Case Study: Oregon State University achieves fast, scalable virtual desktops and enhanced remote learning with VMware Horizon and vSAN

University Enriches Educational Opportunities with VMware Solutions

Oregon State University’s College of Business faced rising demand for resource‑intensive classroom applications—data analytics, 3D design and remote learning—while constrained by a limited IT budget and an aging SAN. Traditional desktop labs couldn’t scale fast enough, causing latency, occasional outages, user logins of up to 20 minutes and recomposition times exceeding 10 hours.

The college deployed VMware Horizon virtual desktops with VMware vSAN (plus NVIDIA GRID vGPUs and zero‑client endpoints), replacing legacy desktops and SAN infrastructure. The change cut lab login times to under one minute, supported ~190 concurrent users, reduced recomposition to under two hours, avoided a $100K SAN purchase (and lowered hardware costs by about 75%), and enabled scalable, high‑performance remote and hybrid learning that enriches curriculum and job readiness.

Oregon State University

Alan Sprague

System Administrator