Abstract:

In this work, a low cost thin client to virtualize a laboratory is presented. A credit card-sized single-board computer developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation is used in order to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools.

A Raspberry is a low cost computer based on the Broadcom BCM2835 system on a chip, which includes an ARM1176JZF-S 700 MHz processor, VideoCore GPU, with 512 MB RAM. Also, the system has Digital Secure for boot media and persistent storage.

This computer runs an operating system based on Linux and we use an Epiphany web browser to run VNC clients using an Opennebula application for virtualizing hosts called Sunstone. Virtual machines run in the cloud and every student access them using vnc protocolos and visualize the results in a front-end web.

The aim of this work is the use of this computer for learning optics technologies and computer services within the scope of subjects that are currently taught in the studies of Telecommunications Engineering at the University of Jaen.

We offer an Infrastructure as a service to students (IaaS) using a Opennebula cloud. The IaaS is based on the outsourcing of data processing machines and storage model.

The proposed student station consists of a computer, a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse whose total cost is 150 euros approximately. This represents a significant saving compared to a traditional station (around 800 euros). The maintenance of this simpler equipment is lower, requiring fewer technical hours and therefore, lower costs for the academic institution.

References:
[1] [AWS2013] “What is Cloud Computing?” Amazon Web Services, 2013.
[2] [OpenNebula2014] “OpenNebula documentation”. OpenNebula web site, 2014. Source: http://opennebula.org/documentation
[3] [Raspberry2014] “Raspberry pi documentation”. Raspberry pi web site, 2014. Source: http://www.raspberrypi.org/

Keywords:

Cloud computing, thin client, virtual laboratory.