Award-winning project team launches refreshed Virtual Desktops

Background: A collaborative effort

Virtual Desktops (VDI) have been successfully running at Unitec for five years. They have made our computer labs widely available to learners across both campuses and offer better flexibility and utilisation of computing labs for timetabling classes.

Last year, led by Te Noho Kotahitanga, a cross functional project team reviewed the VDI and worked on a solution for an updated virtual environment. A pilot was set up for Semester 2 2021 and very few issues were reported, which was an excellent result considering the number of students using the virtual environment over the extended lockdown. The project team won the ‘Innovation and Enterprise’ award at the 2021 Unitec Excellence Awards for their great work.

The lessons learned led to an approved business case to make the new virtual desktop environment available in all dedicated labs from semester 2 2022 with approximately 50% reduction in operational cost due to scalability and flexible scheduling features.

The refreshed Virtual Desktops platform, known as ‘Unitec Virtual Desktop’ (UVD) were launched at the start of Semester 2 and will provide more features to learners.

Congratulations to everyone involved including the IT, Timetabling, TKK and TPA teams and lecturers from our Schools of Building Construction and Services, Civil and Surveying, Electrical and Applied Technology and Environmental and Animal Science.

Instruction cards will be available in computer labs to assist learners with the new UVD experience

How will the experience differ?

• We expect that most people will adjust easily to the upgrade.
• Learners will log on to a Windows 10 environment, where they can browse the internet (with Edge), access their Office365 account or print a document.
• If access is needed to a special learning application, the learner can connect to the Unitec Virtual Desktop environment (UVD). From there, the user experience is similar to the previous experience.
• Instruction cards will be available in computer labs on how to use the new environment. Anyone who has used VDI before will easily adjust to the new UVD solution and the additional features.

What are the benefits?

• The previous hardware that enabled the Virtual Desktop needed to be upgraded, presenting an opportunity to rebuild the platform using Microsoft Azure cloud technology. This gives us greater flexibility to scale the service up or down depending on demand.
• The new UVD environment will be completely operated by Unitec staff.
• Students should always have access to an UVD desktop during campus hours. This was limited with the previous solution.

Timing and access

The Virtual Desktops were upgraded during the semester break.

UVD is now available on campus during building access hours in the specialised computer labs and the commons spaces listed below:

108-2002, 108-2006, 112-1101, 112-3001A, 112-3001B, 114-2009, 115-2020, 170-1053, 170-1058, 170-B004, 170-B006, 180-2048, 183-1001, 183-1003, 183-1004, 183-2104, 307-2023, 307-2028A, 307-2028B, 307-2028C, 510-3035 plus the commons spaces in 180 and 520.

Access hours are Monday to Thursday, 7am to 9pm, and Friday to Sunday, 7am to 6pm.

Remote access will not be available

With the return to on campus teaching, remote access to UVD will not be provided initially, other than for business continuity reasons if the campus is closed. Special requests for remote teaching can be raised via the IT Service Desk for evaluation by Te Puna Ako and IT.

Questions and support

We will let learners know about the upgrade at the start of Semester 2, and the instruction cards in computer labs will help them navigate the new experience.

If anyone has questions about the UVD, please contact the IT Help Desk on 8484 or 0800 ASK IT (0800 275 467) or place an IT Self Service request.