In the old days, Education and the Public Sector invested in expensive hardware to run applications. This would include servers, network hardware, cabling, data centers, cooling, electrical upgrades, real estate, and a long-term internet contract. They have had to over-provision for their busiest time. These costs tended to repeat as technology changed.
Today, with the cloud, organizations need less capital investment. Expenses move from capital to operating expenses. They can even start up in the cloud at no cost. Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a free tier! IT can also turn off servers at night when they are only used during business hours saving money. With the cloud, you only pay for what you use.
IT can scale up (bigger, more powerful servers) or scale out (more servers) as needed and when needed. The actual need determines whether to go quickly or slowly. In the cloud, servers can even be set to auto-scale. Resources automatically expand when needed and, notably, scale down to save costs when the resources are no longer required.
AWS protects the security of the cloud. They provide physical security and resiliency/ redundancy of the data centers. Availability zones (AZ’s or groups of data centers) and regions (geographically isolated areas with AZ’s) compound resiliency and redundancy. The cloud also excels at backup and disaster recovery. Besides the ability to replicate over AZ’s and regions, the cloud has built-in backup, replication, serverless architecture, and security services that further improve resiliency and security. Many of these are at no additional cost.
The cloud offers many avenues for organizations to improve efficiency, one area for innovation. They can adopt cloud-enabled business process automation and “going paperless” in ways more potent than district data centers offer. The cloud can tap into Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is unavailable in data centers. Machine Learning (ML) takes process automation and digitization to new levels.
Advanced data analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning can bring new insights to address equity. New insights enabled by the cloud could bring ideas to close opportunity gaps. Cloud data capabilities can help ensure educators meet the needs of each individual student.
Not all students have powerful computers, as some rely on only a school-issued Chromebook. With the cloud, that opportunity gap disappears. A Chromebook or any home computer with an internet connection can tap into all the powerful applications streaming from powerful computers in the cloud.