Chromebooks and Cloud Computing

Why G Suite? Interest in moving to a low-cost device (Chrome devices) Increase access to technology for all users Kiosk PCs are difficult to manage and configure, at a high cost Looking for a platform to pair with CloudPC

G Suite Google Apps Chromebooks Google Docs (Word) Google Sheets (Excel) Google Drive (Unlimited storage, 5TB max file size) Google Photos (Unlimited storage) Gmail not included Chromebooks Single Sign On access with your bridgew.edu credentials Access BSU on-site services and applications through CloudPC

Directory Integration Single sign on achieved through Google Cloud Directory Sync Google Suite Password Sync must run on every writable domain controller in the domain LDAP Sync occurs every hour using a scheduled task Password replication occurs instantly when passwords are changed Single sign on works across Google Suite services, including Chromebooks User and device policies, such as bookmarks, are managed through the Google Suite administrator management console Enrolled devices are encrypted by default Limited access to on-site resources, such as file shares and mapped drives

Why CloudPC (VMware Horizon)? VPNs are difficult to support Students and faculty lacked offsite access to BSU-licensed applications Staff lacked offsite access to applications and data Virtualized infrastructure necessary for offsite access and access from non- Windows platforms (Mac, Linux, iOS, etc.) Overall desire to move to a hosted infrastructure

CloudPC PCs in the cloud are joined to the BSU domain and are connected via an appliance based VPN Mapped Network Drives VPN Replacement Remote Desktop Access to BSU-owned software packages Virtual machine access with the VMware Blast protocol via web browser or VMware Horizon client

VMware Horizon Client USB host passthrough Printer passthrough Local and mapped network drive passthrough Dual monitor support Access via iOS and Android apps

CloudPC Two Windows 7 Configurations Faculty/Students Staff Users see assigned desktop pools based on Active Directory user groups Each pool PC is spawned from a “gold pattern”

Faculty/Student Applications Microsoft Office 2016 IBM SPSS 23 Maple 2016 GIS Software Computer Science Applications

Staff Applications Banner Microsoft Office 2013 EMS The Financial Edge The Raiser’s Edge

IT Tips and Tricks Connect via RDC to your work PC Use of a clean image for testing purposes Troubleshoot Office applications Isolate profile issues without reimaging the local PC Test individual application functionality (SPSS, Maple, etc.) Users can be mapped to persistent images

Future expansion Fiber uplink to Markley Data Center and a potential direct uplink to VMware Dell Wyse PCoIP connectivity Azure AD G Suite authentication Hosted application virtualization

Wrap-up Moves the University towards being device agnostic Infrastructure is hosted Students/faculty/staff gain secure offsite access to on-campus resources Integrated Active Directory authentication Accessible from any platform

Questions and Open Discussion