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Virtual Lab Enters Final Phase of Beta Deployment

ITS's Instructional Computing group (IC) is pleased to announce the final phase of the beta deployment of the Virtual Lab for Spring Quarter 2007.

The Virtual Lab is a beta service that allows UCSC students and faculty to access Instructional Computing's Windows lab environment from nearly any computer that has a network connection. Through this beta service, access to instructional resources traditionally only available in IC or departmental computing labs—such as software and your UCSC home directory—can now be accessed from the convenience of your own computer. The Windows Virtual Lab can be accessed from any Mac, Windows, or Unix computer in the residential dorms, on the Cruznet wireless network, from home over DSL/dialup, from any café that has internet access, etc. The ability for students to do their lab-based work from home has generated a great deal of positive feedback.

For Spring Quarter 2007, we are broadly announcing the Virtual Lab in order to understand what the demand is and could be for this service. Using this information, we will determine whether or not we can allocate resources to bring the Virtual Lab into full production as an official service. The difference between a beta and an official production service is a commitment to provide the service in an ongoing basis and the ability to have the people-power and other resources to effectively and properly support the service. Currently, we are supporting this service on a "volunteer" basis and can not promise that we can resolve every issue in a timely manner or at all.

The technology behind the Virtual Lab is something IC has been testing for a couple years now. Though we are still actively collecting feedback about the beta service—what works, what doesn't, feature requests, etc.—IC is confident the current service is generally stable and secure. In addition, beginning Spring Quarter 2007, we will have additional hardware capacity to efficiently handle many more concurrent users than in previous testing phases.

Please go to http://ic.ucsc.edu/vlab to find out:

  1. how to connect to the Virtual Lab,
  2. what software is available, and
  3. usage policies.

Please take the Virtual Lab out for a "test drive" and announce its availability to your colleagues, TAs and students. Make sure to mention that this is a beta service and we want feedback, both positive and ideas about constructive changes. Please send email to ic@ucsc.edu with comments. Your feedback may be the difference between the Virtual Lab continuing or going offline.

Additionally, if you have any questions, feel free to send us an email.