The Possible Impact of Cloud Computing on the Liberal Arts College
For meanings of cloud computing equal to SOA, managed services, software-as-service, etc.
Here’s my short list of potential effects:
- network, network, network. Are you ready for more traffic, more reliance, more network monitoring?
- wireless, wireless, wireless. If you’re offering more networked services, then you’ll also need more network connections. That means wireless.
- IT staff. Are they ready? See this article G-lo mentions below. Do your staff truly understand the interrelatedness of your current operation and any reliance on location-based components? And, are you building expertise in converged networks and virtualization?
- Are you ready? Do you have someone who can manage contracts and who can work well with your lawyers on security and privacy concerns? What about your organization as a whole? Are you still going to require a department called “database services”?
- Administrative departments: are they prepared to no longer be limited by local expertise? Suddenly, it’s not about what we can do for you, it’s about what is truly needed or desired and what’s the most effective way of meeting your need.
- Academics…. ahhhh, here’s the final frontier. See (5) and add to that the possibility of creating research opportunities in liberal arts college on par with larger universities. High-performance computing on demand was made for smaller groups with smaller budgets where there are no local economies of scale.
just some end-of-the-day thoughts… and, or course, YMMV. and, perhaps I have it all wrong.
Kyle said:
Nov 12, 08 at 7:11 pmAll your questions depress me. Or rather the honest answers I would give for my institution depress me. We’re not even ready for the turn of the century network revolution, never mind the one coming in the next two years. Every time I start discussing SaaS or off site hosting, all my staff hunker down and start spouting the same old arguements against it. They just don’t see that if their position doesn’t provide a direct value add to our constituents that I’m probably better off out sourcing it.
Sometimes I think I could run the whole operation with four or five good people and lots of off site software and service delivery.
admin said:
Nov 14, 08 at 5:46 pmKyle, I think you could run the entire operation that way… Frankly, I wonder if the CIO will even have a strategic role in the future…
Kyle said:
Nov 17, 08 at 7:07 pmHey, it’s strategic to decide to outsource everything. 😉 I think the strategic value will come in how you leverage the technology into the learning experience. If all you do is the administrative apps, the systems, and the network, then you are just a little cog.