1. How a university can leverage the
power of opensource.
By : Khawar Nehal
Applied Technology Research Center
Dubai Computer Services
7 June 2012

2. Benefits of opensource
Usually the organizations which deploy
opensource solutions have observed that it
results in a secure, robust, and high
performance platform and also help them
getting faster return of investment and cutting
the cost.

3. Benefits of using an opensource
consultant
The use of a consultant are mainly to :
1. Use the experience to implement the best return
on investment solutions first.
2. Making sure that the software and implementation
can deliver the existing and planned requirements.
3. Avoid any issues of compatibility
4. Design a secure, reliable and high performance
system.

4. Office Software
● The office software commonly used is MS
Office.
● The better choice now is LibreOffice.
● Libre office was derived from openoffice
which itself came from star office.
● There are now many productive and useful
features offered in Libre Office which are
not available in MS Office.

5. Office Software extras
● Examples include :
● More platforms. Mac, Windows, Linux, Unix
● Faster security reporting and patching
● Able to run on legacy hardware
● Faster performance and agility.
● Available for tablets (planned)
● Browser based online version (planned)

6. For commercial users
● Integration with MS SharePoint
● Cost of MS Office is AED 700 per user.

7. Virtualization
● VirtualBox allows the execution of multiple
virtual machines on one hardware.
● This allows a user to use multiple operating
systems simultaneously.
● For example you can have Linux, Windows
2008 server, XP, 7, Vista, Android, OS/X or
any other i386 compatible operating
system running simultaneously on the
same machine.

8. Virtualization
● Xen is a kernel based virtualization system
which allows communication between
different instances of executing Linux
kernels and the hardware resources can be
dynamically reassigned while the operating
system instance is running.
● The virtualization speed is more optimized
because some system calls can be
remapped.

9. Virtualization
● What this means is that with opensource
virtualization technology, you can run all
programs for any type of operating system
on a single machine simultaneously if you
want or need to.
● You do not need separate machines for two
programs. One which runs only on
Windows 7 and one which runs only on
Windows XP.

10. Remote Terminals
● Clients for The Remote Desktop Protocol
(RDP) are available to allow the display of
desktops from a windows server on a Linux
or windows machine.
● This allows the deployment of terminal
servers where all the software is running on
a central server and the terminal does not
even need a harddisk.

11. Remote Terminals
● Terminal servers allow the real control of
applications and file access control
● This because everything is running and
resides on machines managed by system
admins.
● Nothing like data or files or programs are
on the user machine because the user
machine only displays the windows and
does not have any storage device.

12. Internet Software
● Browsers like firefox, konqueror, opera, and
many others are available for Linux
platforms.
● Chatting softwares like skype, video chat
and other chatting softwares are also
available.

13. Video editing software
● Non linear video editors are available which
allow students to make professional high
definition videos without having to pay for
services of commercial video editing and
processing sites or buy professional editing
software costing thousands.

14. Image editing software
● GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program)
is available and has some capabilities like
scripting which are more advanced than
photoshop.
● Photoshop licensing costs AED 3650 per
user.

15. References
● http://www.unixmen.com/the-growth-of-libreoffice-over-microsoft-office/
● http://www.dr-chuck.com/csev-blog/2010/03/community-source-universities-building-open-source-software-book-excerpt/
● http://opensource.org/files/OSS-2010.pdf

16. For more information
Contact : Khawar Nehal
Applied Technology Research Center
Dubai -Computer-Services.com
khawar@dubai-computer-services.com
Khawar.nehal@atrc.net.pk