Are You Cloud Ready?

By Jerry Smith

Higher education is moving to the Cloud, but very few colleges are ready to take the leap. When it comes to Cloud computing, leadership becomes so focused on selecting the "right" solution that they often overlook the most critical step: planning and preparation. When an institution moves to the Cloud, everything changes—from business processes to staff’s roles to budgeting and procurement. In order to determine if your college is ready to take the leap, there are four questions you must consider:

 

1. Are your people ready? 

Moving to the Cloud, means that your organizational model will change. IT leadership and staff will no longer be responsible for hardware, software, and keeping the "IT factory" running. Their focus will shift to managing the IT services catalog, identifying business process and automation needs across the institution, and negotiating with and monitoring the performance of service providers. A "Strategic CIO" who understands emerging technologies and how to use them to improve student success and operational efficiencies will be invaluable. Information security will still be a major concern, but the focus will shift to the security of your third-party providers and the services they deliver.

Technical roles will also change. No longer will you have to recruit and retain positions that require hard-to-find talent, such as database administrators, systems administrators, storage area network specialists, and other specialized roles. Instead, you’ll rely more heavily on business analysts and functional technologists who work within the business and academic units across the institution to ensure that Cloud technologies are effectively leveraged to reduce administrative burden and enable office staff to spend more time supporting students.

Your people are a key component to the success or failure of your Cloud migration. Don’t short change them by rushing into the transition. Spend time upfront to ensure that all faculty and staff understand how their roles and responsibilities will change, maintain a high-level of communication throughout the transition, provide ample opportunities for input, and offer training/retraining to help them become comfortable in their new roles.

2. Are your processes ready? 

Cloud solutions are based on standardized business processes that reflect best practices in higher education. In the Cloud environment, administrative systems, student information systems, and the like are built with some configuration in mind, but no customization. Think of it this way: Cloud services are like Gmail—everyone uses the same software but Google is responsible for handling the updates. If your college depends on customizations, shadow systems, or in-house developed applications, they will need to be decommissioned and the underlying business process reengineered before moving to the Cloud. Given this, it’s essential to conduct a Business Process Review that compares your current processes to the vendor’s processes, so you can identify which areas are at risk of being disrupted. 

For example, if your Financial Aid Office relies on customizations and workarounds to package students, moving to the Cloud without proper planning and preparation will cripple their efforts, possibly prohibiting them from dispersing student aid in a timely manner. Careful planning, removing customizations, and standardizing business processes before starting the technology migration to the Cloud will ease the transition for everyone and prevent student/employee disruption.

3. Is your technology ready? 

When it comes to technology, there are a host of details you must consider before moving to the Cloud, including the quality of your data and the availability of a clear data dictionary and data structure maps. The old saying, "garbage in, garbage out" applies to the Cloud. In this way, a Cloud migration is similar to implementing a new campus-based system; it’s chances of success are only as good as your data is clean.

Another major technology consideration is the integration of third-party systems you currently rely on, such as data warehouses, learning management, degree audit and human resources. These integrations will need to be rebuilt or at least redirected as part of your migration. In addition, your Cloud provider may not be capable of hosting your campus-based third-party solutions, so you’ll need to consider whether you want to continue using your on-campus data center or develop an alternate plan. Furthermore, you must determine if your internet capacity can support the Cloud model, which relies on the ability to transfer information that previously resided on the campus network over the internet. 

These are but a few examples of the technology concerns that must be addressed before moving to the Cloud. Given this, a Cloud Readiness Assessment is an essential first step in developing a Cloud strategy and preventing costly mistakes.   

4. Is your business model ready? 

Moving to the Cloud will also impact your college’s business model—specifically how you budget and purchase technology. No longer will you have to plan for occasional large capital projects to replace data center equipment and infrastructure, nor will you have to manage unexpected equipment failures with contingency funding. In the Cloud model, that burden shifts to the provider, and services are delivered for a fixed cost each year—which will likely be funded by your operational budget. Thus, Cloud services have the advantage of providing predictable budget requirements, but the disadvantage of requiring those expenditures every year. Thus, it is no longer possible to use a "rob Peter to pay Paul" type of capital budget strategy for IT—which is either good news or bad news, depending on where you sit.