VCL (Virtual Computing Lab) is NCSU’s primary resource for remotely accessing compute resources. VCL consists of on-premise (on-prem) resources and resources in public clouds. On-prem resources are compute resources physically located in NCSU datacenters. Public cloud resources are located in places such as Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) cloud or Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. Where resources are located doesn’t matter much to users. Although, how the resources are accessed may vary by where the resources exist.

VCL aims to provide users with a simple interface to connect to the remote computing resources needed for academic study and for some support of research.

VCL provides access to both Windows and Linux based systems. Due to Apple licensing, no OS X resources are available through VCL.  With some exceptions, Windows based resources are primarily accessed through AVD, and Linux resources are on-prem.