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Guest Viewpoint

Ohio Takes to the Clouds

In an effort to improve efficiencies, boost services, and cut costs, the University System of Ohio is moving to a cloud-based model for communications technologies. Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut shares his insights about the benefits he expects to realize from this approach.

  • By Eric D. Fingerhut
  • 10/22/09

When I was appointed chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents in 2007, one of my first priorities was to rethink how higher education in Ohio does business: making education more affordable, maintaining the highest quality of teaching and learning, and contributing more to the economic prosperity of the state. We must continually evaluate our business practices to put into place broad and systemic changes that can sustain our top-notch institutions, empower our faculty members, and enrich our students, whether in Ohio, where we operate, or across the country.

In February, I created the Advisory Committee on Efficiency for the University System of Ohio and charged the team with continuously monitoring successful investment and productivity strategies by working with our colleges and universities to identify efficiencies, with the goal of spreading these best practices throughout the state. Creating and improving efficiencies within the System is a key goal outlined in the 10-year Strategic Plan for Higher Education. I'm happy to say that we've found areas where institutions across the state can better share resources, cut costs, and implement savings strategies that will not only help the system continue to improve and focus more resources on serving its students but, ultimately, contribute to the economic development of the state.

Technology has been a focal point of innovation for the system and, specifically, in our effort to create a more integrated technology infrastructure that in some areas will reduce spending to build and maintain separate hardware and software systems for individual organizations. I believe that this effort will result in significant management efficiencies, so we did not take the job lightly. I tasked my efficiency team with evaluating and selecting a suite of products and services that would further reduce expenditures and further encourage collaboration for colleges and universities across the state.

Through a new partnership with Microsoft, we are able to expand and extend a cloud computing approach to a suite of messaging software packages for the public institutions of the University System of Ohio, as well as to private colleges and universities. As an example, the partnership allows us to take advantage of bulk purchasing discounts for Microsoft's Exchange Online, an e-mail, calendar, contact ,and task service; the Live@edu collaboration and communications service; and soon, Office Web Apps, a lightweight version of the company's Office applications.

As an additional benefit, the Exchange Online package is based on a cloud-computing model where the vendor owns and maintains the servers that host the software applications that are made available to each participating campus through high-speed connections to the statewide, fiber-optic network operated by OARnet, the University System of Ohio's technology infrastructure and operations arm. This arrangement will allow the state's education institutions to maximize limited resources and redirect strategic funds to more directly impact our students and keep critical software in-house.

Finally, as a cloud-computing participant, we will be adding to our portfolio of practices in "Green IT," a national initiative to reduce IT-related costs, increase productivity and improve performance, while minimizing environmental impact.

Governor Strickland and the members of the Ohio General Assembly have made funding of higher education a priority in a tight budget that has required some very difficult decisions. In fact, every time Ohio has faced challenging times in the past, its leaders have turned to higher education. Therefore, the University System of Ohio will continue to make the most of the state dollars that we receive in order to provide Ohioans with the education they need to compete in today's job market, ensure Ohio's businesses have the world-class talent and research they need to create new jobs, and serve as a powerful magnet to attract educated workers and capital investment to Ohio from around the world. This partnership is another step in this continued effort.

Comments

Tue, Oct 27, 2009 Vinni Alaska

The expense involved in salaries alone to maintain in house Enterprise solutions (Exchange, Cisco Unified Messaging etc.) is considerable. Recruiting staff with those skill sets is very difficult given that Higher Ed IT pays far less than the private sector. I agree completely with the author, Educational institutions need to focus on the primary mission; education, not Enterprise service administration. The term "one deep" is also a very real issue that needs to be considered. As Instructional or Distance delivery technologies continue to increase in scale and complexity, outsourcing or cloud-sourcing Enterprise services will be inevitable in order to deliver those instructional technology services in a flat budget environment. Another issue that needs to be addressed in Higher Ed Technology discussions is a change in process (TPACK) to coincide with the deployment of technologies. Changes in process (efficiency mechanisms) could actually negate the need for some technology expenditures.

Mon, Oct 26, 2009 Jason Seattle, WA (collaborating with M80, representing Microsoft)

University IT employee raises some good points which I'd like to address. For the question about an incoming "open records" request, you'll have to clarify. Both private-sector companies and universities face similar challenges with data protection. For the question about costs, a large enterprise, like Microsoft, has the advantage of scale to reduce operating costs. Also, the university is actually renting computer resources instead of buying hardware and software. For organizations that are more easily able to pay a low per-month fee than a huge upfront cost, the model makes more financial sense.

Fri, Oct 23, 2009 Brion

Could computing is a very useful way to share files and information.

Thu, Oct 22, 2009 Kim Gordon Earth

Cloud solutions are obvious for any organization who would like to return to "core competencies". One of the colleges we have worked with is looking to sell it's data center, reduce it's HR investment in technologists and "cloud source" most of it's IT. End result: The school returns to it's primary mission, the IT infrastructure is scalable, and it capital investment is better managed.

Thu, Oct 22, 2009 Cam Spillman St. Louis MO USA

These and other services have been available "in the cloud" for some time - both proprietary and open systems based. Collaborative communications and email systems will soon be so commoditized in the cloud that they will simply be part of the plumbing. IMHO the challenge here is the movement of core applications such as SIS and LMS into the cloud, and not simply bolting a vendor portal layer onto the legacy system. Look to OpenSIS and others in this space for early leadership.

Thu, Oct 22, 2009

A bulk purchase agreement from Microsoft is great for saving money, but isn't there even more money to be saved? I mean, isn't a Google solution completely without cost to the university system and isn't the Google solution more mature and proven?

Thu, Oct 22, 2009 University IT employee Texas

First, what happens the first time they get an "open records" request for information in their email system? Second, while MS might get equipment at the lowest per unit commercial cost of any business in the world, Universities are tax exempt and do not make a profit and are alos manufacturers darlings, so unless MS is doing this at no profit or at a loss - how can they offer the service for less "net cost". A State government/educational system's per unit costs are typically much cheaper than any commercial business'. This applies to labor costs too, since student workers are typically cheaper than anyone other than foreign outsourced labor and labor rates for full time University employees is also typically much less than MS pays.

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