The University of New Hampshire Enhances the Student Experience with Software On-Demand

Founded in 1866, the University of New Hampshire is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and spacegrant university, UNH is the state’s flagship public institution, enrolling 13,000 undergraduate and 2,500 graduate students. Using technology from Numecent’s Cloudpaging technology and AppsAnywhere, UNH enhances student access to software applications such as IBM’s SPSS.

Background

UNH spans all fields of study and unites them through interdisciplinary programs, labs, research centers, libraries, internships, and fieldwork. Warmly supported and encouraged by their faculty mentors, students participate directly in assisting in the university’s historic mission of enriching society through the creation and application of new knowledge.

The university attracts students and faculty from around the world. As state of the art facilities are built to support academic growth, and new residence and dining halls are built to meet the growing popularity of campus life, the university continues to rest lightly on old Ben Thompson’s farm, where students, faculty, and staff live and work amid the rolling hills and riverbeds of one of the most beautiful campuses in the USA.

Virtualizing Applications in Academic Computing

Academic Computing Systems provides computing and networking expertise and support to various academic projects and initiatives. One of the main areas of responsibility is administration and maintenance of the public student computing clusters, along with the computer systems in the SuperTEC classrooms and Teach/Learn Center classrooms.

Academic Computing Systems provides the infrastructure necessary for effective use of information technology in the teaching environment. That group maintains nearly 800 OS X, Windows, and Linux public or classroom computers, including all of the Student Computing Cluster facilities and operations.

The ACS group provides web hosting, application hosting and delivery, server administration, desktop administration, and technical consulting and expertise to a range of academic technology projects.

Why Cloudpaging?

Cloudpaging, a Numecent technology, is an evolution of existing technologies that were at the forefront of application virtualization and streaming, revolving around a patented broad set of new and disruptive technologies to transform native software delivery, deployment and provisioning from the cloud.

Choosing the AppsAnywhere solution

AppsAnywhere enables secure, easy and instant access to apps. Once virtualized through Cloudpaging, a Numecent technology, applications perform exactly as if they were installed natively.

Using AppsAnywhere, the University of New Hampshire aims to:

1. Enhance the student experience by providing key apps on demand.
2. Simplify the process of providing the latest software updates for users.
3. Optimize IT resources by improving asset and image management
4. Streamline the deployment of essential apps such as SPSS.

David Blezard, who has managed the Academic Computing Systems at the University of New Hampshire since 1994 says “AppsAnywhere allows us to package up an entire Windows computer program such as SPSS, Photoshop, or anything else, and then deliver that application to a computer on demand. The application goes from not being on the computer to be running in seconds to a few minutes, as opposed to an installation process that would often take tens of minutes to hours.

It has provided us with more flexibility and quicker responses to requests for new software for the computers in the public labs and hands-on classrooms on campus. We have saved significant staff time compared with the previous techniques we’ve used. We want students at UNH to experience the best IT experience. A key factor of this is being able to access software, such as SPSS, quickly and easily. Students coming to university now expect the software they need to be accessed on-demand.

We’re partnering with Software2 to provide a more streamlined application deployment solution, to assist in both meeting and exceeding student expectations”.