How to access NWU labs from home

The North-West University (NWU) has created a desktop virtualisation programme, which is now available to all registered NWU students. The programme allows students to virtually use an NWU lab computer from anywhere and from any device.

Adriaan Deneys, an NWU third-year computer science student, said, “the desktop virtualisation programme allows me to use programmes or tools that I otherwise would not be able to use because of licencing or system requirements.”

The programmes that are available on the virtual desktop include: Adobe Acrobat, all of the Microsoft Office tools, MATLAB, Delphi, Java, Python, Visual studio, 7-Zip SOLIDWORKS and more.

The virtualisation programme runs through several servers hosted by the NWU Information Technology (IT) department. This makes virtual computers faster and more effective than normal computers. 

Louw Venter, senior business analyst at NWU IT, and lab virtualisation project owner, said that the need to rethink the idea of physical computer labs was identified in 2016. After a long process, the programme went into production in April 2020. 

Venter says: “The virtualisation software can be used on almost any device with a modern browser, such as smartphones, tablets, Linux, Mac or Windows PCs.” Another benefit of the software is that students have access to almost all of the software that they would find on a physical lab computer on campus. 

According to the IT services catalogue, the virtualisation programme is free and zero-rated to all NWU students. 

Big programmes like this one require good maintenance. The virtualisation programme has maintenance teams from multiple departments at IT. There is also a core team that is ready to quickly respond to system issues. 

Venter said that the virtualisation programme can be seen as the future of computer lab work. The conventional computer lab will likely disappear as more students start to use the lab computers from their phones or laptops. Students can use this software anywhere at any time, such as outside on the library grass, the cafeteria, at home and even in the amphitheatre. 

Watch the video below for an explanation of how the virtualisation tool works. (Video: Victor Helberg)