Next step for CSUEB virtual computing lab may be the cloud

• March 22, 2011 5:55am

The virtual computing lab (VCL) pilot project at Cal State East Bay continues to gain the attention of higher education media. In his article, "Scaling up the Virtual Computing Lab," Campus Technology reporter David Raths wrote, "Economies of scale. It's one of those phrases bandied around whenever one corporation swallows another. Yet that is exactly what several college systems hope to achieve by having their member campuses collaborate on IT projects. For The California State University, facing $500 million in budget cuts proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown, you might even call such projects economies of necessity."

The VCL project started when chief information officers of the 23 CSU campuses agreed in 2009 to pursue VCL as a way to potentially generate efficiencies for the entire system, rather than individual campuses. With consulting help from IBM, Cal State East Bay and CSU Northridge launched pilot programs in April 2010 that was modeled on open source software developed at North Carolina State University.

The successful VCL pilot at CSUEB will now expand to include CSU Chico and CSU Monterey Bay. As additional schools are brought onboard, the VCL project will work with Amazon to develop a cloud-based approach rather than adding more servers. This approach should provide additional system-wide savings. A demonstration of the cloud approach should be ready this spring.

"Schools will really want to take advantage of access to more computing power and getting the best deal for their money," said Lee Thompson, deputy CIO at Cal State East Bay and VCL project leader. "The financial crunch is only going to add to our momentum."

Read Campus Technology article.

Read previous CSUEB news blog story.

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