What are the most prominent lingering concerns that campus IT administrators have about moving more data into the cloud?
“Many clients do not know how to properly vet or qualify a commercial datacenter. Cloud hosting is much more than a cloud server. What additional security measures do they need? What certifications does the datacenter have? Properly handled, outsourcing provides more control and a more secure environment.”
—Gus Ortiz, program manager, managed services, Jenzabar
“Campus IT administrators are concerned about data security, information privacy, indemnity of data incursions, and equity, especially in ERP and administrative cloud operations. They want to know the long-term ROI involved in moving on-campus operations to the cloud. With viability and savings being realized in practice, the future of cloud services is optimistic, but only time will tell.”
—Keith Fowlkes, vice president, technology, E&I Cooperative Services; executive director, The HESS Consortium
“Security, access and integrations. IT administrators are aware of the evolution of IT services toward cloud delivery, especially around SaaS models, but might still have doubts about whether their data will be secure and accessible. Once these concerns are addressed, the question is how to evolve the integrations across systems that might have been developed a long time ago into a new cloud model.”
—Emiliano Diez, senior vice president of cloud operations, Campus Management
LINK TO MAIN ARTICLE: High ed’s journey to the cloud
“A lot of IT administrators still have concerns about the security of moving data into off-site servers that aren’t managed by the school. In actuality, most companies [that] offer cloud-based services have entire, specialized teams dedicated to ensuring the security of their customers’ data.”
—Rachel Lo, product marketing manager, Meraki
“For IT administrators, one of the biggest concerns is the culture gap around cloud, and how willing different groups—professors, administrators and students—are to embrace cloud. However, through proper training and education, the cloud can be a useful tool that improves learning, collaboration and the on-campus experience.”
—Joe Farace, cloud client executive, CDW-G
“With higher education IT teams still realizing the benefits of cloud technologies, we find there are ongoing data concerns around managing complex integrations with the institution’s ERP, learning management systems and surrounding systems—all while maintaining security, and protecting the institutional reporting strategy with data in so many locations.
—Laurel Stiller, senior manager, SAP Concur Higher Ed
“Education and research institutions struggle with data governance, from data ownership to data use to data preservation. Many campus IT administrators view moving data to the cloud as further complicating data governance, instead of a solution. Data is everywhere in education, and research institutions are making it even more difficult to analyze data for making informed business decisions or conducting research.”
—Keith Rajecki, senior director of industry solutions, Oracle
Esther Shein is a Massachusetts-based writer whose focus is on technology, business and education.
