Abstract
Distributed systems are a reality, but managing and funding the software is a headache! Faculty need access to the instructional software in the student computing sites to prepare for their classes. Students need access to that same software from anywhere on campus as well as from home to ease the strain on the student sites. Everyone needs access to current software to ensure compatibility and to ease the computing support load. Faculty and staff need access to a wide variety of software, but they do not always have the budget to purchase and maintain this software let alone the time to install it and maintain updates. All this argues for the extension of the student site server concept to the entire campus as sort of a "virtual site." This is an idea whose time has come. Without something like this, it will be virtually impossible to adequately manage the burgeoning volumes and diversity of software on our campuses. This paper describes the costs and issues involved in setting up and running such a service. Paper presented at CAUSE94, the full proceedings of which are available through this Library as PUB1094.