Page 32 - Campus Technology, May/June 2018

Sponsored Report
Many Paths to the Cloud
Moving to the cloud is best done following proven migration patterns.
Agrowing number of colleges and universities are turning to the cloud
to host critical business and research applications. It’s easy to see why. Moving
to the cloud help higher education institutions operate with greater agility, take advantage of emerging technologies, and use scalable on-demand computing power to drive cutting-edge education.
There are many factors for campus leaders to consider before moving core processes to the cloud. Moving to the cloud can look very different from one college or university to another. There are dramatically different cloud-based models and migration paths depending on an institution’s needs. What campus decision makers need is a well thought-out strategy for migrating to the cloud, based on proven best practices.
LEVERAGE THE CLOUD
Today’s staff and students demand consumer-like experiences when they’re at work and at school.
They expect technology to deliver the same kinds of conveniences they enjoy in other aspects of their lives, such as the ability to interact and complete transactions easily from a mobile device.
Many of the innovations that power these capabilities, like chat-bot interfaces and mobile applications, only
run in the cloud. The cloud also removes the hassle of managing applications. Colleges and universities can
get the latest functionality—including automatic updates— without having to host and support the technology themselves. This helps institutions focus their resources on improving core competencies of teaching, learning, and research.
“We invest billions of dollars in R&D annually in areas like security, integration, and performance tuning of our cloud technologies and environments so that our customers don’t have to,” says Patrick Mungovan, group vice president for Oracle Public Sector U.S. Higher Education. “There’s a whole realm of possibilities that open up by freeing yourself from
having to focus on your on-premises environment.” Many universities are taking advantage of the cloud’s
elasticity to handle the spikes in high-performance computing needed for complex research projects.
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