Author: Hu Jia, Director of Information Center of Tianjin 19th High School
Chinese people have been talking about wuxia for 2,000 years, from the Chronicles of the Grand Historian, a series of chivalrys and assassins, to the four great classics, Outlaws of the Marsh, and contemporary works by Jin Yong and Gu Long. I still remember I saw an interview with Jin Yong, talking about the definition of "martial arts". First of all, "Wu" and "Xia" are independent, the former is a kind of ability, the latter is a kind of value; In addition, they are also integrated, that is, through the ability of "Wu" to show the ideas represented by "Xia". In the field of education informatization, the pursuit is the dialectical relationship between technology and value, which is exactly the problem that needs to be considered in the current in-depth integration of information technology and education and teaching.
1. Desktop Cloud "military"
Since the concept of "in-depth integration of information technology and education and teaching" was put forward in the 10-year Development Plan for Education Informatization, the informatization pattern in the field of education is just like the rivers and lakes displayed in the Wuxia world, where numerous schools and martial arts are blooming and competing with each other. Some can provide massive teaching resources, some can provide rich management strategies, some can help us to innovate teaching forms or management models, some can collect and analyze business data to support teaching or management evaluation.
If you think of desktop cloud as a kind of martial arts in Jianghu, then it is more like internal skills. It doesn't provide new moves, but it changes the power of those moves. For example, Linghu Chong in the Swordsman and Ren I, a prisoner, compete with each other in swordsmanship. When internal forces are not used, the Dugu nine swords are superior. Once internal forces are used, one move is defeated.
The desktop cloud force value is mainly reflected in the following three aspects:
1. Virtualization: VMS are generated on the underlying hardware using the virtualization platform, and the VMS are generated into operating system desktops. VMS are delivered to users instead of physical PCS. The virtualization platform and VMS are generated in different locations depending on the type of desktop cloud. For example, the virtualization platform and VMS of the VDI desktop cloud are created on a server. IDV The desktop cloud virtualization platform and VMS are on the terminal.
2. Transport protocol: A protocol used to transmit information between a server and a terminal. The VDI desktop cloud transmits a compressed VM desktop between a server and a terminal. IDV Desktop cloud Transfers operation instructions for managing VM desktops between servers and terminals.
3. Redirection: Since the desktop provided to the user is generated in the virtual machine, the drivers and hardware interfaces related to the running of the desktop need to transition from the underlying hardware to the virtual machine. Redirection technology is designed to solve this problem.
The analysis and comparison of desktop cloud related technologies have been detailed in many articles, so I will not go into the details here. Technology is like martial arts, there is no absolute good or bad, only the use of the strength of the difference, whether the key is useful to see whether the value of these technologies is fully played out.
2. Desktop Cloud "Man"
The reason why desktop cloud can be paid more and more attention by educators and occupy an important position in the field of education informatization is not the strength of its force value, but the value brought by desktop cloud in the exploration of the deep integration of information technology and education and teaching.
1. Provide an education and teaching foundation support platform with flexible use and rapid expansion
With the wide acceptance of the new teaching concept of gamification and interactive teaching, the number of information terminals (usually computers) has increased substantially. No matter in primary and secondary schools, vocational colleges and universities, the popularity of multimedia and 3D teaching applications puts forward higher requirements for terminal hardware; At the same time, the proportion of information software or platform in the overall procurement budget increases year by year, and the terminal procurement budget is controlled. Under the trend of terminal number increasing, hardware performance requirements increasing and budget gradually limited, educational units and schools at all levels begin to pursue flexible use and rapid expansion of hardware resources in the construction of information-based classrooms, so as to reduce construction costs and cope with new teaching reforms in the future.
The desktop cloud is helping educators respond to this change. As an application branch of cloud computing, desktop cloud has the features of resource pooling and elastic allocation. When all terminals in a school provide OS desktops based on a unified resource pool, administrators can dynamically adjust hardware resource allocation policies based on service peaks of these terminals to make full use of hardware resources. In addition, the virtualization technology of the desktop cloud abstracts the underlying hardware, allowing the upper-layer software system to ignore the differences in hardware. In this way, the resource pool can be rapidly expanded or even expanded online without affecting services.
2. Provide dedicated desktops for critical services
The operating system environment provided by the desktop cloud runs on VMS rather than underlying hardware. Therefore, multiple desktops can be created on the same set of hardware, and the operating system, network configuration, and security policies of these desktops can be customized. Therefore, for some key services involved in daily education and teaching, you can set up an independent business environment to avoid the impact of software compatibility or other system configuration.
For example, with the promulgation of new curriculum standards in high school, human-computer interactive tests and exams have gradually become normal, but the test software is easy to cause compatibility problems with other teaching software, affecting the normal development of the test. You can use the desktop cloud to set a virtual desktop dedicated to human-computer interactive exams. Only the test software is installed on this desktop, and all system and network configurations are adapted to the test software operation, so as to ensure the normal development of key services.
3. Provide centralized management without time or space constraints
Education bureau and school informationization workers usually have a dual identity, the first is a teacher, undertake a certain teaching work, and the second is an information system administrator, that is to say, these informationization workers not only to ensure their own teaching effect, but also to ensure the smooth development of other teachers' teaching work. Dual status brings not only the increase of workload, but also the cost of learning and the investment of energy. The increasing number of teaching terminals, especially the independent terminal forms such as computers, bring administrators overload work. Although there are recovery cards and other technologies to cope with it, but because of the complexity and instability of its operation, additional learning investment is increased.
Educators' appeal for centralized management and unified maintenance is exactly the core value of desktop cloud. Whether the VDI desktop cloud runs desktops on a server or the IDV desktop cloud manages desktops on a server, administrators can modify and adjust the desktop on the server, including identity management, data management, policy management, security management, and terminal management. Operating system updates, software upgrades, etc., can also be done on the server.
If you think of Desktop Cloud as a man in a lake, it's more like Guo Jing in Legend of the Condor Heroes. In terms of martial arts, he was never the best in the world, and his reputation was no better than the five great Masters, but who was the "chivalrous"? Among those who had learned the "Nine Yin True Sutra", Hong Qigong pursued freedom, Zhou Botong liked martial arts innovation, and Ouyang Feng wanted to be the first in the day. However, in the eyes of the Song Dynasty and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians in Xiangyang City, Guo Jing was the greatest warrior for the country and the people, with different values.
3. Desktop Cloud "Martial Arts"
Compared with traditional PC computers, desktop cloud is not the pursuit of simple hardware configuration, nor pure procurement of low cost, let alone a personalized paradise for enthusiasts. Desktop cloud from the birth of the initial is to seek a balance between cost, performance, ease of use, and PC performance score, and white machine PK price, testing a variety of strange software or peripherals for desktop cloud does not have much business significance, more is just a simple business competition.
The reason why desktop cloud is suitable for the current development of integration of information technology and education and teaching is firstly because education units and schools at all levels have convergence and standardization in business, and their personalized demands are far lower than individual users. Secondly, education units and schools at all levels have obvious appeals for centralized management in the process of education and teaching reform. Meanwhile, the current technical level of system administrators also highlights the importance of centralized management and unified operation and maintenance. Finally, due to limited capital investment and diversified teaching applications in the future, desktop cloud can help us realize full utilization of fixed assets and low-cost expansion. It is these characteristics or the values implied behind these characteristics that make it able to occupy an important position in the field of educational informatization.
Iv. Summary
The convergence of information technology and education will continue to change, with more and more new applications and more and more sophisticated management strategies deployed in offices and classrooms. The desktop cloud provides an elastic, open, and easy-to-use basic environment, enabling education informatization to adapt to changes.
