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Deploying Virtual Desktop Infrastructure with Open-Source Platform for Higher Education

Hung Vu Duy1, Thu Nguyen Xuan2, Trang Ha Mai Huyen2, Tuan Nguyen Dinh3, Tung Nguyen Khanh3, Tinh Hoang Quy4, Phong Bui Hai5, Thang Tran Van5 and Trung Tran3*

1Academy of Cryptography Techniques, Hanoi, Vietnam

2Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam

3Electric Power University, Hanoi, Vietnam

4Hanoi National University of Education, Hanoi, Vietnam

5Hanoi Architectural University, Hanoi, Vietnam

Abstract

Currently, the application of science and technology to modernize study and research rooms in universities is a major challenge. The current situation shows that the facilities being provided for staff, lecturers, and students are not suitable for the rapid change in the outside world. In particular, the traditional Information Technology (IT) infrastructure provided to end users faces major problems, such as high cost, inflexibility, difficulty in maintenance, and limited ability to adapt to teaching majors. In this situation, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a virtualization solution that enables the provisioning of desktop operating system instances on one or more centralized servers in a data center. The VDI technology creates virtual desktops on a central server that can be accessed by remote users from any physical device over a local network or the Internet. However, most VDI deployments in large organizations are set up with large systems, such as the VMware Horizon View or Citrix XenDesktop. This leads to considerable costs for deploying the entire system. Currently, for many educational institutions, it is essential the need to deploy VDI on open-source platform technologies to save costs and ensure flexibility in deployment. In this article, we present a VDI solution using open-source virtualization and cloud-computing platform. We used the Apache CloudStack cloud computing platform to set up a private cloud system and the RedHat Kernel-based Virtualization Machine (KVM) virtualization platform to set up virtual servers and personal machines. This solution promises to eliminate the license cost of the hypervisor, thereby reducing the total cost per desktop. Furthermore, educational institutions can also save Microsoft’s investment when using Linux.

Keywords: Virtual desktop infrastructure, kernel-based virtualization machine, apache cloudstack, higher education, virtual lab, private cloud

1.1 Introduction

In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it is not a small challenge to constantly improve the learning and research environment at universities and research institutions. A major problem that has been and is being posed for higher education universities is providing different levels of computing resources to meet the needs of different teaching majors (e.g., Integrated Development Environment applications for programming exercises or Photoshop for design classes). In the field of information technology, it is very important to design and set up laboratories for lecturers and students to practice exercises together. The content of courses in different majors is very different, and the requirements for setting up individual computers are also different. The establishment of the same laboratory with fixed personal computers for different specialties, such as Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering, Computer Networking, and Security, is a big challenge because of very different requirements such as hardware configuration, setting up network connections, and ensuring safety standards. In addition, the status of corrupted files or folders, or the entire hardware system or operating system, is not stable. These situations happen frequently, are difficult to recover from, and are time-consuming. Routine maintenance and troubleshooting in the lab may interfere with the usual course schedule. An aspect that also needs to be considered when implementing and regularly maintaining such a system is that the costs will increase greatly and may be beyond the capabilities of many educational institutions.

A suitable solution to develop a comprehensive and scalable education system is to leverage the development of virtualization technology platforms [6, 7, 10, 14, 18–22, 25, 29]. This opens opportunities for flexibility because the same infrastructure can be used for different purposes. Using virtualization, faculty and students from different disciplines can interact with any hardware resource with greater flexibility. Physical servers consume power, consume storage space, and require maintenance. Users are often limited in terms of actual reach and network design if they want to reach the physical server. Virtualization removes these limitations by abstracting the functionality of the physical hardware into software. Users can manage, maintain, and use their hardware infrastructure using specialized software.

In recent years, Virtualization Desktop Technology or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) has been researched and commercialized by organizations to partially solve the above problem. It combines virtualization and cloud computing, allowing administrators and end users to remotely access virtual desktops centrally located in the data center [1, 3, 4, 5, 12, 13, 16, 17, 23, 24, 28]. Each user was provided with a moderately configured physical computer, connected to the LAN with the data center, and controlled the virtual computers. Depending on the actual requirements of the school and subjects, the provider can set up a real-time virtual operating environment on a physical machine and distribute hardware resources to the appropriate virtual machines. One advantage of this solution is that administrators can perform system and software upgrades relatively easily on the central server through a Unified Management System. Additionally, educational institutions can reduce investment costs and improve laboratory utilization by using outdated computers to connect to cloud services.

In this study, we propose a solution to set up a VDI system based on open-source virtualization and cloud computing technology platforms (Figure 1.1). We applied the Apache CloudStack [2, 26, 27, 30] cloud computing platform to set up a separate cloud system for each educational institution. To set up virtual servers and virtual PCs in a VDI solution, we applied the RedHat Kernel-based Virtualization Machine (KVM) [8, 11] virtualization platform. This is an open-source virtualization platform deeply integrated into the kernel of the Linux Operating System, helping to take full advantage of the advantages of this Operating System. With the use and integration of CloudStack and KVM platforms, the solution promises to establish suitable desktop virtualization infrastructure models for various needs of educational institutions as well as minimize expenses in investing in hardware infrastructure, licensing operating system software, and specialized software for the practice of subjects at the university level.

Figure 1.1 General diagram of VDI system.

(Source: https://www.javatpoint.com/what-is-vdi).

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. We present an overview of the general knowledge about cloud computing and virtualization in Chapter 1.2. In Chapter 1.3, we present a model for setting up a virtualization solution for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) using the Apache CloudStack and RedHat KVM platforms. Chapter 1.4 will be devoted to presenting some specific applications in subjects in the field of Information Technology. We briefly summarize the research in Chapter 1.5.

1.2 Background

1.2.1 Cloud Computing

Cloud computing [2, 9, 15, 26] is a computing solution that allows the provision of up-to-date information technology services (including technology infrastructure, application development platform, and application software) via the Internet system. update flexibly according to user needs with minimal investment costs and access time to use the technology.

According to the US NIST classification, cloud computing has the following service deployment forms [2, 9, 15, 26]:

• The first type of deployment is called a private cloud, in which, a single organization (for example, a school or company) is deployed and configured as a private cloud only for employees of the organization. The installation can be located on the organization’s server system or the provider’s system. As it is deployed separately, the organization owns, manages, and operates this private cloud directly or through a provider.
• The second type of deployment is called a community cloud, in which a specific community of users from relevant organizations is deployed to configure the cloud system. The main tasks of end users include performing tasks and handling security requirements and policies. The installation can be located on the server system of these organizations or on the provider’s system. Owing to such a distributed setup, one or more organizations in the community will own, manage, and operate the cloud either directly or through a provider.
• The third type of deployment is called the public cloud, in which the entire population will have an unlimited use of the services provided by the cloud computing system. The installation is located on...