Cloud computing in higher education: implications for South African public universities and FET colleges

Cloud computing is a rapidly evolving paradigm that enables institutions to access computing resources as a service directly over the Internet. This model is radically different from current on-premise deployment strategies in part because it shifts the burden of owning (licensing) and operating (support and maintenance) the often complex computing environment to a third party called a cloud provider.  Typically, the cloud provider pools computing resources into one data center and uses technologies such as virtualization, multi-tenant architectures and service oriented architectures (SOA) to consolidate multiple institutions(referred to as tenants) onto one operating environment, in the process allowing them to share both computing resources and staff. With this computing model, cloud providers are able to leverage massive economies of scale to significantly reduce the cost of providing ICT services to their tenants. Tenants use the Internet to access cloud services on an on-demand, pay per use basis or by paying a regular monthly subscription. There are three main categories of cloud services: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). Currently, there are 23 public universities and more than 50 Further Education and Training (FET) colleges spread across South Africa’s nine administrative provinces. It is common for these institutions to have several campuses. Presently, each institution owns and operates its own IT systems in-house, with little or no integration between them despite these systems automating fairly similar tasks characteristic of higher education environments. Adopting the cloud computing model for selected tasks within the higher education sector can bring huge benefits to these institutions. For example, sharing resources such as expensive hardware, software and technical expertise can significantly lower the overall IT costs because available resources are better utilized and the costs are shared between multiple institutions. Cloud computing also makes it easier for smaller colleges and universities with limited resources and in-house capacity to gain access to cutting edge IT resources that they would otherwise not be able to procure and operate on their own. The cloud computing model is particularly suitable in cases where IT services and functions can be standardized and offered to many tenants without extensive customization to fit individual needs. This paper argues that public universities and colleges share many similar operational processes such as course offerings, admissions, enrollments, bursaries, research and graduations that can be standardized across the higher education sector, and offered as a set of services to the many colleges and universities in a more cost effective way than is currently the case. Granted, cloud computing is not without its challenges and risks, but it is argued here that its benefits and opportunities far outweigh the risks. The results obtained from a survey conducted among public universities and FET colleges within South Africa are presented and analyzed. The results shed some light on the current state of cloud computing adoption within the South African public higher education sector, the main factors that fuel its adoption, the main barriers that impede its adoption and the direction it may take in future as it matures.  Keywords: Cloud Computing, Higher Education, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, Virtualization, Multi-tenancy