Harnessing the New Era of Agile Working and Flexible Learning in Higher Education with VDI, Cloud Workspaces and IGEL

Thinking back to my college days, I enjoyed the air of expectation, and over time the warm familiarity the university campus provided. Back then, the possibilities of mobile technology were only being realized with the Nokia 3210 mobile phone.

Fast forward 20 years, higher education IT and innovation have rapidly evolved. Today students are ultra-connected with access to Google and Moodle, social media, and countless apps touting the next best solution to provide the most effective learning and working environment.

Harnessing virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), desktop as a service (DaaS), and cloud services technology equips the educational institution with an effective environment, enabling productivity and cultivating learning now and into the future. End user computing innovation and the benefits it offers have been on the agenda for higher education IT and security teams for many years, albeit oftentimes hindered by budget constraints and limited resources.

In an attempt to optimize IT resources, many higher education IT teams have embraced Remote Desktop Services (RDS), VDI, DAAS, and cloud services. But the benefits of desktop virtualization and cloud workspace technologies can only be fully realized by IT teams that truly achieve simplicity and security at the endpoint.

This year Saskatchewan Polytechnic in Canada lowered costs and complexity of end user computing by optimizing their Citrix workspace along with IGEL OS.  By converting existing hardware to IGEL OS-powered endpoints managed by the IGEL Universal Management Suite (UMS), they streamlined delivery of desktops for over 16,000 students.  Avoiding the expense of annual hardware refreshes and the complexity of patching and updating various operating systems and apps saves OPEX and CAPEX, freeing up budget and resources for strategic and future projects.

The Covid-19 pandemic brought rapid change with a seismic shift in priorities. Deployment of technology to equip and enable educational institutions to provide and manage remote learning facilities became a necessity. In this new virtual and digital environment, how a university operates is now very different. The lecturer became the learner as they upskilled with new technologies to work and instruct from home. This will continue into the future as students and staff come to expect flexible remote learning options in parallel with more traditional on-campus learning.

The universities and centers of research and education that thrive will be those that can transform faster. With IGEL, higher education IT teams do not have to start from scratch. IGEL helps the educational institution optimize their resources by extending the life of existing hardware and enabling a secure BYOD strategy with IGEL UD Pocket. With 100+ integrated technology partners, IGEL’s operating system streamlines many known complexities and challenges while saving IT budget.  Learn more in this infographic: Improve Security, Optimize IT Budget, and Enable Remote Learning with IGEL.  

Or listen to interviews with higher education IT Admins who already transformed their end user computing environment with IGEL.

Image licensed from Adobe Stock.