The Progression of Cloud Computing in Further Education Colleges
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The Progression of Cloud Computing in Further Education Colleges A study based on Cloud Technology projects managed by the Association of Colleges and funded by the Skills Funding Agency - 2012 - 2013 November 2013 Contents 1. Executive Summary 2. Introduction 3. Summary of Findings 4. Project Outcomes 4.1 Student and other Relationship Management in the Cloud 4.2 Finance, HR and payroll Services in the Cloud 4.3 Disaster Recovery in the Cloud 4.4 Employer/Business Focused Applications in the Cloud 4.5 Learner Focused Applications in the Cloud 4.6 Virtual Learning Environment (VLEs) in the Cloud 4.7 E-mail and Storage in the Cloud For each of the above areas: - Needs and Opportunities - The Projects - Similarities and Differences - Details of Delivery Models, Supplier Relationships, Service Level Agreements, Project and Change Management, Impact, Savings, Sustainabilty and Expected Longer Term Impact, Replicability 5. Conclusion Executive Summary This report describes the early experiences of 34 projects in planning and implementing the movement of selected IT applications to the cloud. It should be of value to Colleges who are considering moving applications to the cloud. The report highlights the emerging benefits of moving to the cloud. It identifies the risks and the mitigation strategies to manage these. It shows the potential of cloud technology to meet College stakeholders’ rapidly increasing demands for IT capacity, complexity and accessibility. The report provides a snapshot of experiences to date including early impact. The full impact of these projects will be evident in the coming months, with a follow-up research report being developed during 2014. The current report shows how Colleges are: using cloud technology to develop Student and Other Stakeholder Relationship Management Systems in the Cloud, which integrate web applications, CRM and MIS applications. These systems provide key information to learners and record their engagement with the College from the point of enquiry onwards. This also informs parents and employers; increasing their business efficiency through developing Finance, HR and Payroll Services in the Cloud, which enable self-service access by Curriculum Managers as well as Finance Staff; meeting the business-critical demands of Disaster Recovery in the Cloud through agreements with cloud data centre providers and processes which include data encryption and consideration of the location of data centres; supporting the needs of employers and learners through the development of Employer-/Business-Focused Applications in the Cloud, such as by supporting, tracking and recording work-based learning using Google Apps; supporting anywhere/anytime learning through developing Learner-Focused Applications in the Cloud, such as virtual desktops, Google Apps and mobile learning; migrating Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) to the Cloud, to support increased access and flexibility for learners and collaborative working between Colleges to share learning resources; migrating Email and Storage to the Cloud, to provide greater resilience, improved access and flexibility, such as through the use of Google Mail or Microsoft Office 365. As an overview, many of these projects are already reporting savings and these will be reviewed again in the coming months. For some, improved service is seen as the significant benefit. Colleges have experienced some challenges in upgrading their bandwidth to the levels required by their applications. Valuable experience has been gained in supplier selection including selecting cloud hosting and specialist IT partners. Some common challenges have been identified in migrating to 365 and with authentication issues generally. Experiences have been shared by Colleges who have implemented single sign-on facilities. Some projects address increased access to learning for those with physical or learning disabilities. Many of these projects are replicable in other Colleges. A number of projects are part of Shared Service approaches, where the development costs, overheads and benefits are shared by a group of 1 Colleges. These Colleges work to a common set of business standards and processes. A number of Colleges have emphasised the importance of using formal project management methodologies. This report illustrates initial findings and is naturally limited by the information available at this point in time. Many projects are ongoing and will be reviewed into 2014. The Association of Colleges (AoC) has captured information over the lifetime of the programme and further detail can be found on the AoC Policy section of the website (www.aoc.co.uk/cloud_computing). The report concludes with some areas of desirable further research. This includes the need for forensic studies of IT costs in Colleges. 2 Introduction The context within which the projects described in this study were commissioned, funded and managed is the rapid uptake of cloud services in the public and private sectors over the last five years. In 2008, an article in The Economist noted that, ‘The rise of the cloud is more than just another platform shift that gets geeks excited. It will undoubtedly transform the information technology industry, but it will also profoundly change the way people work and companies operate’1, a statement that made clear that the maturing of cloud technologies would go on to transform business processes and have a significant impact on the economy. The trend to the widespread adoption of cloud technologies was given further impetus by the publication of the Coalition Government’s ICT strategy in 2011. The development of the Government’s ‘G-cloud’ would, it was argued, improve efficiency, resilience and security because, “Cloud computing delivers infrastructure, platform or software as a utility service, giving government the capability to respond to changing operational needs. The standardised cloud platform will also allow developers, especially SMEs, to generate innovative solutions.”2 As cloud technologies matured, and as government departments and agencies began to adopt cloud services, an increasing number of suppliers began to enter the market with the result that rate of adoption of cloud technologies began to increase. One result of this trend was that funding became available to allow publicly funded organisations to respond to the opportunities presented by the cloud. The Collaboration and Shared Services Board, established by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), allocated £1million for cloud projects from the Shared Services Grant Fund, managed by AoC. The aim of the Board was to progress cloud computing in Colleges through the provision of funding of a range of projects. Colleges were invited to bid for individual projects by completing an Invitation to Tender (ITT) that had been written by AoC and other partners in the Shared Services project. The ITT allowed Colleges to bid for project funding provided they met the definitions of SaaS or IaaS described below. The ITTs were assessed by independent experts, the AoC Innovation Committee and the Shared Services Board, before contracts were drawn up for the successful applicants. A total of 36 bids were selected covering a range of projects involving Colleges and commercial suppliers. 34 projects are now running, with two that did not go ahead; these projects are being managed by the AoC project management team. 1 ‘Special Report on Corporate IT’, (The Economist, 2008) 2 Government ICT Strategy, March 2011, Crown copyright 2011, p.14 3 The purpose of this report is to review the progress of cloud computing in Further Education (FE) Colleges. This is based on the development projects which were managed by AoC and funded by the SFA from 2012 onwards. The projects are divided into two categories: Software as a Service (SaaS) when software and its associated data are hosted centrally by the cloud computing provider and the organisation accesses it when and where required. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) when a College effectively outsources the IT equipment used to support operations. This includes storage, hardware, servers and network components. 29 projects were funded in the Software as a Service category and five in the Infrastructure as a Service category. In practice, some projects fall into both categories. Colleges have complemented this funding with their own resources to plan and deliver projects which meet their specific needs. This approach has enabled the FE and sixth form College sector to gain valuable experience of a wide variety of ways of implementing cloud computing. The Colleges involved have reported the gained and expected benefits and the challenges encountered. The projects address the following areas within a College’s operations: Area Number of Projects Student and Other Stakeholder Relationship Management in 3 the Cloud Finance, HR and Payroll Services in the Cloud 2 Disaster Recovery 4 Employment / Business Focused Applications in the Cloud 3 Learner Focused Applications in the Cloud 9 Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) in the Cloud 7 E-mail and Storage in the Cloud 9 A number of projects are in more than one category. For each of these areas, project outcomes have been analysed, where applicable, in terms of: Delivery Model Supplier Relationships Project and Change Management Service Level Agreements Impact Savings Sustainability and Anticipated Impact Replicability 4 Due to the differing nature of these projects, some projects have reached completion, whilst others are still in progress.