Experiences With Virtualization Technology in Education

Virtualization technology has relevance to the class room as well as to the server room. Software virtualization technology is currently one of the most frequently discussed topics in Information Technology (IT) and systems administration trade publications. Virtualization technology allows additional modularization of applications, which makes services easier to maintain. The bottom line result of using virtualization technology in the server room is increased reliability and better utilization of high end servers, which results in reduced operating costs.[4] This paper, however, considers a completely different application of virtualization technology. It addresses the utilization of virtualization technology in the class room and shares first hand experiences from using virtualization to facilitate student access to the Linux operating system at both the user and super-user (Root) security levels.