Remote Access for Students

[R_1]

Hi

We currently have a Citrix setup with 200 licences for staff to log in remotely to the desktop from home or use apps on laptops in school. This works really well and we can install software on the servers to run in desktop mode or as an app. We are using 4 VMWare virtual servers to run the Citrix servers.

 

However, it has been suggested that students should be able to use this to be able to complete their work. They can currently access all of their coursework through our VLE and we have suggested using Open Office at home. The students cannot access Adobe CS6 through the VLE and some students use this for Photography or DT.

 

My question is:

 

If we were to purchase more remote access, would you suggest

 

- purchasing more citrix licences and another blade server to deal with it?

- purchasing a separate microsoft terminal services system

- allowing students to use the current system

 

I have to consider ease of use, set up costs, hardware costs and yearly costs.

 

Please could you let me know if you have any remote access solutions in place for students, how much they cost initially and annually and if they are worth the money.

 

Thanks in advance for any answers.

[Max_Power]

When I last looked into remote access for students, things like MS office were not covered within the schools or EES agreement for their use externally by students - if that is still the case I am unsure.

 

We currently enable student to access their document through HAP+ and advise them to purchase student versions of office, or even free software similar to yourself.

 

Do you have a Microsoft agreement in place, student advantage is due for release in December which will enable students to have a licensed copy of office at home depending on your agreement and if you have one, this coupled with something like HAP+ would provide a good potentially free solution as opposed to a paid for remote access solution.

 

As for photoshop, from our own experience it doesn't perform very well in a citrix environment / remote access type environment. Managed to get around 3 connections working but then the 4th made everything kind of grind to a halt.

[R_1]

Thanks for the answer.

We have just tried Photoshop with 4 connections and the cpu use is between 90 and 100. We are doing a few filters and a smudge but its too much. If this had 10 students logged in, it would be unusable.