Many factors influence education nowadays. Educational institutions are faced with budget cuttings, outdated IT, data security management and the willingness to integrate remote learning at home. Virtualization technologies provide innovative solutions to the problems.
The paper presents an original educational infrastructure using virtualization technologies implemented in a training process at Kaunas University of Technology. This infrastructure allows university students and staff to access virtual desktops and applications via Web, both in computer classes at the University, and for self-working at home. This paper introduces virtualization technologies of the implemented infrastructure highlighting the benefits, outlines functions of the infrastructure and presents research experiments of network load monitoring that have been performed to find out problems of the infrastructure.
Cloud computing is a significant alternative in today's educational perspective. The technology gives the students and teachers the opportunity to quickly access various application platforms and resources through the web pages on-demand. Unfortunately, not all educational institutions often have an ability to take full advantages of the newest information technology. The paper analyzes possibilities of the cloud computing technology that can help educational institutions to support the process of teaching and learning.
There is also presented a cloud computing technology based solution introducing the MS Live@Edu environment as a means of communication and collaboration between lecturers and students. The authors have a successful experience of using MS Live@Edu during 3 academic years for delivering about 10 unique courses for approximately 700 students in Kaunas University of Technology (KTU). The use of MS Live@Edu environment for educational purposes is summarized by explaining the advantages of cloud computing gained both by lecturers and students.