recognized that not

every student could afford to purchase an external hard drive. They also thought this might

violate computing policies at some institutions. In particular, if the flash drive was required for

the course, it should be provided by the school.

Another alterative proposed by Stockman et al. (2005) was to use network attached

storage. A student would copy their virtual machine image from a file server to the local

workstation. When the student finished their lab work, they would copy the image back to the

network attached storage device. However, Stockman et al. mentioned that it was unknown the

28

impact the simultaneous copying of upwards of 24 images would have on the Ethernet network

capacity or the file server.

The final alternative proposed by Stockman et al. (2005) was to have students access

their virtual machines on the file server from a lab workstation without copying the image over

the network. The authors monitored the performance of the network and the file server when

students were accessing the virtual machines. Stockman et al. were encouraged by a positive

performance and planned to do a formal trial in the summer of 2005.

Border (2007) wanted to provide remote access to distance learners so they could do the

same lab exercises as students using the physical labs. Border installed virtual machines on a

network-based storage system. The system consisted of two, 3.4 GHz CPU servers, each with

2GB of RAM and two hard drives. Each hard drive consisted of a 40GB partition for the local

operating system and 300GB for student images. Each virtual machine was assigned to a four

GB virtual partition within the 300GB space.

The remote access architecture used Microsoft Windows Terminal Services, Microsoft

Remote Desktop, and Microsoft Remote Assistance (Border, 2007). Active Directory was used

for student authentication (Border). Server virtualization for the virtual machines was done

using VMware Workstation (Border).

Border (2007) conducted a case study of this model using 16 students. Each student was

assigned to a particular server. However, not all of the students could have simultaneous access

to their assigned server. Students could log into the server and “check to see who else was logged

into the system” (Border, p. 579). If students felt the server was too busy, they had to log off and

try again later (Border).

29

Border‟s (2007) case study covered a one year period (2005). He planned to migrate to a

Xen open source virtual server because of a more favorable licensing model. His plan also

included moving the virtual machines to a blade server and SAN architecture.

Rigby and Dark (2006) also created a remote lab environment using virtual machines. A

typical firewall lab consisted of three virtual machines. Using a web browser or remote desktop

software, students created a virtual private network (VPN) to a terminal server. A RADIUS

server provided authentication. VMware was used for running the virtual machines.

Similar to Border (2007), every student could not be granted simultaneous access to the

virtual remote lab (Rigby & Dark, 2006). A key success factor to the operation of the remote lab

was a mechanism that allowed students to schedule a time to perform their lab. When the time

came to access the remote lab, the student connected to the VPN server and did their lab.

Bullers et al. (2006) taught a database class using virtual machines. The virtual machine

consisted of Oracle 10g under Microsoft Windows XP Professional. Since 2007, BCIT has

taught Oracle classes using virtual machines. Up until 2010, the virtual machine consisted of

Oracle 10g running under CentOS Linux distribution. Bullers et al. found, like the author, that

the number and size of virtual machine images made backup of problematic because of lack of

adequate storage space on the lab computer hard drives.

Vollrath and Jenkins (2004) required each student to purchase a removable hard drive.

The hard drive could be „plugged‟ into the workstation‟s hard drive bay and the system rebooted.

The removable hard drives were placed in storage when the student was not in the lab. Each

hard drive was fully configured with the operating systems and virtual machines the students

needed for their course. BCIT has a removable hard drive system in place at one of its labs at its

30

downtown, Vancouver campus, but not in the computing labs at its Burnaby campus. Use of a

removable device does not prevent deletion of virtual machines or allow for remote access.

Dobrilović and Odadžić (2006) used virtual machines for teaching a computer networks

course. The design of Dobrilović‟s and Odadžić‟s laboratory was similar to the design of the

SE12-306 laboratory at BCIT. Dobrilović and Odadžić created a base or „formed‟ virtual

machine on a single personal computer (PC) and copied it to all of the other computers in the

classroom. Dobrilović and Odadžić state that “it was obligatory to install and start-up all virtual

machines on every single PC in the real computer laboratory” (p. 128). Dobrilović and Odadžić

did not say whether or not they had problems with virtual machines being deleted from computer

PCs. However, the author of this paper believes Dobrilović and Odadžić faced the same risk.

The Virtual Computing Lab at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) was a campus-

wide initiative designed to provide a hosted, virtual server environment to all groups within the

university (Seay & Tucker, 2010). Any department at NCCU could ask the virtual computing

lab to host their applications. In early 2006, the program was piloted with the hosting of the Web

MO molecular analysis program of the chemistry department (Seay & Tucker). Commenting on

the NCCU virtual computing lab initiative, Young (2008) noted that “students spend more time

using specialized applications than they used to” (p. 1).

After the initial deployment at NCCU, applications from the School of Business and the

School of Library and Information Sciences were hosted by the virtual computing lab (Seay &

Tucker, 2010). The entire university was given access to the services of the virtual computing

lab in the summer of 2006 (Seay & Tucker). The virtual computing lab environment has proven

to be reliable and performance is positive (Seay & Tucker).

31

Legal Issues

The legal issues relevant to the problems and solutions of the use of virtual machines in

SE12-306 at BCIT pertain to the software licensing of operating systems and applications

installed in a virtual machine. Instructors at BCIT, who deploy virtual machines in SE12-306,

are using two different server virtualization software products: VMware Workstation and

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. BCIT licenses VMware Workstation and Microsoft Virtual

Server is a free, stand-alone product that can be downloaded from the Internet. The choice of the

operating system used to build a virtual machine and the applications installed in the operating

system determines the licensing requirements.

Microsoft operating systems, such as Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows Server

2008, require licenses. Each instance of one of these operating systems requires a license. For

example, the author has built one virtual machine that contains three instances of Windows

Server 2008 and two instances of Windows 7. All five instances within the single virtual

machine require a license.

The SE12-306 laboratory has 24 workstations. When the author teaches a course in

Enterprise System Administration, there are two laboratory sections of the course. Therefore,

two sets of the Windows-based virtual machines are deployed to each workstation. This

translates into a total of 240, Microsoft operating systems licenses.

BCIT has a volume licensing agreement with Microsoft. This agreement is referred to as

the Microsoft Developers Network Academic Alliance (MSDNAA). BCIT uses a Key

Management Service server to generate a product activation key for each of the 240 instances of

the Microsoft operating systems in the SE12-306 lab.

32

The author and other instructors using the SE12-306 laboratory also build virtual

machines using different distributions of the Linux operating system. Instructors choose

distributions of the Linux operating system that are free and open source. Only applications,

such as the Oracle Database 11g, installed in the Linux operating system, require licensing

agreements with the manufacturer. (An Oracle license for Linux is less expensive than a license

for Windows XP or Windows 7.)

Application and operating system licensing also applies to virtual machines deployed in

an enterprise-level, virtual server environment (Microsoft Corporation, 2008, 2009a, 2009b,

2010). McAuley (2005), when discussing the Xen virtual server, noted that the use of proprietary

operating systems within virtual machines raised licensing issues. Toppin (2008) discussed the

debate between VMware, Inc. and Microsoft regarding the licensing of Windows operating

systems used with VMware servers. Shankland (2007) noted that Windows server licenses can

only be moved from one machine to another every 90 days. This creates licensing complexities

when virtual machines may move from one server to another on a daily basis. In addition,

Microsoft placed restrictions on which operating systems can be virtualized, particularly with the

Vista operating system (Chu, 2006).

The virtual computing lab at North Carolina State University (NCSU) was a campus-

wide initiative designed to provide a hosted, virtual server environment to all groups within the

university (Seay & Tucker, 2010). Even though the university had a licensing agreement to use

the Red Hat Enterprise license distribution of Linux, the people at the virtual computing lab

“could not get clarity as to how [they] might properly use the license for [their] installation” (p.

79). Instead, they chose a free version of Linux, SuSE 10.1, distributed by Novell. Regarding

33

the installation and use of other applications, Seay and Tucker did not find licensing to be a

major hurdle.

Burd et al. (2009) also implemented a virtual computing laboratory at the University of

New Mexico. The design of this laboratory was similar to that of the virtual computing lab at

NCCU (Seay & Tucker, 2010). Burd et al. noted that “the school had current site licenses for all

required software” (p. IIP-60). They also found that with some applications removing them from

workstations in a physical laboratory and moving them to a virtual laboratory reduced licensing

costs.

Dobrilović and Odadžić (2006) used virtual machines for teaching a computer networks

course. The design of Dobrilović‟s and Odadžić‟s laboratory was similar to the design of the

SE12-306 laboratory at BCIT. The workstations in their laboratories ran the Microsoft Windows

XP operating system. Dobrilović and Odadžić chose Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 as their virtual

server environment for licensing reasons, instead of VMware. (Dobrilović and Odadžić did not

explain the nature of the licensing issues.) They built their virtual machines using several

different Linux distributions.

The University of Cincinnati‟s academic licensing agreement with Microsoft allowed

Stockman et al. (2005) to use the Microsoft Virtual PC platform on the lab machines. The guest

operating systems used in the virtual machines was Windows Server 2003 as well as the host

operating systems. Both were permitted under their licensing agreement with Microsoft.

Like BCIT, Vollrath and Jenkins (2004) had a MSDNAA agreement for their department.

This allowed them to use Microsoft Virtual PC and multiple instances of Microsoft operating

34

systems in their virtual machines. Vollrath and Jenkins noted that departments at other colleges

and universities “may find virtualization packages expensive” (p. 292).

The use of a USB drive to host or store copies of virtual machines poses a potential

licensing issue if the virtual machines are copied from the USB drive to a computer outside the

SE12-306 laboratory. When a Microsoft operating system is licensed using a product activation

key over the Internet, unique information, such as the network interface card number of the

computer and other system information, is transmitted and registered with Microsoft. In other

words, the licensing of the operating system is specific to the computer to which the operating

system is installed. Using the virtual machine containing the Microsoft operating system on a

different computer violates Microsoft licensing agreements (Microsoft Corporation, 2008, 2009a,

2009b, 2010). Because the activation is unique to the SE12-306 workstation‟s system

information, it is possible the operating systems within the virtual machine may not operate

properly if transferred to a different computer. This is an area of research the author intends to

investigate.

Ethical Issues

Students are not required to purchase USB drives for courses they take at BCIT. As more

instructors use virtual machines as part of their instructional delivery, the instructors are asking

students to purchase USB drives. Instructors do this because they realize that virtual machines

do get deleted from the hard drive partition on the workstations in the lab. They also realize that

the hard drive partitions have limited capacity for virtual machines to increase in size over the

course of a term.

35

Requiring the purchasing of a USB drive is not mentioned in course outlines as a required

item for the courses taught at BCIT. Students are not given USB drives as part of their

enrollment or course fees at BCIT. Is it fair to ask students to purchase USB drives when the

problems related to virtual machines in the SE12-306 laboratory could be solved by installing

larger hard drives in the laboratory workstations or hosting virtual machines in an enterprise-

level, virtual server environment? Stockman et al. (2005) have already noted that this might

violate computing policies at some institutions.

Social Concerns

The problems with the virtual machines in the SE12-306 lab are an important social

concern because of student behavior. Virtual machines are stored on a hard drive partition that is

accessible by any student who has access to the lab. This includes both day-time and night-time

students. The hard drive partition has read, write and execute privileges to allow virtual

machines to grow in size for database courses and to allow temporary storage for student files.

Students are not assigned their own workstation in the lab. They are free to use any

workstation during both their scheduled lab period and open lab hours. Therefore, they can

access the hard drive partition on any workstation in the lab.

Students‟ use of the labs is based on BCIT‟s Information Management policies and

mutual respect. Mutual respect means the students are not supposed to delete the virtual

machines on the workstations nor change the passwords on the virtual machines. Sometimes

students change the passwords on a virtual machine to prevent other students from using the

virtual machine on a particular workstation, forcing the other students to use a different

workstations.

36

Deleting virtual machines or changing their passwords on virtual machines has a direct

impact on an instructor‟s time. Usually a virtual machine deletion or password change is not

discovered until a class begins. This can cause a delay in starting the class if the instructor must

reinstall a new virtual machine.

For the courses taught in SE12-306 that use virtual machines, the work performed on a

virtual machine over the time span of the term is progressive. If a virtual machine must be

reinstalled on a workstation, then the student is put in a position of having to redo all prior work

to date. In most cases, this is not practical and the affected student ends up having to work with

another student, as a team, on another workstation.

The problems with the virtual machines also impact the personal interactions of the

different instructors using the lab. Some instructors teach database courses. The size of the

virtual machines for those courses increases as data is added, backups are performed, et cetera.

It is possible that the size of those virtual machines increases to the point where there is no

available space on the hard drive partition of the workstations. A decision has to be made to

delete virtual machines for instructors who are not teaching database courses. This is not a

practical solution.

Theoretical Interests

These problems have theoretical interests because of the increasing use of virtualization

technologies used to teach computing courses in colleges and universities. Virtualization has

allowed colleges, like BCIT, to optimize the use of their labs. For example, the author has been

able to teach operating system courses in Linux, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows

Server 2008 using virtual machines on a single workstation running Windows XP and Windows

37

7. This was reduced hardware costs by not requiring the purchase of separate workstations in

order to teach different operating systems.

An enterprise-level, virtual server environment can be implemented for hosting the

virtual machines currently installed on the individual workstations in a lab. Instead of installing

virtual machines on every workstation in a lab, multiple instances of the virtual machine reside

on a SAN associated with a virtual server environment. Students have network access to the

virtual machines for their classes and a virtual server management system instantiates an instance

of a virtual machine when a student needs to use it. This model could potentially eliminate the

need for physical labs, like SE12-306.

Potential Solutions

There are three possible solutions to the problems instructors and students are having in

SE12-306 with virtual machines exceeding the capacity of the workstation hard drives, virtual

machines being deleted, and the desire for remote access to lab virtual machines. One solution is

for students to purchase USB drives. The USB drive would be the primary storage unit for the

student‟s virtual machines instead of the hard drive partition on the lab‟s workstation. The

students could copy the virtual machines they are using for the courses from the lab workstation

to their own USB drive the first day of class. For all subsequent classes, the student would use

the virtual machines stored on their USB drive instead of the virtual machines stored on the lab

workstation.

A second solution is to purchase and install larger hard drives on the workstations in

SE12-306. This solution would allow instructors to use more virtual machines for their lab

38

courses. It would also prevent instructors from having to compete for limited disk space on the

hard drive partition.

A third solution would be to host the virtual machines on an enterprise-level, virtual

server environment. Virtual machines would not be installed and stored on the hard drives of the

workstations in the lab. Instead, virtual machines would be stored on the SAN associated with

the virtual server environment. Students could access the virtual machines both from the lab

workstations and remotely.

Prediction of Potential Solutions

The preliminary analysis of the solutions to the problems of virtual machines in the

SE12-306 computing laboratory at BCIT suggests that the enterprise-level, virtual server

environment meets all three solution criteria. Bullers et al. (2006), Vollrath and Jenkins (2004),

and Stockman et al. (2005) experienced similar problems to the author with virtual machines

running on single workstations in a lab. Border (2007), Burd et al. (2009), Li (2009) and Rigby

and Dark (2006) have presented evidence that colleges and universities are creating enterprise-

level, virtual server environment to host virtual machines.

Strategic Plan

The strategic plan contains recommendations and cost estimates for the three proposed

solutions to the problems with the virtual machines in SE12-306. Cost estimates are separated

into product costs and implementation costs. A leadership, management, and implementation

plan follows the strategic plan.

39

Recommendations

There are three solutions to the problems related to virtual machines in the SE12-306 lab

at BCIT: (a) students purchase USB drives, (b) install larger hard drives in the laboratory

workstations, and (c) host virtual machines in an enterprise-level, virtual server environment.

These are the recommendations for each solution and the implications of each recommendation:

USB drive. The author recommends that each student purchase a 250 gigabyte (GB)

portable, external hard drive with a USB cable. The risk of a virtual machine being deleted or a

password being changed on a virtual machine on a workstation in the SE12-30 lab is significant.

Either event requires the virtual machine to be re-installed. This has a serious impact on a

student‟s progress in courses they are taking that use virtual machines.

This solution does have financial implications for the students. The author has discussed

the ethical issues related to students being asked to purchase the external drives. There are no

policies at BCIT that prevent instructors from asking students to purchase the drives. This

solution does not have any marketing, accounting, management, leadership, legal or global

dimension issues associated with it.

Hard drive. The author does not recommend upgrading the hard drives of the existing

workstations in the SE12-306 lab at this time. Instead, the author recommends that 500GB or one

terabyte (TB) hard drives be provisioned for the new workstations that are scheduled to be

purchased for the lab in the summer of 2011. (BCIT replaces workstations on a four-year cycle

through a vendor bidding process.) This solution is designed to accommodate the increased use

of virtual machines by instructors using the SE12-306 lab. It is also designed to eliminate

mandatory deletion of virtual machines for one instructor‟s class when the size of another

40

instructor‟s virtual machines begins to exceed the available disk space on the hard drive

partition. The author recommends the installation of larger hard drives because the approval and

installation of a hosted, virtual server environment would take a minimum of two years.

There are financial and accounting issues related to the provisioning and purchase of the

new workstations with the larger hard drives. These issues are not outside the normal cost of

doing business. There are the usual and customary management issues related to employees

installing new workstations in the SE12-306 lab. This solution does not have any the marketing,

leadership, legal, ethical, policy or global dimension issues associated with it.

Virtual server environment. The author recommends that a proof-of-concept project be

initiated to determine the feasibility of using BCIT‟s existing Citrix-based, virtual server

environment to host the virtual machines used in the author‟s Windows Server system

administration course. This project would involve dedicated access to one blade server in the

existing blade server environment. The author would be responsible for conducting the proof-of-

concept through a cooperative relationship with the ITS department‟s Citrix project manager.

This solution does have management issues related to the allocation and coordination of

physical and personnel resources to the proof-of-concept project. The author would establish an

agreement with BCIT‟s Manager, Business Application Services and Enterprise Architecture, to

provide technical assistance from the Citrix project manager and physical resources from the

existing, Citrix-based virtual server environment. Financial, accounting, and management issues

could divert the resources away from this project to other IT initiatives within BCIT. The author

does not perceive of any marketing, leadership, legal, ethical, global dimension or polices issues

affecting this project.

41

Enck (2008) says that server virtualization is an important trend that will continue until

the year 2012. Enck suggests six best practices for implementing server virtualization. The best

practices include selecting the right applications, defining a storage strategy, calculating the

return on investment, starting small, understanding software issues, and performance planning.

Pressures to Reduce Costs

There are a variety of costs associated with building and maintaining physical computer

labs. Wilson (2002) developed a budgeting worksheet for tracking both the short-term and long-

term costs of establishing and maintaining a computer lab at the Oklahoma State University.

Wilson allocated short-term (one year) and long-term expenses to “salaries, equipment,

furnishings, consumables, supplies, and utilities” (Wilson, p. 298). Wilson considered training

costs to be short-term. Equipment rollover was a long-term. (At BCIT computer workstations

are rollover every four years.) Labor was categorized as either internal support or external labor.

Internal support included logistical support, system support, and user support. External labor

costs were attributed to be services provided by the school‟s ITS group, such as maintenance of

the local area network.

Ma and Nickerson (2006) conducted a comparative literature review of hands-on,

simulated, and remote laboratories used in engineering, education, the natural sciences,

psychology, information systems, and computer science classes at institutions of higher learning.

They observed that the use of virtual laboratories is increasing because of advances in

technology and pressure on universities to reduce costs (Ma & Nickerson). The pressure to

reduce costs is impacting the operation of traditional laboratories that use expensive apparatus:

hands-on labs are proving too costly (Ma & Nickerson).

42

Albee et al. (2007) at Central Michigan University created a student-managed networking

lab, which adopted VMware Player to run their virtual machine images. During a period of tight

budgets, financial resources for both staffing the lab and the physical equipment were limited

(Albee, et al.) They could not afford to pay for permanent lab staff, so they switched to using

students from the work-study program (Albee, et al.)

BCIT currently has one, permanent ITS staff member responsible for maintaining the

department‟s 12 computing labs. BCIT employees 14 student lab proctors, two hours per week

each, for general maintenance of the computers in those labs. The problem with using students,

of course, is that they graduate, resulting in a high turnover rate and the need to train

replacements (Albee, et al., 2007).

At the University of West Florida (White, 2008), reductions in state university budgets

placed pressures on the operation of physical computer labs. The only computing facility on

campus that was open 24x7 had its operating hours cut in half (White). Open access to the lab

on weekends and at night was canceled (White).

There are costs associated with creating and maintaining both computer labs and an

enterprise-level, virtual server environment. Computer hardware costs have declined between

2000 and 2010 for both producers and consumers according to the U.S. Department of Labor‟s

Bureau of Labor Statistics2. It may be more cost efficient to maintain individual computer labs

than implement an enterprise-level, virtual server environment.

2
See http://www.bls.gov/data/

43

Cost Estimate for Solutions

Cost estimates for each of the three solutions follow. The estimates include hardware,

software, or both. The prices exclude installation costs and taxes.

Existing workstation configuration. There are 25 workstations in the SE12-306 lab.

Twenty-three workstations are configured for student use, one workstation is configured for use

by the instructor, and one workstation is used by the lab technician for system and network

maintenance and monitoring. The ITS department at BCIT is responsible for purchasing

computer equipment for the computing labs.

Each workstation has an Intel Core2 2.13GHz processor, four GB of random access

memory, and a 250GB drive. The workstations were purchased in 2007 at a cost of $730 CDN

per workstation. The workstations are running Microsoft‟s 64-bit version of the Windows 7

operating system. In addition, all workstations are loaded with Microsoft Office 2010, plus other

applications requested by instructors who teach courses in SE12-306. These applications include

VMware Workstation and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, which are used for hosting virtual

machines. Microsoft licenses are purchased through a Campus Agreement with Microsoft.

Other software licenses are purchased appropriately.

The space on the hard drive is divided into one 78GB partition for the operating system

and applications, and one 135GB partition for storage of course files, including virtual machines.

The operating system partition is protected to prevent student access. The file partition is

accessible to anyone who can log onto a workstation in the SE12-306 lab.

Workstations are standardized across the BCIT campus. (There are approximately 1,800

workstations on the BCIT campus.) Workstations are replaced on a four-year cycle through a

44

vendor bidding process. The vendors that are asked to bid include IBM, Dell, HP, et cetera. The

current vendor is Dell. The workstations in SE12-306 are scheduled for replacement in the

summer of 2011.

Bullers et al. (2006) offers comparative costs from the University of New Mexico.

Bullers et al. ran three advanced computing courses in a physical lab consisting of 17

workstations. Each workstation was configured with a 3 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 2GB RAM,

and 40GB hard drive costing $1,850 USD each. The workstations were networked together with

a 24 port Ethernet hub costing $2,500. Each workstation‟s host operating system was Microsoft

Windows XP and VMware Workstation licensed at a cost of $110. A backup server cost $2,500.

The total for the lab was $36,000 or approximately $2,117 per workstation in 2006.

USB drive. The size of the virtual machines used by BCIT students in the SE12-306 lab

vary from 25GB to 80GB. On average, students are taking two courses, which utilize virtual

machines, each term in SE12-306. The author recommends that the USB drives should be at

least 100GB in size to hold the virtual machines for a student in a typical school term.

USB flash drives range in size from 2GB to 32GB and range in price from $12.95 CDN

to $79.99, respectively.3 Since the largest flash drive does not meet the minimum recommended

size to store the virtual machines, the author researched portable, external hard drives with USB

connections from the same sources. The sizes and prices of portable, external hard drives showed

considerable range. For example, a 200GB drive and a 400GB drive were each priced at $59.99.

3
Prices obtained on September 6, 2010 from the following websites: http://www.bestbuy.ca,
http://www.futureshop.ca, and http://www.londondrugs.ca

45

A 250GB was available for $54.99. The author could not find drives larger than 250GB that

were less expensive.

Hard drive. The ITS department at BCIT is responsible for pricing and purchasing

computer equipment for the SE12-306 lab. The author requested a price estimate in September,

2010, for both a 500GB and a one terabyte (TB) hard drive. The ITS department quoted the

prices from two manufacturers. The prices for the 500GB hard drives ranged from $44.94 CDN

to $88.81, depending upon the size of the cache. Prices for one terabyte drives from the two

manufacturers ranged from $68.36 to $96.05 in price.

Virtual server environment. The ITS department at BCIT has a Citrix-based, virtual

server environment that is designed to provide support for applications used by different

departments within the school. The current environment hosts approximately 70 applications.

For example, the School of Business is hosting Microsoft Office applications, such as Microsoft

Excel, for students taking business courses. The environment is currently not hosting virtual

machines for students taking courses in the SE12-306 lab.

The virtual server environment was originally built in 2007 for a cost of approximately

$850,000 CDN, including hardware costs, software licensing, and consulting fees. The

hardware consisted of three blade chassis with each chassis housing 14 blade servers. In 2010,

one of the blade chassis and its servers was repurposed and it is no longer part of the virtual

server environment. The total cost of the remaining two blade chassis environments is

approximately $600,000.

The current virtual server environment consists of two, IBM BladeCenter chassis each

housing 14 IBM blade servers. Each blade server consists of a dual, quad-core processor with

46

48GB of memory. Ten blades on one chassis are dedicated to hosting the Citrix-based, virtual

applications. The other four blades are used to host a budgeting software system.

Nine blades on the other chassis are dedicated to Citrix-based applications. Five of these

blades are not part of the Citrix environment. Four blades support a Microsoft Active Directory

environment and one blade is used as a testing environment for the ITS department. This means

that 19 blade servers, between the two chassis, are configured for the Citrix-based, application

hosting environment.

The cost, in 2009, to BCIT for a single IBM BladeCenter H chassis was $36,278 CDN.

The cost for 14, eight-core server blades with 48GB of memory was $119,462. This equates to

$8,533 per blade. The costs for the chassis and blades included fiber optic channeling and

connectivity to the storage area network (SAN). BCIT had sufficient rack space to house the

chassis.

One blade in each chassis is dedicated to running Citrix Provisioning Services.

Provisioning Services are installed in a Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 hypervisor. Provisioning

Services provides for the dynamic delivery of Citrix XenApp environments to client computers.

The Provisions Services on each blade communicate with one another to manage virtual and

physical server workloads across the remaining 17 blade servers. There is no cost associated with

Provisioning Services.

Each of the 17 blade servers runs Citrix XenServer virtualization software using the Xen

hypervisor. Most of the virtual machines that have been created to run on a XenServer are built

using Windows Server 2008 as the operating system. Applications are installed in the Windows

Server along with Citrix XenApp. Each of the 17 hosting blades is capable of running twelve,

47

Windows Server 2008 virtual machines or between 24 to 40 Windows XP virtual machines

simultaneously. XenServer is a free application from Citrix, but XenApp is licensed.

BCIT has a Campus Agreement with Microsoft. Under the 2008-2009 licensing

agreement, a single Windows Server (Enterprise) license running in a Citrix environment costs

$186 CDN. The license allows four virtual machines running a physical box to share one

license. The license agreement includes licensing for the Vista (Enterprise) operating system on

client workstations. It does not include licensing for Windows XP. Vista licenses are $21 each.

The cost for Microsoft Office (Enterprise) per workstation is $28. The licensing for Vista and

Office is based on a total of 1,800 workstations on campus.

Citrix XenApp is a virtual application delivery system that virtualizes applications.

XenApp is a management layer on a blade server that bundles a virtualized application and

delivers it to the XenServer environment. XenApp provides terminal services between clients

and services using Citrix‟s Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol. XenApp is

activated when a user requests a virtualized application.

XenApp is licensed from Citrix. The price for 200 licenses was $63,168 USD and one

year of support was $6,158 in 2008. Currently, BCIT has 1,000 XenApp licenses. This equates

to approximately $70 per XenApp license.

Each blade server is connected to a SAN. The SAN is a Hitachi AMS 2500 data system

consisting of 480 disk drives. Each drive is 450GB. The SAN provides hard drive space for

each virtual machine used by the blade servers. The author was unable to obtain a price for the

48

Hitachi data system at the time this paper was written. However, the price for a 450GB drive is

approximately $310 UDS.4

All of the XenServers and virtual machines are managed using a Windows client

application called Citrix XenCenter. XenCenter is installed on a remote, Windows host that has

connectivity to a XenServer blade. XenCenter also provides performance statistics related to

virtual machine management.

Remote access to the virtual server environment is managed using Citrix NetScaler.

NetScaler provides web application delivery and load balancing services for external access to

the virtual server environment. NetScaler is also used to provide business continuity between the

Burnaby campus of BCIT and the downtown Vancouver campus. There are two NetScalers

installed on the Burnaby campus and one at the downtown campus. Each NetScaler costs

approximately $1,500 CDN, including hardware, licensing, and support.

A workstation that requests access to the hosted, virtualized application must have Citrix

XenClient installed. XenClient provides a local virtual desktop environment in which the

virtualized application runs. The XenClient is a client hypervisor and communicates with

XenServer using the ICA protocol. XenClient is currently free of charge.

The original three chassis, 42 blades, Citrix-based, virtual server environment took ITS

department staff and consultants approximately two and one-half years to build. This included

installation of all hardware and software, networking, testing, et cetera. The ITS manager

4
Price retrieved September 15, 2010 from http://www.scsi4me.com/hitachi-ultrastar-15k450-hus154545vls300-
450gb-15k-rpm-sas-hard-drive.html

49

responsible for the Citrix installation believes the current configuration could be built in three

months if it were to be built in 2010 by the same employees.

In order for BCIT‟s virtual server environment to host virtual machines for the SE12-306,

Citrix Lab Manager would need to be installed on one of the XenServers (Citrix Systems, Inc.,

2010). Lab Manager is a Web-based application that automates virtual lab setup. Lab Manager

is used manage virtual machine configurations, operating systems disk images, and related

software packages. Lab Manager is also available free of charge.

The author teaches a class in Windows Server 2008 systems administration. The author

builds a single virtual machine containing three instances of Windows Server 2008 and two

instances of Windows 7. Each student gets their own virtual machine to use for the duration of

the course. The size of the single virtual machine containing the five instances of Windows

operating systems is approximately 30GB.

There are two sections of 23 students each taking the author‟s course in the SE12-306

lab. This means there are a total of 72 instances of Windows Server 2008 and 48 instances of

Windows 7 installed for each set. Two sets of the virtual machines are installed on each of the

24 workstations in the lab. (One workstation is for the instructor.) The total disk space required

for two sets of virtual machines on each workstation is approximately 60GB.

A single blade server in the hosted virtual server environment can run approximately 12

Windows Server virtual machines or between 24 to 40 Windows XP virtual machines

simultaneously. Using these estimates, it would require approximately eight blade servers to

host 72 instances of Windows Server and 48 instances of Windows 7, running simultaneously, to

operate the lab for the author‟s Windows Server administration course.

50

The disk space occupied by two sets of virtual machines is approximately 60GB. The

SAN would require approximately 1.5TB of disk space to hold the virtual machines for 24

workstations. Each disk on the current SAN is 450GB in size. This equates to four drives to hold

the virtual machines for the Windows Server administration course.

The minimum configuration for supporting the virtual machines required for the author‟s

course would be one blade chassis containing eight blades. The cost for this implementation,

including hardware and software licensing, is estimated at $119,143 CDN as shown in Table 2.

These costs assume that the blade chassis can be installed in an existing rack system and the

Hitachi data system can accommodate the four hard drives.

Table 2
Costs for a virtual server environment hosting SE12-306 virtual machines (in Canadian dollars)

Description Cost ($)

Blade chassis 36,278
Eight blade servers (8 @ $8,585) 68,683
XenApp licenses (120 @ $70 USD) 8,400
Hard drives (4 @ $310 USD) 1,240
Windows Server 2008 licensing (19 @ $186) 3,534
Windows Vista licensing (48 @ $21) 1,008
Total Cost 119,143
Note. U.S. dollars are converted to Canadian dollars at par.

A virtual lab strategic plan

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