The Need for Standardization
The level of standardization needed in the cloud is one of the most difficult aspects for campus IT shops to accept, according to Armstrong. Before a migration can even begin, the data must first be cleaned up, which can involve significant effort depending on how it has been collected over time. And once the service is in the cloud, IT staffers must recognize that they cannot simply customize it as they see fit.
In the view of Cornell’s Dodds, the propensity of IT shops to customize applications for the perceived unique needs of their institutions is a mistake. “There is a tendency for universities to emphasize how they are different rather than how they are the same—we all want to be our own snowflake,” he said. “But, underneath it all, a lot more is the same from university to university than really is a differentiator.”
Encouraging universities to accept a level of standardization in the cloud is one of the goals of Internet2’s Net+ initiative, which strives to provide its members with access to a suite of scalable cloud offerings specifically tailored to the needs of higher education. Blackboard, Azure, Canvas, and Box are among the dozens of cloud services and applications currently available through Net+, all of which are peer-reviewed by other higher ed institutions for security, accessibility, and performance. “Instead of having universities deploy services with huge diversity locally, they can consume cloud services in a much more common way,” explained Waggener.
While some IT shops may chafe at efforts to standardize technical cloud specs, standardization can actually help minimize the upheaval felt in other departments on campus. For instance, Net+ expends a lot of effort negotiating baseline contracts for each cloud service, which can be a real boon for university legal offices that often have little or no experience dealing with cloud contractual issues.
“Once a cloud service is on Net+, it really helps speed up the negotiation phase of a contract,” said Workman. “Net+ goes through a really huge workload to get the contract to a point that they think is sufficient. Universities, on the other hand, don’t have a whole team of negotiators available to work six months on every contract.”
Whether a school works through Net+ or not, cloud deployments will inevitably cause some disruption in departments that work closely with IT. At Ivy Tech, for example, the finance department struggled with the concept of costing in the cloud. “Internally, our folks were used to us buying an asset like a server that they could list as a capital expense and depreciate over three or five years,” said Hensley. “But it doesn’t work that way in the cloud—you pay as you go. It took some time for our finance folks to understand the concept of utility computing.”
Focus on the Mission
While the organizational changes required by the migration of enterprise services into the cloud can be daunting, the alternative—doing nothing—is not a viable long-term strategy. External pressures for greater security, better performance, and lower costs will ultimately push even the most heel-dragging naysayers into the cloud. As painful as these changes may be, schools must also recognize that the cloud offers a way to free themselves of commodity IT in favor of initiatives that ultimately benefit their institutions even more—and help differentiate them from other schools.
“Seventy percent of our cost structure is people,” said Dodds. “If we can find ways to take that 70% and apply it as closely as possible to the mission, then we are doing the right thing for the university.”
Andrew Barbour is a contributing editor for eCampus News.
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