A Consistent Environment with Less Hassle
Instead of having a traditional computing lab and all the headaches that go along with it, MiDesktop lets you access a virtual desktop lab with your choice of specialized software that can be shared with your students or other faculty and researchers.
Everyone in your group or team benefits from the same software, computational power, flexibility, and secure data storage, whether they are in Ann Arbor or Anchorage, Accra or Adelaide, Akita or Amsterdam, Aracaju or Austin.
Why Faculty and Staff Are Switching Over
MiDesktop offers a suite of features such as:
- a virtual desktop environment with the choice of Windows or Linux
- a pre-installed operating system
- the ability to personalize settings
- remote access
- tools for collaboration.
What the Service Provides
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Unified desktops, designed by you, for a wide range of use cases including secure data access, remote access, lab and classroom loadset and image refresh.
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Desktops that your users can access from any device, including tablets, smartphones, laptops, PCs, thin clients and zero clients.
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Fully managed enterprise services. ITS manages the operations of the underlying infrastructure, while providing best-in-class service, support, and SLEs.
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HIPAA compliance for sensitive workloads.
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Available GPU acceleration hardware for graphic-intensive workloads.
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The ability to register your department’s physical lab computers to take advantage of the remote access capabilities of MiDesktop.
Ready to Start?
In order to request service, you will need to provide:
- A university Shortcode (for billing) and the uniqname of an authorized signer
- An MCommunity group to serve as an account contact and the administrative group for MiDesktop resources
Need More Info?
- Visit the Frequently Asked Questions section.
- Contact the MiDesktop team at [email protected]. They'll reach out within two business day to schedule a time to answer questions and discuss how the service can be tailored to meet your needs.
Testimonials
Justin Hagar
Kidney Epidemiology and Cost Center
U-M School of Public Health
“I have found the reliability of MiDesktop paramount for our secure infrastructure. The service allows for a consistent desktop environment. Vulnerabilities are easily remediated, as they need only be applied to the base image then pushed out to the instances.
Our research requires Federal Information Security Management Act moderate compliance. MiDesktop services have been crucial in providing a secure access point for users to run their analysis.
Prior to an infrastructure overhaul, data ran locally on various endpoints, creating undue risk. Every system required application patching each month, increasing hardware replacement costs. The cost of this maintenance was reduced by switching to MiDesktop, where hardware upgrades are factored into monthly costs and software maintenance is applied to one base image. By switching to the service, we increased work flexibility. The service can be accessed remotely.
Using MiDesktop, we reduced hardware costs and maintenance durations drastically. I would recommend this service to anyone looking to create a more secure infrastructure with increased central administration.“
Greg Baker
Computer Aided Engineering Network
U-M College of Engineering
“Many Michigan Engineering students and faculty utilize software requiring 3D acceleration. Our team uses the MiDesktop service to offer a remotely accessible CAEN Lab desktop.
We worked with the MiDesktop team to create vGPU-enabled virtual desktops. Being able to access a CAEN Lab system and run our full software catalog from anywhere has been very convenient for our users.
As a small team with a variety of responsibilities, the partnership with the MiDesktop team allows us to focus on meeting the needs of our students and faculty and advancing the mission of the college without having to spend time running and monitoring the underlying infrastructure. I count on them to provide a rock solid service.
CAEN has utilized the MiDesktop service for over a decade and we plan to continue using it. I think that speaks for itself.“