synaesthesia Posted January 25, 2020 Posted January 25, 2020 Our VHD sits on a NAS (SSD) so all the computers just have virtual box itself installed and the virtual machine base files & cache, means you only have to make changes once.
fiza Posted January 25, 2020 Posted January 25, 2020 Our VHD sits on a NAS (SSD) so all the computers just have virtual box itself installed and the virtual machine base files & cache, means you only have to make changes once.How do all the computers share the same VHD?
synaesthesia Posted January 25, 2020 Posted January 25, 2020 Didn't do anything out of the ordinary, it's immutable so session-time changes are stored on the local machine then wiped at shutdown. 2
mrnoisy Posted February 6, 2020 Posted February 6, 2020 A bit late to the thread, we moved away from virtual box as it was well... rubbish, it took too long to sign in machines then fire up virtual machines, and where always painful when teachers decided they wanted something adding to the image. We moved to azure labs, simple to setup, simple to upgrade our Computer science teachers think it’s awesome, we have 2 labs of 30 machines it costs us £50 / month to run, there template machines already available with visual studio pre installed. It’s been the best thing we ever did, I even handed over management to the staff so they can look after it themselves, we pay for what we use and can run it from anywhere ! 3
flyinghaggis Posted February 6, 2020 Posted February 6, 2020 We moved to azure labs May need to investigate that in future..... 1
mrbios Posted February 6, 2020 Posted February 6, 2020 A bit late to the thread, we moved away from virtual box as it was well... rubbish, it took too long to sign in machines then fire up virtual machines, and where always painful when teachers decided they wanted something adding to the image. We moved to azure labs, simple to setup, simple to upgrade our Computer science teachers think it’s awesome, we have 2 labs of 30 machines it costs us £50 / month to run, there template machines already available with visual studio pre installed. It’s been the best thing we ever did, I even handed over management to the staff so they can look after it themselves, we pay for what we use and can run it from anywhere ! Question on this...have you got any setup instructions for Azure Labs? I just chucked up a test template to take a really quick look at it...it has edge browser and can browse the internet. How do you deal with that in terms of it not being filtered within the VM? or are there settings to point that elsewhere/chop that off completely?
WhiteStar1 Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Question on this...have you got any setup instructions for Azure Labs? I just chucked up a test template to take a really quick look at it...it has edge browser and can browse the internet. How do you deal with that in terms of it not being filtered within the VM? or are there settings to point that elsewhere/chop that off completely? I am curious too. It's important for us that there is no external network activity.
Ditto Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 A bit late to the thread, we moved away from virtual box as it was well... rubbish, it took too long to sign in machines then fire up virtual machines, and where always painful when teachers decided they wanted something adding to the image. We moved to azure labs, simple to setup, simple to upgrade our Computer science teachers think it’s awesome, we have 2 labs of 30 machines it costs us £50 / month to run, there template machines already available with visual studio pre installed. It’s been the best thing we ever did, I even handed over management to the staff so they can look after it themselves, we pay for what we use and can run it from anywhere ! This makes a lot of sense. It's exactly the sort of use cloud PAAS that makes sense - spin it up when you need it, through it away when done, pay for what you use only. Automated creation from templates sounds perfect. Out of interest, do you look at other providers, such as Google Cloud or AWS to compare costs (I'm not sure if those easily license visual studio?
WhiteStar1 Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Sounds great, but I have gotten VB to run very nicely in 5 ICT rooms of 30 computers and thats for £0 per month. Mark you, it wasn't easy and there's noway I think anyone would want to pay after we grunts got it working in the first place. AS for changes to the VM, I use the shared path and change change the VM and redeploy the package. I agree with you, VB is a pig at times to setup/implement/maintain especially on the level of deployment we in education can sometime do. Even so, would love to know just how you did it? Guide anywhere?
Ditto Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 I am curious too. It's important for us that there is no external network activity. I went through training on Coursera for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and it covered the network side of things. I'm sure that training gave enough information to control the network the way you want to. For Azure, EdX seem to have some (free, unless you want a certificate) courses - https://www.edx.org/learn/azure, but no doubt there's lots of online training on Microsoft's sites. Whether they would give what you need, I'm not sure but might be worth a look. Of course, I'm assuming there's no budget for paid for training! That's a rather sad default position to be in...
Ditto Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Sounds great, but I have gotten VB to run very nicely in 5 ICT rooms of 30 computers and thats for £0 per month. Mark you, it wasn't easy and there's noway I think anyone would want to pay after we grunts got it working in the first place. AS for changes to the VM, I use the shared path and change change the VM and redeploy the package. I agree with you, VB is a pig at times to setup/implement/maintain especially on the level of deployment we in education can sometime do. Even so, would love to know just how you did it? Guide anywhere? Of course it's not really free - there's all your time setting it up, the ongoing cost maintaining the OS, and running costs, licensing cost etc. I guess much of that's still needed even with a cloud solution as each pupil still needs access to a browser. It's the old challenge of costing the in-house versus cloud, which is no easy thing. Presumably the trade off here for the expense is the convenience above all else, which again is not trivial to assign a cost too? I suppose really what we should asking is which provides the best learning experience for the pupils and a key part of that is how quickly they can be up and running when they sit down in the classroom.
mrnoisy Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Question on this...have you got any setup instructions for Azure Labs? I just chucked up a test template to take a really quick look at it...it has edge browser and can browse the internet. How do you deal with that in terms of it not being filtered within the VM? or are there settings to point that elsewhere/chop that off completely? Hi, I just followed the ms docs guide it’s quite self explanatory. In terms of locking down browsing we don’t this is done via class room management, we can of course remove the browser from the template or put in a dummy proxy or even change the user permissions.
mrnoisy Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 This makes a lot of sense. It's exactly the sort of use cloud PAAS that makes sense - spin it up when you need it, through it away when done, pay for what you use only. Automated creation from templates sounds perfect. Out of interest, do you look at other providers, such as Google Cloud or AWS to compare costs (I'm not sure if those easily license visual studio? No we didn’t cost compare as we wanted to keep everything in the same place for management, also using azure credits reduces the published costs by around 50% 1
mrnoisy Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Sounds great, but I have gotten VB to run very nicely in 5 ICT rooms of 30 computers and thats for £0 per month. Mark you, it wasn't easy and there's noway I think anyone would want to pay after we grunts got it working in the first place. AS for changes to the VM, I use the shared path and change change the VM and redeploy the package. I agree with you, VB is a pig at times to setup/implement/maintain especially on the level of deployment we in education can sometime do. Even so, would love to know just how you did it? Guide anywhere? https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/lab-services/
mrnoisy Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Of course it's not really free - there's all your time setting it up, the ongoing cost maintaining the OS, and running costs, licensing cost etc. I guess much of that's still needed even with a cloud solution as each pupil still needs access to a browser. It's the old challenge of costing the in-house versus cloud, which is no easy thing. Presumably the trade off here for the expense is the convenience above all else, which again is not trivial to assign a cost too? I suppose really what we should asking is which provides the best learning experience for the pupils and a key part of that is how quickly they can be up and running when they sit down in the classroom. Exactly our user experience in the classroom was terrible, running visual studio and python trying to do high resolution graphics work via programming was extremely difficult and that was on new i5 kit and 8gb ram, sharing this with a running pc the teachers where in despair. The vb image was huge so any changes or new software requirements meant rebuilding an entire suite or pushing out huge packages. The azure lab gets spun up at the start of a lesson ( can be scheduled ) and it’s ready to go, we have fast virtual machines that can run visual studio with ease. The students can run their code and executables in a safe environment. Teacher can award time credits so they can work outside the lesson or at home. It really has been a revelation, I get what people are saying about the costs, but it’s not just a monetary thing, our support desk don’t need to go fix VB issues and the teacher is managing their own lab, if he wants to add new software he can.
mrbios Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Hi, I just followed the ms docs guide it’s quite self explanatory. In terms of locking down browsing we don’t this is done via class room management, we can of course remove the browser from the template or put in a dummy proxy or even change the user permissions. I'll have to have a poke around then, ta. While speeding through it last night i got as far as selecting the default template with visual studio and python in just to test and it looked nice. Didn't dive deeper into seeing if i could change what software was on the template though. Do you just load up the unpublished premade template then add or remove software, then publish it for use by students? Or is there more to it than that?
Ditto Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Exactly our user experience in the classroom was terrible, running visual studio and python trying to do high resolution graphics work via programming was extremely difficult and that was on new i5 kit and 8gb ram, sharing this with a running pc the teachers where in despair. The vb image was huge so any changes or new software requirements meant rebuilding an entire suite or pushing out huge packages. The azure lab gets spun up at the start of a lesson ( can be scheduled ) and it’s ready to go, we have fast virtual machines that can run visual studio with ease. The students can run their code and executables in a safe environment. Teacher can award time credits so they can work outside the lesson or at home. It really has been a revelation, I get what people are saying about the costs, but it’s not just a monetary thing, our support desk don’t need to go fix VB issues and the teacher is managing their own lab, if he wants to add new software he can. This is effectively £10 per pupil per year. Seems good value for money to me. My sons primary school are paying that for Twinkl!
mrnoisy Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 I'll have to have a poke around then, ta. While speeding through it last night i got as far as selecting the default template with visual studio and python in just to test and it looked nice. Didn't dive deeper into seeing if i could change what software was on the template though. Do you just load up the unpublished premade template then add or remove software, then publish it for use by students? Or is there more to it than that? No that’s exactly it, set the template up and publish
mrbios Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 No that’s exactly it, set the template up and publish It appears to be far easier to setup now that my brain is in work mode Trying to play with it at 10-11pm last night at home wasn't a good idea haha. Thanks.
mrnoisy Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 It appears to be far easier to setup now that my brain is in work mode Trying to play with it at 10-11pm last night at home wasn't a good idea haha. Thanks. No never a good idea [emoji23] Also if you have access to dreamspark now azure devops you can give all of your students £100 credit and there’s a tonne of resources available to them. Sadly you can’t use it to run your lab, we did as a trial and got a month out of it but sadly you can’t pool the credits as it’s per account. Feel free to pm me if you have any questions etc 1
synaesthesia Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Exactly our user experience in the classroom was terrible, running visual studio and python trying to do high resolution graphics work via programming was extremely difficult and that was on new i5 kit and 8gb ram, sharing this with a running pc the teachers where in despair. The vb image was huge so any changes or new software requirements meant rebuilding an entire suite or pushing out huge packages. The azure lab gets spun up at the start of a lesson ( can be scheduled ) and it’s ready to go, we have fast virtual machines that can run visual studio with ease. The students can run their code and executables in a safe environment. Teacher can award time credits so they can work outside the lesson or at home. It really has been a revelation, I get what people are saying about the costs, but it’s not just a monetary thing, our support desk don’t need to go fix VB issues and the teacher is managing their own lab, if he wants to add new software he can. Wow, can't see how on earth you could have got the VB setup so badly wrong to have that sort of experience! One image centrally stored on a reasonably quick storage medium, and ensuring the tools are running and we've never seen any performance issues like that on far lower spec machines. Still, it's good to look to the future and intrigued as to experiences using Azure and other cloud based solutions, no doubt something to look at sooner rather than later.
mrnoisy Posted February 8, 2020 Posted February 8, 2020 Wow, can't see how on earth you could have got the VB setup so badly wrong to have that sort of experience! One image centrally stored on a reasonably quick storage medium, and ensuring the tools are running and we've never seen any performance issues like that on far lower spec machines. Still, it's good to look to the future and intrigued as to experiences using Azure and other cloud based solutions, no doubt something to look at sooner rather than later. Well reading back through how you have yours configured is certainly a lot different to how we had ours and sounds like it would have also been a viable option, however we where not aware of this at the time it was setup. I’m not saying azure labs is the best way, it just works for us.
synaesthesia Posted February 8, 2020 Posted February 8, 2020 (edited) Along similar lines, are there any other "cloud" solutions people are using to satisfy these curricular requirements? One reason I love the VB setup despite the overheads and other virtual setups such as the Azure idea is just being able to give pupils something as close to real life as possible, but obviously schools are running similar when they're not Windows based, thin client, entirely cloud based etc. ** PS, apologies if that sounded a little blunt/arsey, re-reading it back it certainly looked like it! Edited February 8, 2020 by synaesthesia
mrbios Posted February 9, 2020 Posted February 9, 2020 People are still teaching Visual Basic? VB = virtualbox, in this context.
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