Challenges of Cloud Adoption in Higher Education
“Cloud sprawl occurs when different departments within an organization, such as a university, start using cloud services independently, without central coordination. Imagine the research department using one cloud service, the administrative office using another, student services using yet another — all to quickly meet their needs without waiting for IT approval,” says Justin Hurst, CTO for Asia Pacific at Extreme Networks in Tokyo. “This can lead to rapid solutions and innovation, but it also creates a tangled network of cloud services that are difficult to manage, secure and optimize.”
Hurst says the term “cloud” includes everything from big enterprise apps like Microsoft 365, to personal storage apps like Dropbox, to infrastructure-as-a-service platforms like Azure for building applications. “This diversity can easily cause cloud sprawl to get out of hand, especially since most users are not technology experts, and we often need to help users distinguish between IT-delivered resources, consumer-level technologies, and enterprise cloud solutions.” Hurst adds that when different services pile up without proper oversight, confusion can drive up costs and even create security risks.
Identifying and mitigating the impact of cloud expansion
Cloud sprawl is an unavoidable reality for many universities, but with the right tools and strategies, it can be avoided.
“If you're using a software-as-a-service solution, you might have stood up Teams or SharePoint sites, and you can get caught in the trap of sprawl because of how easy it is in your environment to create virtual machines, team sites, groups, and SharePoint resources for your average frontline user,” says CDW SaaS solutions consultant Justin Wagner. “You have a lot of resources that don't necessarily need to be around for the long term.”
But determining whether cloud sprawl is a problem can be difficult. You first need to gather information.
“To identify cloud sprawl in higher education, you must first address the people aspect. One of the most effective ways to gather information from staff and departments is through surveys, interviews, and regular meetings where faculty and administrators share their cloud usage patterns and needs,” says Hurst. He adds that this process helps create a culture of open communication and collaboration between IT and other departments, which is crucial in uncovering “shadow IT.”
“Shadow IT refers to the unauthorized use of cloud services and applications by employees, often without IT's knowledge or approval. Understanding the specific requirements that drive the use of different cloud services can help prevent the rise of shadow IT and the resulting cloud sprawl,” adds Hurst.
Continue reading: How to consolidate IT operations when universities merge.
Wagner says there are some advanced ways to restrict access to shadow IT, such as Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps: “For example, if a domain name is in Dropbox or Google space, it will detect that and send an alert to IT.”
But Wagner adds that a more proactive and direct stance could be to let users know that they shouldn't take part in shadow IT and to create an open communications policy so that they feel they can reach out if they need anything and be part of “building a good IT culture.”
