You can access HMDC-managed systems from your desktop workstation, from workstations in the public labs, or from workstations outside the Harvard network, by means of our robust and secure remote access service.

One advantage of our remote access service is that user sessions can be suspended and resumed at will; this means that you can begin a session from an office workstation, suspend it, move to a lab workstation and resume the previous session, suspend it again, and then move to a home computer and resume the same session, all with no disruption of your environment. During this time the location and contents of windows remains consistent, processes and applications run without interruption, and any interface customizations remain in effect.

Our remote access service provides a familiar, consistent user experience to all HMDC affiliates. Since the RCE is built on open standards and does not require specialized or proprietary software, you can access the full Research Computing Environment from any modern workstation with a graphical user interface and a high-speed internet connection.

Remote access provides three categories of services:

• Research Environment (graphical desktop)
• Secure Shell (command-line tools)
• File Access (home directory)