The Cloud In Education

Guidelines: some other barriers to implementation

According to a KPMG survey of Cloud providers, the single biggest reason for choosing Cloud services was to lower costs. However, providing evidence of cost savings is one of the biggest challenges as initial costs may be high. There are lots of other cited concerns and barriers to adoption. This section reviews some of them.

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What the research says ...

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The European Commission identified some key barriers which limit uptake. They suggest adoption is slowed by concerns surrounding legal jurisdiction on elements like privacy and specific data regulations on security that must be met. However these conditions are being addressed by EU funded projects like the CloudWATCH initiative.

Some other issues, like poor understanding of the potential of Cloud Computing technologies and the need for e-leadership are dealt with elsewhere in these guidelines.

At a local level, increasingly staff will have to monitor the rapidly evolving landscape of Cloud Computing and plan ahead. The roles of teachers, learners and managers is likely to evolve.

It is likely that in your organisation there may be many barriers to Cloud Computing adoption, based on decisions making about the technology, the organisation and external factors.

Oliveira suggests there are three local contexts in an organisation: technology, organisation, and environment

Technology - the technological readiness of the organisation - this relates to the internal and external technology relevant to the organisation and the possible technologies that are available for adoption.

Organisation – leadership support and the organisation size - based on the characteristics of the organisation like structure, size, managerial system, centralization, resources and the formal and informal communication processes among staff

Environment - this includes the pressure of competition (success) and external regulations

Oliveira, T., Thomas, M. and Espadanal, M., (2014). Assessing the determinants of cloud computing adoption: An analysis of the manufacturing and services sectors. Information & Management, 51(5), 497-510.

So what are the barriers to its adoption?

In a study entitled “Cloud in Europe: Uptake, Benefits, Barriers, and Market Estimates” research firm IDC surveyed European business users and consumers. IDC’s research uncovered 12 key obstacles ranging from where the Cloud data is located and security issues to slow performance and limited tax incentives for capital spending.

But the majority of survey respondents (62.2 percent) cited four specific barriers, primarily related to data control:

1. Legal jurisdiction: Where the does the service reside? Where does the data reside? What if I don’t want my data stored in a specific country?

2. Security and data protection: Who is responsible for security, data protection, and backups? What happens if something goes wrong?

3. Trust: How can the most reliable services be identified? Who guarantees data integrity and availability?

4. Data access and portability: Once a contract is signed, how much interoperability will there be? Can the different services be changed and the data moved from one service provider to another?

Control over the data is the common denominator for these issues, and Europe has been tasked to take steps to respond to this. The CloudWATCH Project has been examining many of them and provides advice to maximize the benefits of Cloud adoption.

Those surveyed offered clear suggestions on what the EU ought to do, including establishing specific rules on service provider accountability; guaranteeing application and data portability between services; implementing an EU-wide Cloud security certification program; clarifying and harmonizing data residency and legal jurisdiction regulations; and fostering EU-wide standardization of Cloud services.

Challenges faced

The challenges faced by your organisation might create several barriers to change, these may include:

• an excessive focus on the costs
• a failure to perceive benefits
• a lack of coordination and cooperation
• the threat of uncertainty and
• the fear of losing something

Legacy: resistance to making the change

Most organisations have existing non-Cloud systems they have developed over many years in response to their particular needs. The members of staff who have developed it and operated it will feel an emotional attachment to it.

Maintaining existing systems while Cloud transition takes place is also an issue. Creating a 3-5 year plan to transition to the Cloud should be a priority.

The Cloud requires a very strategic and thoughtful approach to implementation. So, a good Cloud service provider will work with your staff and break down this resistance to Cloud adoption by giving them ownership of the organisation's Cloud-based project.

A staff skills barrier may exist in your organisation. So a professional development programme will be necessary to enable the system you decide to implement.

Loss of Control

IT Service staff may feel they don’t control remote Cloud operations. This can lead to negative perceptions.

In response to this, small Cloud operations should be introduced for non-critical operations, with accompanying training for your staff to operate them.

Data Security

Security and compliance concerns are considered the number one barrier to Cloud adoption. The biggest challenge is likey to be in overcoming the persistent perception that the Cloud is inherently less secure than data that is housed on-premises. Research shows that Public Cloud environments are actually safer than physical locations. Having an awareness of potential security threats and ensuring counter measures are in place will be important.

Once an organisation has a policy in place and an in-house system that satisfies the regulations, change can be challenging. Sensitive data may need to remain in-house while others, like the organisation Web site can moved to an external Cloud. Such a hybrid situation is likely to become common.

Data Privacy

Recent revelations about the activities of security agencies and some large corporations based overseas naturally make organisations here worry about who will have access to their data if it is processed in a Cloud.

You can control the physical location of your data. There are some EU-based organisations who can provide Cloud services with a guarantee that your data will not leave Europe.

Cost

A common perceived barrier to Cloud adoption is cost. A shift to the Cloud may seem costly when your organisation has already invested a significant amount of capital and operational expenses into the existing infrastructure and the staffing to manage it.

Any service needs to be paid for every year, whereas traditional in-house provision is an investment over a number years. If you have a data centre, keep it. Specialists can help you transform it into a Private Cloud system so that your operation is Hybrid Cloud enabled. Cloud. Minimising the external space keeps costs down and maximises the use of any existing hardware.

Summary: Top 5 barriers to cloud adoption - and how to break them down

The benefit of a Hybrid Cloud system is that when implemented strategically, it allows you to get the most out of the Cloud provider’s services as well as your existing infrastructure.

Cloud migration

There are various online recommendations to support Cloud migration in education. For instance see the Association of Colleges Guide, or the blog on 10 Vital Steps or the Cloud Standards Customer Council Guide.

The Cloud Migration Cookbook provides a comprehensive review of moving your organisation onto the Cloud.

Migration to the Cloud can be divided into a number of stages, to Identify, Evaluate options, Implement and Follow Up.

Stage 1: Identification

The first stage is to analyse the current status of the organization’s IT services and identify the fundamental objectives of service improvements that can be brought about by migrating to the Cloud. Quality indicators should be identified giving a well-defined scope for the improvements being faced.

Stage 2: Evaluate options

The second stage is to evaluate the opportunities and challenges of adopting Cloud Computing. Organisations like ENISA, the Cloud Security Alliance and NIST have developed comprehensive guides to help your team evaluate the benefits and risks of adopting Cloud Computing.

Many references are available to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of a Cloud-based approach for your organisation. Methods to handle any identified issues can be researched and solutions for each of them should be established.

Stage 3: Action

Now you need to determine whether to adopt the Cloud Computing services or not. If the answer is yes, an implementation plan should be drawn up. A 5-step plan as follows.

• Step 1: Determine the Cloud service type (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) and deployment models (private, public, community, and hybrid Cloud). Each of these has its own benefits and risks.

• Step 2: Compare different Cloud providers as they will offer different service models, pricing schemes, audit procedures, and privacy and security policies. Assess the provider’s reputation and performance.
• Step 3: Obtain assurances from the chosen provider in terms of quality of service and sound privacy, security, and legal practices and regulations. Qualitywill probably include on-demand access, pay-per-use, rapid-elasticity, ontime troubleshooting support, and operational transparency. Privacy and security covers data confidentiality, integrity, availability, authenticity, authorisation, and non-repudiation. The provider must assure that the data, including all of its backups, are stored only in the geographic locations permitted by contract, service level agreement, and regulation.
• Step 4: Consider future data needs as your organisation may have to move data and services to another provider or into an in-house environment. Data portability must be considered as part of the plan
• Step 5: Start a pilot implementation suitable for providing proof of the advantages of Cloud Computing for your organisation.

Stage 4: Follow-up

Deploy the Cloud Computing infrastructure and develop a follow-up plan. The plan indicates when and how to measure any service improvements. Reasonable targets are established beforehand.

Here are some tips which may help your organisation be successful in its Cloud transition:

1. Make Cloud transition a continuous process.

To realize true long-term benefits from Cloud, its adoption should not be just another technology implementation project, but rather a transformative journey spanning from strategy through execution.

2. Drive Cloud transition from the top

Organisations need a clear decision-making hierarchy when implementing the Cloud. Cloud transition projects should be led and managed centrally, with senior-level leadership overseeing the process.

3. Focus on strong leadership and engagement

Getting cultural alignment through all parts of the organization is essential to managing the change associated with the Cloud. Managers, teachers and administrators should work to establish an Cloud culture at the beginning, focusing first on getting the support of the different parts of the organisation.

4. Integrate change

The implementation of the Cloud succeeds when organisations are able to embed change into every aspect of their activities.

5. Measure success

Realistic and measurable targets for Cloud implementation should be set and progress towards achieving them monitored and celebrated. This helps the organisation to know when milestones have been reached and stay focused on achieving strategic goals.

More information

Leaders and managers need to consider

• What sensitive data needs to remain private and protected?
  
• What level of protection is required?
  
• Who needs access to the data?
  
• What laws and jurisdiction that govern information apply to their organisation and are they likely to change over time?

Be sure to look for a solution that allows those managing the data to configure the Cloud systems with the appropriate data protection protocols that overcome where the data is stored and security obstacles.

Barriers to Government Cloud Adoption

Cloud Adoption Practices & Priorities Survey (2015)

Cloud Computing concerns in the public sector (CISCO)

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