Codestone

Category: Virtualisation

Universities and colleges are starting to realise the benefits of introducing desktop virtualisation software into their working environments, new research has suggested.

A Citrix survey found that 82 per cent of 200 higher education IT professionals polled were considering the technology as part of their services.

According to the study, those questioned highlighted a lack of adequate resources (70 per cent), difficulty in responding to issues such as remote access (62 per cent) and time-consuming maintenance (66 per cent) as their top IT concerns.

Respondents felt that virtualisation would help in a number of these areas, with 65 per cent and 59 per cent thinking it could make savings and free up personnel for other tasks respectively.

"Desktop virtualisation addresses the higher education IT concerns of cost, secure student access and demands on the IT team," said David Podwojski, director of government, education and health for Citrix.

The survey follows news that the organisation is launching a new licensing arrangement with campuses worldwide to boost uptake of desktop virtualisation.