Avans University of Applied Sciences: Using Azure Virtual Desktop to deliver examinations and reduce costs by €150,000 annually

“Three and a half years ago, we started to implement our cloud-first strategy. What we could never have predicted then is just how much that approach would give us the flexibility to meet the changing needs of students. And how much money it would save the university.” 

Johnny Vos, Product Owner for Device Services has worked at Avans University for 18 years, during which time, he’s seen its IT landscape evolve dramatically to meet the demands of both students and staff.

“We have stayed ahead of technological trends, incorporating Microsoft Teams and Office 365 into our platform, which have become essential tools at Avans,” Vos explains.  

“But when it comes to making apps available to students who need them, we were relying on older technology that wasn’t designed for students equipped with laptops and expectations of flexible learning.”

Azure Virtual Desktop was the tool to meet those new expectations, making software available to any student on any device – while saving the university tens of thousands of Euros.

Growing to meet the challenges of the future

Avans is a university of applied science, centered around three major cities in the south of The Netherlands. Originally, the sites in Breda, Tilburg, and 's-Hertogenbosch were all separate institutions, but in 2001 they merged. 

“Back then, we had around 15,000 students. Now, that number has ballooned to 35,000, supported by 4,000 teaching staff. Today, we operate in a grand total of 13 locations and we’re expanding, year on year,” explains Vos. 

The university has needed to adapt to both new technologies and the evolving requirements of students and staff to maintain its educational pre-eminence. But with undergraduates now seeing laptops as a must-have tool for education, Avans’ approach seemed a little behind the times. 

“We offered a virtual desktop environment, but the applications on the platform weren’t updated so students didn’t have access to up-to-date software. They needed the latest software and the flexibility to work on any app, anywhere, at any time. Giving them the option to work on a device of their choice was vital,” comments Vos. 

Rationing time in the campus computer room placed severe limitations on the students’ opportunities to learn how apps function or use them as tools to facilitate their studies and academic projects. And although they are always provided with free software, simply making apps available for use on their laptops has cost implications. 

“Most laptops retail at around €1000, and they’re perfect for the majority of students’ needs. But a device with the heavy processing power you’d require for some of these apps can cost three times more than that, at least,” explains Vos. 

Maintaining democratic access to the full potential the apps could deliver was uppermost in the team’s minds. And when the Covid pandemic struck, cramming 40 students into a small computer facility became completely unviable. 

“Covid really focused our minds, and we had to work on flexible solutions that could be used remotely,” emphasizes Vos.

Delivering the flexibility of anytime, anywhere app assess

With the advent of the pandemic, Microsoft solutions came into their own at the university. “Teams became the number one application for everything, and its strength became obvious to everyone,” explains Vos. 

“After the success of Teams, and because we had Azure, and everything was integrated with Microsoft solutions, we thought: why not use the Virtual Desktop environment, too?” he adds. 

The team had realized that Azure Virtual Desktop could benefit both staff and students, by allowing remote access to apps on a standard laptop, irrespective of the processing power that would be needed by a desktop PC to run the software. 

But as Vos explains, Avans faced the challenges of being an early adopter in academia. 

“The only problem was, not a lot of institutions had Azure Virtual Desktop, because it was quite new, so we really had to build from scratch.”

Avans’ cloud team had all already completed the Azure Fundamentals course on Microsoft Learn. But to build the AVD environment, four developers from the team visited Microsoft for specific in-person training from an engineer, delivered as part of the university’s Unified Support contract with Microsoft. 

With training complete, the team swung into action and the whole system was up and running within just three months, in November 2021.

How to save €150,000 per year and provide more flexible access to apps

With the successful migration to Azure Virtual Desktop now complete, students and staff have near-unlimited access to the wide range of apps they need for the university’s various educational pathways. 

“There’s no more need to book time in the computer room – students can now get what they need on any device, from anywhere,” explains Vos. 

In addition to the access it provides to essential software, the financial Implications of AVD’s flexibility are impressive. 

“Use of the AVD fluctuates enormously at the university, due to fairly long breaks between term time, and lack of activity at weekends.,” Vos explains. 

“As a virtual platform, AVD can spin up and down servers, as needed, and the university only pays for that usage. In total, we calculate that migrating to AVD has saved us about €150,000 per year in usage costs.”

Providing 35,000 students the access they need used to cost the university €200,000 per year. Now, Vos estimates the annual expense at just €50,000. 

Extending the virtual environment for exams and AI

While personal laptops powered by AVD have replaced desktop PCs in the computer room for most activities, teaching staff initially felt that they could not be used for tests and examinations. 

“Everyone was worried that unmonitored use of laptops during tests was open to all sorts of potential abuse,” comments Vos, before going on to explain how his team plans to overcome these reservations. 

“Three months ago we started a trial to ensure no one can cheat in the tests. We put server images in a more secure environment, so that students cannot use the internet, or any applications that are not needed for the test. This week 1,000 students are taking examinations in this new environment.”

Assuming the trial is successful, the need to have the current 400 PCs on site will be reduced even further. These would normally be replaced every four years, at a total cost of around €400,000 – an expense that may soon be entirely unnecessary with a secure virtual exam environment. 

Vos highlights another potential for making substantial savings. “AI is obviously a growing field, which requires some serious computing power – the sort of computing power that would cost around €25,000 per PC. But in two or three years, those computers will already be obsolete, because artificial intelligence is changing so fast, you cannot keep up if you really have one system. But if you use AVD, the problem’s solved.”

Vos is keen to share what the team at Avans University has learned with other institutions. “We’re an early adopter. And I hope our experience illustrates that Azure Virtual Desktop is simply a no-brainer for universities like us,” he concludes.