Dr. M.D. Sharma (MDS) is a Research Fellow in Exeter’s Center for Ecology and Conservation at the Penryn Campus in Cornwall. He oversees a group of research students in bioscience fields like Genomics and Evolutionary Biology. Dr. Sharma also brings over 25 years of Information Technology experience alongside his research background.

Dr A Cowley (AC) has a research background in Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering, has worked in IT Support roles for around 25 years and is currently a Research IT Officer within Exeter IT, also based at the Penryn campus. This current role supports STEM researchers at the campus and includes running HPC and other research specific systems and GIS, programming and database support.

The Challenge

Researchers often use applications like RStudio, NetLogo, MEGAN, Metashape and Matlab to run lengthy and multifaceted computational analyses. Depending on the size and complexity of the data sets, some computational workloads would run for weeks at a time. Some users prefer to use command line interfaces for their workflows and others opt towards using GUI based workflows.

Initially, the department implemented Dell vWorkspace that enabled publication of virtual desktops and applications to the researchers in a device independent manner. When Dell announced the discontinuation of vWorkspace, the department needed to find a cost-effective replacement that would support their researchers’ workflows.

The team envisioned a proof-of-concept solution that would allow them to create a secure virtual research workspace without relying on full virtual desktops that are generally resource-intensive and grow over time.

The Need to be Environmentally Friendly

The department wanted to extend the life of existing workstations to avoid unnecessary replacement in an effort to be more environmentally friendly.

Also, after a 5 year manufacturer warranty, server hardware can still have considerable utility for supporting research. A number of research colleagues would purchase additional machines to keep ‘under their desk’ for their own computational use which could sit idle while still consuming electricity. Consolidating their computation onto these older servers would remove some need for additional workstation purchases. Combined, these two factors reduce both hardware purchase costs from research budgets and the number of machines that eventually enter the WEEE channels (a UK based regulatory scheme for electronic waste).

The Solution

Inuvika’s previous experience with building virtual research environments created an opportunity to deliver on the team’s vision as well as consolidate the researcher access to applications.

OVD Enterprise supports the Windows and Linux-based applications, required by the researchers, at a much lower cost than competing solutions like VMware Horizon.

“When we looked at the other solutions on the market, they couldn’t deliver the value per money as OVD did.” Dr. M.D. Sharma

OVD Enterprise also takes a “clean room” approach to consolidating and securing data and applications within the data center. Once implemented, researchers would log in and be presented with assigned applications with their choice of a shared Linux desktop interface, Web portal, or seamlessly integrated into their own local mac, Windows, or Linux PC desktop. From there, they simply clicked on the icon and were able to use apps like they would normally do. However, the apps, data, and processing of data never reside locally on the user’s device and instead run on the department’s servers. The data is secured within the data center and computations can run reliably for long periods of time without the risk of external interruptions. OS specific applications running on an OVD application server could then be accessed on a range of local systems which would not normally be possible either because of machine specs or an incompatible OS. The ability to access applications on any device was very appealing to the team:

“I like OVD’s thin client methodology. We can work with Linux applications and remote shared desktops on any type of machine. It’s very convenient.” Dr. M.D. Sharma

After consolidating the department’s multiple CentOS and Ubuntu Linux servers, the team also finely tuned OVD’s Session Manager to load balance traffic in precise ways. For example, suppose one application server required priority user access for a specific type of workflow or user. In that case, OVD can be configured to limit CPU usage and restrict user access to applications outside of the server’s designated workflow. It essentially creates a Qualityof- Service level for priority workflows when needed. During gaps between compute runs, unused computing cycles across the OVD estate could seamlessly and efficiently be made available for other tasks.

The Results

After implementing OVD Enterprise, the team was able to better utilise previously underused compute capabilities while providing researchers with an easy-to-use platform to conduct their workflows.

From a financial perspective, selecting OVD over competing solutions created cost savings and gave the department more room to work within its budget. The department was also able to extend the life of desktops and servers, lengthening the replacement cycle.

“Giving researchers access to applications installed on a smaller number of more powerful systems within OVD will significantly reduce support overhead in areas like installation and updates and make applications available in ways not possible before.” Dr. A Cowley

Finally, OVD’s ease-of-use made access to applications fast and simple. OVD eliminated the need for researchers to know where a specific application is located amongst multiple servers. While some research students were highly technical and could access servers through terminal command line sessions, others relied on a more user-friendly approach for accessing apps.

“With OVD, researchers don’t have to look for an available application server with the apps they need. They just log in and see their apps in OVD. From there, they simply point and click.” Dr. M.D. Sharma

The Future

Now that the most critical Linux applications are available, the department plans to add Windows support to the OVD Enterprise environment. They have identified some specialized applications needed for disciplines like Marine Biology, which are only available on Microsoft Windows.

Since OVD Enterprise is built to support Windows and Linux applications, the addition to the department’s existing environment will be straightforward. Once complete, the researchers will be able to use both types of applications together and within the same OVD session. It is this uncomplicated approach to app delivery that the researchers have come to rely on.
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Canadian Health Systems is a leading provider of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems, group practice management solutions, and professional services to clinics throughout the Canadian province of Ontario. They also offer custom systems and services ranging from Websites to patient portals and virtual care platforms.

CHS used Citrix to deliver EMR Advantage, their flagship electronic medical records system, to the remote clinics as a service. Since many clinics are typically small or mid-sized practices, accessing applications as a service relieved them of the need to set up and manage their own internal IT services.

The Challenge

Shane Ingram is Head of IT for CHS. He joined a team that included Hayley Kash, VP of Operations, who had been dealing with the Citrix portion of their service.

“Many support calls focused on resolving issues related to Citrix rather than the actual medical applications themselves. Even user password management requests became a reoccurring distraction that took up valuable support time. We realized that this was unsustainable.”

Finally, there was cost, which had escalated throughout the years. When Citrix support renewal came up, the senior leadership team decided that a change was in order if CHS were to continue delivering reliable and high-quality services to its customers.

The senior leadership team asked the IT team to find an alternative to Citrix that addressed their problems and was more affordable.

The Solution

The team established their requirements and evaluated all options. In addition to addressing the core problems of performance, stability, and cost, the solution would also have to offer a positive user experience, easy manageability, and reliable vendor support.

The project team evaluated other solutions before selecting Inuvika OVD Enterprise.

Together with Inuvika’s pre-sales and engineering teams, CHS piloted a test deployment using the types of Windows-based applications delivered to their customers as a service.

At each clinic, healthcare providers access applications using a Windows desktop, laptop, or mobile device like Microsoft’s Surface tablet. The Surface tablet offers a unique user experience due to its high mobility factor and ability to use pen-based input. Staff could easily carry the slimline device between exam rooms like a notebook. It also replicated a familiar pen and paper note-taking experience, except information could now be entered directly into a patient’s electronic record.

Since the Inuvika Enterprise Desktop Client (EDC) already supports Windows devices, it was easy for CHS customers to begin using OVD Enterprise. CHS users are also presented with an EDC window visually branded with the CHS logo, making them more comfortable when accessing the system.

The Results – Lower Support Calls

Once the pilot turned into general production and remote users were onboarded, the support team noticed an immediate downward trend in the number of support calls received.

“Overall, we’ve seen a significant decrease in the number of support calls.”

Users also experienced improved stability and reliability, which improved satisfaction and productivity.

The added flexibility of using the Web client was also helpful when staff had to check in remotely from home or another remote location using a simple Web browser.

Label printing problems were resolved using OVD’s Premium USB Device Redirection capability, which addressed the core connectivity issues that troubled the old Citrix environment.

CHS Administrators also benefitted from a more streamlined management environment. The IT team is responsible for managing many applications and users. Having tools that are easy to use can make a big difference in the daily activities of System Administrators.

The OVD Environment provides a single Web-based console, which greatly simplified management. Every aspect of OVD could be managed from a single point, eliminating the need to learn multiple tools and different ways of performing identical tasks.

“The tools are easier to find on a single console, making the system management much easier and less confusing than the Citrix environment. ”

Inuvika’s support team backed up the entire project by providing the CHS team with direct access to support staff during the integration phase and well into the production system phase.

A Cost-effective Solution

OVD’s lean resource requirements allowed CHS to deploy OVD within their existing cloud data center infrastructure. The added benefit of fewer support calls also translated into real efficiencies that were redirected back into the organization and allowed CHS to focus coverage on the other areas of the business.

“We estimate that the final cost of OVD to be about half of we were spending on the Citrix environment based on licensing and support costs alone.”

Moving Forward

With a reliable delivery platform in place, CHS can focus on delivering high-quality solutions and services that improve the health of thousands of Canadians. The team expects to continue growing its presence in the market and, in turn, meet its mission of helping healthcare providers grow their practices.

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The Challenge

The Solution

The Results

The Importance of Security

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Ammolite Enables Leading Engineering Firm to Seamlessly Navigate Rapid Growth and Empower Remote Productivity with Inuvika OVD Enterprise 

Calgary-based Ammolite Technology, a full-service IT solutions provider, is a perfect example of the rapid results our partners are achieving with Inuvika OVD.  As the challenges of 2020 began to unfold, Ammolite deployed Inuvika OVD Enterprise to deliver a complete virtual work-from-home solution for its client, MAC Engineering.

Remote Productivity for Engineering

As a leading engineering design and industrial automation firm, MAC Engineering relies on multiple on-prem applications with specialized hardware and graphics requirements that were simply not possible to access remotely, including AutoCAD and automation programming environments.  The combination of OVD’s rapid deployment and Ammolite’s agility enabled MAC Engineering’s draftsman and programmers to stay on target with several high-priority projects without missing a beat even as workplace restrictions were put into place at the office locations in Calgary and The Woodlands, Texas.

Backed by Ammolite and OVD Enterprise, MAC Engineering has sustained work volume, billable hours, and cash flow with a 100% remote workforce.  The engineering firm continues to benefit from the superior total cost of ownership compared to legacy virtualization solutions and it has completely eliminated the use of VPN.

In addition to seamlessly accessing core business applications remotely, MAC Engineering’s entire team relies on the OVD virtual workspace to easily access personal files and apps.  Rapid deployment, rapid results, unmatched ROI – that’s what OVD Enterprise is all about.

Get the full story >> OVD and Ammolite at MAC Engineering

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NUST has six faculties and 20 academic departments that offer undergraduate and postgraduate programs to over 14,000 students.   The university is widely considered the best Higher Education institution in the country and has won multiple awards at home and internationally.

The Challenge: Find Efficiencies to Support Growth

Breyten Mouton is the Manager of ICT Services in the Department of Information and Communications Technology at NUST.  Since joining the university in 2000, he has seen rapid growth in both the number of PC workstations used, as well as IT staff required to support them.

Information Technology is a strategic resource at NUST. However, the growth in the number of desktop users, together with constant budgetary pressures and aging backend infrastructure, began to threaten the department’s ability to act proactively.  More resources were being used for day-to-day support.  If left unchecked, the department’s efforts to modernize learning through new services would be severely impacted.  They needed to find new efficiencies and maximize the return on every IT budget dollar spent.

Throughout the decade that followed, Breyten and his team implemented several solutions, including VMware Horizon VDI, to address the increasing cost of supporting desktop infrastructure.

None of the options generated the results that the team needed to see. Maintenance and support costs for their VDI environment also proved too high in the end, so a change was needed.   The team’s other major challenge was to deliver new services with their aging mix of back end servers and storage.  They required a new solution that would support them in the future, not just the present.

The Solution: Application Virtualization

The answer was to deliver virtualized applications and consolidate resources onto a high-performance hyperconverged Infrastructure platform from Nutanix.

After carefully evaluating their software options, the NUST team selected Inuvika’s OVD Enterprise to replace their legacy implementation.

The Nutanix platform proved to be an excellent choice for addressing the backend infrastructure issues.  Along with improved performance, they now have a powerful and efficient platform that reduces the amount of time spent managing separate systems and provides a strong foundation for future growth.

The installation of OVD Enterprise on the Nutanix platform was straight forward.  OVD Enterprise has been validated Nutanix Ready for the Acropolis Hypervisor, ensuring compatibility.  The first rollout delivered 90 Windows applications to 600 users, with enough capacity to grow to 1500 or more within the year.

“Inuvika’s solution was the best fit for our needs.  OVD not only addressed core application delivery but also represented an opportunity to lower costs and centralize management.  Also, there was added flexibility to introduce different devices, including thin clients.”

– Breyten Mouton, Manager of ICT Services

The team also decided to replace PC workstations in several student labs with new ClearCube C3Pi Raspberry Pi-based thin clients.

The ClearCube C3Pi uses Cloud Desktop OS, an operating system based on Stratodesk’s NoTouch operating system.  It includes Inuvika’s OVD Enterprise Desktop Client, which provides the best virtual workspace experience for OVD users. Now, students experience the familiar look and feel of a Windows desktop on a low-cost device that is easy to deploy and manage.

The Results: Better ROI and New Efficiencies

The team realized savings almost immediately.  Savings in software licensing and support alone allowed the team to add more users within their existing budget.

By virtualizing applications and delivering them to the new thin client terminals, the number of support resources needed to manage endpoint devices decreased significantly.

“In the past, we used six technicians over two days to perform desktop maintenance and software updates in a student lab which consists of 180 workstations.  After moving to OVD, application updates are now done centrally and made available for use right away. Updates to the Raspberry Pi devices are also performed from a central management console.  Now we use one Level 1 technician to troubleshoot basic issues, while other more resource-intensive tasks have been centralized and dramatically simplified.”

User support incidences also decreased.  After the initial transition period, Level 1 and 2 support incidences are less than half, and user feedback is very positive.  Users describe their experiences as “fast,” applications launch almost “instantly,” and uptime has been exceptional with no unplanned outages to date.

Overall, the IT department has been able to reduce the number of support technicians by 60%, generating efficiencies that are being rechanneled into new services. Support staff are being retrained and reassigned to new projects for the university and its students.

“We plan to create new roles to help us manage our growing list of services, including a Software Administrator to manage applications.  The new efficiencies that we were able to achieve with OVD Enterprise have helped to make this possible.”

The Future

As the IT department continues to restructure, they are already planning for the future.  Other academic units within the university, such as the Department of Architecture and the Faculty of Engineering to mention a few, have taken notice of the team’s success and are asking to have their applications added to the platform.

With expansion already on the way, the scalability of the OVD Enterprise and Nutanix platforms will make the addition of users easy.  The team is also preparing for new all-in-one thin client terminals as well as to support users outside of the labs on tablets, phones, and other non-Windows devices.

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– Genomics England selected Inuvika to deliver the secure virtualized applications and desktop environment for the 100,000 Genomes Project. –

Genomics England Ltd. was established in 2013 to create a new genomic medicine service for the UK National Health Service (NHS). With the aim of enabling new scientific discoveries and medical insights, the 100,000 Genomes Project will ultimately sequence 100,000 genomes from around 70,000 NHS patients and their families with rare diseases and cancers.  The project aims to enable new scientific discovery, medical insights and diagnostics.  When completed, the NHS will be able to offer genomic medicine and personalized treatments to patient with conditions that are currently hard to treat. This will be achieved through the combination of genomic sequence data and patient health records. Today it is the largest national sequencing project of its kind in the world.

Genomics England is a company wholly owned by the UK Department of Health.  In addition to being able to offer genomic medicine to transform the way people are cared for, it also has a mandate to kick-start the UK genomics industry. To be efficient, flexible and able to move quickly with market changes, the company is working with other organizations for sample collection, analysis and data storage. Crucially however, it maintains primary responsibility for data protection.

In 2014, Genomics England set about the design and building of a secure technology infrastructure for clinical genomics research by the contributing academic, industrial research and NHS clinical organizations. The design needed to facilitate secure data access and compute resources and define the software, interfaces and data processing resources necessary for scientific collaboration and the generation of ‘analysis ready’ datasets.

The Challenge

The main challenge was to provide a virtualized application environment required for the analysis and processing of genomic sequencing datasets for access to researchers and clinicians. The environment needed to meet security and patient confidentiality obligations set out by the NHS and the independent Access Review Committee of Genomics England. Researchers needed the ability to download the de-identified results of their analysis.  Clinicians needed to be able to export audited data sets, such as clinical reports, but only on participants in their care.  Any data leaving their systems is required to go through an ‘air-lock’, where checks are made to ensure that the data being exported is appropriate.

To ensure that no raw data could be exported, the processing and analysis of genomic data had to be entirely and securely contained within the Genomics England datacenters.  The design required that system users be prevented from circumventing data policy.  For example, users could not be allowed to ‘cut and paste’ raw data into their own systems.   The design also required that the IT services be provided to approved academic, research and industry partners without the need to authorize, install and manage client side software.

The Solution: Virtualized Applications

Genomics England selected Inuvika’s OVD Enterprise (OVD) platform to deliver the desktop environment, virtualized application access and management framework for the 100,000 Genomes Project.  Through a “Reading Room”, users are provided with restricted, remote access to their research environment and to the de-identified datasets through the OVD HTML5 client gateway and a published Windows desktop.

No data is transferred or stored on the remote HTML5 enabled client.  Only screen, mouse and keyboard data is sent over an encrypted connection.  The policy based access capability of OVD ensures that no unauthorized transfer of data to the end user is possible. OVD disables connection of any client side storage devices, such as hard drives and USB storage, in addition to any cut and paste capabilities.

“We selected Inuvika’s OVD Enterprise for its ability to support the Windows and Linux app requirements of our research environment while being able to ‘airlock’ the project data securely within our datacentres.” said David Brown, Head of Informatics Infrastructure.  “With no need to install client software on a user’s local device and no requirement for firewall intervention on remote client sites it makes secure access for researchers, clinicians, academia and data providers very simple.”

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Tokyo, Japan –  Cross Head Co. Ltd., distributor of Inuvika OVD Enterprise in Japan, announced that OVD Enterprise has been selected as the virtualized application and desktop service for the municipality information security cloud known as “Utility Cloud.”

K-Opticom Corporation, provider of Utility Cloud, has been using OVD Enterprise in a production environment for several municipalities in Osaka, Nara and Shiga prefecture since April 2017.

Inuvika OVD Enterprise provides a secure external gateway connection that enables remote access to centralized web and mail applications from local terminals. As a feature of OVD Enterprise, users can create, modify and delete remote data through a user experience that feels like they are operating locally on a PC or tablet. Actual application data is never transmitted to the device, preventing information leakage from local terminals and enabling regional municipalities to access central government information safely. Cross Head Co. Ltd., as distributor of Inuvika OVD Enterprise, will continue to provide customers with high-quality services and secure network segmentation solutions so that more customers can use it with great satisfaction.

For more information about Cross Head Co. Ltd. and OVD Enterprise, contact:

TEL: 03-5793-3376

E-mail: [email protected]

About Inuvika and Inuvika OVD Enterprise

Inuvika is a Canadian company with offices in Toronto, Vancouver, and Caen, France; and a partner network in 27 countries. Inuvika OVD is a virtualized application delivery platform that is easy to manage through a single web admin console. It allows users to access Linux and Windows apps from a single user interface on any device and operating system. Users can access their virtualized apps through an HTML5-compliant web browser, or on native clients available for Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android. Contact: [email protected]

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BT is one of the world’s leading providers of communications services and solutions, serving customers in more than 170 countries. The BT Connected Science portfolio provides managed IT services to support the life sciences value chain. Pharmaceutical companies, contract research and other biotech organizations around the globe rely on BT solutions to support their business.

The Challenge

Within a highly regulated and changing industry, pharmaceutical and life sciences companies are continually striving to improve the value they offer to their customers. There is a critical need to get safe, effective medicines to market faster. From early R&D through to clinical trials, licensing, manufacturing, sales and marketing, there is a heavy reliance on the efficient and secure exchange of information. In fact, collaboration between organisations is now a key enabler. However, the barriers to meeting IT demands are many, not the least of which are up-front costs, speed of implementation, security and compliance.

The Vision

In identifying the challenges faced by the industry, the Connected Science team within BT Global Services realized that the requirements of a solution went far beyond that of a simple shared web portal. To improve time-to-market, pharma companies need to take advantage of the power and flexibility of cloud computing. This includes using technologies such as computer simulation or ‘in silico’ studies to accelerate research. Security of data and information confidentiality are also paramount as is the need to manipulate very large data sets. Their resulting vision was to create a customizable, flexible and scalable cloud based service. A service that would extend and connect teams across geographic and organisational boundaries, allowing them to upload documents, share files, quickly access familiar applications and run complex computational tasks in an intuitive environment.

The Solution

To realize their vision, the team required a delivery platform that presented BT’s Workbench Informatics solution as a ‘single pane of glass’. The solution needed to enable access, from any browser equipped device, to environments tailored to meet the exact needs of their target clients. Inuvika’s OVD Enterprise was selected as the access mechanism into BT’s Cloud Compute infrastructure, for its ability to deliver a common platform for remote and secure access to large-scale projects. The Workbench Informatics solution effectively ‘airlocks‘ data to the data centre while providing access, in a matter of seconds, to data sets that extend to several petabytes. This enables team members to collaborate while meeting strict regulatory requirements.

Peter Shaw, Head of Partner Development at BT Connected Science said, “OVD gives us the ability to recreate, in the cloud, the same Windows or Linux desktop look and feel, pre-loaded with the Windows and/or Linux applications and datasets that scientists are familiar with. These environments are secure, easy to use and very scalable.”

BT’s primary selection criteria for their virtualization technology partner was the ability of the partner to be flexible in the development and support required to integrate the solution. Mr. Shaw commented, “Inuvika’s Open Source-as-a-Service approach helped us to tailor the platform to meet our specific needs and eased integration of other technologies.”

From a service deployment point, Mr. Shaw also commented, “OVD has minimal if any requirement for customers to amend firewall configurations. There’s no need for the installation of client device software and we have the ability to lock down desktop integration with remote client environments. Also, the user group membership capability makes management and provisioning of user access to data and applications very simple.”

With the help of Inuvika OVD, BT’s connected science vision became an even stronger proposition.

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The Université catholique de Louvain is located in the heart of Belgium. It has almost 600 years of history with six campuses and 14 faculties in science and technology, human science and health sciences. It serves 28,700 students of 127 nationalities with the mission to educate, conduct research and advance the local and scientific communities at large. The IT department of UCL manages the delivery of IT services to, among other users, faculty, staff, researchers, students and visitors to the nine campus libraries. The IT department’s vision is to offer their users a mobile and “work from anywhere” IT experience with the freedom to use their own devices to access University resources.

The Challenge

The challenge UCL faced was to deliver a diverse set of applications, designed for different operating systems, to many different devices. Traditional application delivery methods in use, such as automated scripted installation, did not support their vision of work from anywhere and required device intervention and management. The scope of their requirement was to build a long-term partnership that would allow for the development of a solution that adapts to student’s and researcher’s needs. The resulting solution needed to be an open, web-based platform. It had to offer an on-demand service that supports both Linux and Windows simultaneously with universal access from student and faculty owned devices. UCL also required that the solution be delivered in a cost-efficient manner, preferring to avoid large capital expenditures for an OPEX model.

The Solution

During the evaluation phase, UCL explored various approaches from traditional methods to a fully hosted virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). The University uses a wide variety of applications, from statistical and modelling tools through to productivity tools developed for both Linux and Windows platforms. By its very nature, a dedicated VDI desktop is restricted to either Windows or Linux. When coupled with VDI’s heavy and demanding infrastructure requirements, particularly when scaling a solution to many thousands of users, it was discounted early on as the primary solution. In contrast, the Inuvika OVD Enterprise platform with its hosted shared architecture is efficient and lightweight. It offers the flexibility of seamless delivery of both Linux and Windows applications through a unified web portal to HTML5 enabled clients. Simple to administer, OVD removes barriers that a traditional distributed approach imposes, while not demanding extensive compute resources that a dedicated VDI solution requires.

Benefits

With the introduction of Inuvika’s OVD as a delivery platform, the IT team at UCL are now able to offer their users the flexibility of location, choice of device and secure access to a large catalogue of applications. Centralised delivery and control ensures that requests for applications can now be fulfilled instantly rather than the hours or days it may have taken in the past. UCL prides itself on fostering opportunities for research and development with both academic and commercial organizations. With close to 3000 researchers, 2000 PhD students and nearly 1,000 research agreements signed each year, research is truly one of the driving forces of the University. Erin Dupuis, IT director responsible for endpoint systems and software distribution said “As a university, we are keen to exploit the partnership opportunities that free open source software offers. The chance to work on this project with the Inuvika team supports the UCL culture. Inuvika’s technology is a secure, flexible and mature foundation. OVD is simple and cost efficient to deploy, support and manage. Additionally, OVD vastly improves the speed at which we can implement collaborative research projects.”

What’s Next?

The next phase of the project is to scale the initial 200 concurrent user implementation to the thousands of campus users over the next year. Improved software usage reporting will enable better accounting of software assets and drive efficiencies in licensing management. Meanwhile, the team continues to enhance its capabilities for collaborative research with the planned integration of data sharing, social media and web based applications.

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