An academic cloud model for enhancing operations efficiency in the public universities

Abstract

The cloud computing paradigm has become an acceptable and adoptable technology in today's world.Its' an advanced technology that provisions ubiquitous computing resources such as hardware and software applications in a data center on a utility and pay-on-the-fly basis. The growth of cloud computing has been envisioned in many economic sectors to foster productivity and efficiency in the changing global economy. In order for organizations to retain customers and offer quality services, they have to keep abreast with changing innovations which are costly and expensive to maintain. Thus, cloud computing offers a platform for these organizations to have access to these technologies at an affordable rate as they only pay for what they have consumed. The Education sector has not been left behind in the adoption of cloud computing. Funding pressures, advancesin IT field, the need to accommodate and improve the academic performance of the ever increasing population are some of the major reasons that have compelledinstitutions of higher learning to adopt to cloud computing services.The major objective of thisresearch is to develop an education cloud model standard that will also make use of the existing computing infrastructure. The study also presents a review of related literature on cloud computing implementation by various research scholars who have also delved into the technology.The researcher has also explored how public cloud can be integrated with private cloud created within the institution to offer the services to the different users. The researcher has examined and analyzed the existing methodologies and highlighted how the proposed methodology will integrate all the services. If implemented, institutions will be highly reliable due to ubiquitous information that can be accessed from any location, improved data security and integrity, scalability of information and a greater return on economic value, since the institution will only pay for what it consumes.