Improving software delivery to 9,000 students across campus at Odisee

Odisee encountered the same challenge faced by University IT the world-over: how to deploy a huge number of software titles to over 9,000 students, wherever they might be.

See how the university are using AppsAnywhere from AppsAnywhere to virtualize apps, reduce their SCCM image sizes, and keep track of software, licensing and updates more efficiently. Watch the video below and learn more about how Odisee plan to use AppsAnywhere to enable BYOD and support distance learners using our technology.

Project background

Odisee is a Flemish University college, based close to Brussels, Belgium, and a member of the KU Leuven Association. The university was created on January 1, 2014 through the merger of Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel (HUB) and the Katholieke Hogeschool Sint-Lieven (KAHO, Ghent). Odisee currently has an enrolment of 11,000 degree programmes along with 9,500 postgraduate programmes covered by 1,100 administration and academic staff across 6 Clusters.

At campuses in Brussels and Ghent, Odisee also service KULeuven University students (7000 enrolments) and Academic staff (750 members). The University College currently employs Microsoft System Centre, more commonly known as SCCM, to distribute applications to the 4000 PCs situated in a mixture of labs, open access labs and staff/administrative desktop and laptops. All of these machines are required for the University's main function in bringing mainstream applications to the students and teaching staff, as well as applications necessary to deliver the day-to-day working of a successful university.

Further reading:

Read the full case study: How Application Virtualization Improved Student IT at Odisee >

Find out more about Odisee: University website > 

Improving software delivery at Odisee - Video transcription

Jan Van Calster: Odisee is a university college located at four different campuses in Brussels, Ghent, Aalst, and Sint-Niklaas, and we provide communication to about 9,000 students in different student areas. I’m the service desk manager so I’m responsible for all of the end-user devices which include about 2,500 PCs and that also means managing licensing and providing software for all those machines. Well, before we used AppsAnywhere, we deployed everything with SCCM but this meant different SCCM images, very large SCCM images so the main challenges we face in deploying software is the sheer number of titles we have to deploy. The flexibility we need, we never know where students are going to use the software, and the old professor that comes in on a Friday afternoon and says, “I need this software on the PCs next Monday morning,” we finally decided for AppsAnywhere because we liked the visualization concept and we liked the fact that AppsAnywhere has a nice portal and has the ability to limit access to the software titles based on Active Directory.

Jan Vanneste: The AppsAnywhere helped us reduce the size of our total installation because previously, we had to install all the packages at the beginning of the academic year, whereas now, we can update them throughout the whole year. This also allows us to keep better track of the updates, the versions throughout the whole year instead of only at the beginning.

Carolus De Ro: From the university point of view, it’s very important to know how many, where, and when a software is used. The reporting servers of the AppsAnywhere gives us the transparency to the figures and licenses which are used. The next step for us will be supporting bringing your own device, especially for student devices because we see it as an enabler for distance learning as well.

JVC: The community element is very important to Odisee. We’ve set up a local community with local universities and colleges, so we can share resources and knowledge.

JV: Join us because if you join us, you can also contribute to the community and all over life will be much easier.

JVC: So, if you are thinking about using AppsAnywhere, what you should do is the same thing I did. First, visit the user of AppsAnywhere in other university or college who has experience doing it, and then attend one of the AppsAnywhere user base and that will get you convinced of the value of the product and if it can do anything for you.