Abstract
At the University of Alberta, we have defined a computing architecture that enables the University community to share computing resources distributed across campus. This architecture provides users with an integrated electronic environment, with easy and transparent access to academic and institutional data, high performance computing, printers, and other peripherals. The sharing transcends departmental boundaries. On demand, researchers can, for example, share each others' workstations, and take advantage of idle cycles on servers that are otherwise managing institutional data.We explain how the vision of shared distributed computing was developed and how it is being implemented; we give a high-level description of the architecture, and the users' view of the electronic environment; we show the budgetary advantages of the project; we explain the technical, and especially the managerial challenges behind and ahead of us; and list the campus-wide human infrastructure necessary to manage such an integrated electronic environment.