BetaGarage Solution
Submitted by RC Mullins on November 9, 2006 - 12:10pm.
Here is what I think would be great. Our university relies on software liscensing just like any other organization. This makes it difficult to control and use software. Usually what ends up happening is that a few people end up with the software while the next semester students are left out in the cold.
An example:
Instructor teaches web development with Dreamweaver as a product to build with. Students end up with a crappy 'trial' version of the product that lasts 30-60 days, not even enough for a full semester.
Solution:
What would be great is if we were able to create our own VPN with a BetaGarage and install BareMetal machines in the labs, so students could go and use these appliances.
I know that we need to work with MS and Adobe for liscensing, but what I would like to know is if it is possible for us to create a situation similar to Moka5 where we use the Moka5 BareMetal, but instead of going to the Moka5 BetaGarage it goes to our Virtual Beta Garage?
This would be an awesome product that could be sold to universities.
Private BetaGarage's
RC - currently you cannot run your own BetaGarage. We have gotten that request from many people and we are considering the idea.
One thing you could do for now is host the LivePCs on your own servers with access control based on client IP or HTTP authentication. You could then add the LivePC to our BetaGarage with the "LivePC Privacy" option enabled. This addes the LivePC to the BetaGarage in such a way that it will not appear in the public listing at http://www.moka5.com/livepc, but you can use our BetaGarage to manage updates.
This will create the necessary connection between the LivePC Engine and the LivePC images on your servers, but only users who could authenticate to your server would have access.