AstonApps

AstonApps is the new web based software portal and is the new location where you go to launch all the applications you need.  Not only does it show you all the applications installed locally on the PC, it also shows you applications that we can deliver to the PC over the network in real time.

How it works

After you log in to a University PC the AstonApps portal will open and, after accepting the terms, you will be logged in automatically.  You will then see a grid of all the applications that are available to you on that PC.  This list will vary depending on a few things:

1. Location - If a piece of software is only installed in a specific room, maybe due to license restrictions, it will only show as available when you are in that room.
2. School of study - Not all software is available to all Schools so if you have friends on different courses they will have different software listed on the portal.

The portal shows a list of all the software installed on the PC, along with all the software that we have made available over the network.  This uses a technology called Cloudpaging which basically streams an application to the PC, a bit like streaming a video.

You can see further information about an application, including how it is available, by clicking the 'More Info' button under the application's icon.  A search box is available to help you easily find an application or application toolbox/plugin.

Cloudpaging

One of the big advantages to using Cloudpaging is it allows us to make an application available on more PCs than we have in the past.  For example, you can now use any PC in the Library to run BlueJ, Eviews or Wordsmith.  Currently about 90 percent of our applications are available via Cloudpaging and we are working hard to add more applications as quickly as we can.