In the informational interview I chat with Mohamed Noor Harun, the Head of ICT Department of Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (UNIRAZAK). Mohamed, have a plenty of experience in the Information Technology (IT) especially in the higher learning industry. Mohamed shares his knowledge and experience about the cloud computing adopted higher learning industry.
Me: Cloud computing is a significant alternative in today’s educational industry, can you briefly explain how cloud computing can be adopted by higher educational institutions?
Mohamed Noor Harun: Cloud computing can be adopted in few areas in any higher learning institutions, for example in the data center. In the data centre we can employ or deploy the cloud computing for the network system infrastructure. For example we can use cloud computing to do anything that are related to the network infra such as active directory, DNS, file server and so on.
Another area, we can use the virtual desktop environment for the end user so that we can deploy virtual office application. So instead of using normal desktop for the end user, we can deploy the virtual desktop for the end user.
Another area, cloud computing is used for backup purposes. Currently most of the backup running in the tape or physical server itself so by using cloud computing we can use cloud computing platform as backup facilities. So whatever server or application that we have we can use virtual server in the cloud computing to do the backup
Cloud computing can be used for the business continuity planning or disaster recovery facilities. So we can use cloud computing to do the disaster discovery. Whatever critical or main server that we have in the data centre we can deploy in the cloud computing platform.
Me:What are the driving forces behind the current interest in cloud computing in higher education?
Mohamed Noor Harun: There are few important forces for UNIRAZAK, for example, ICT service department play an important role in supporting the business operations. The other factor is we are streamline for the excellence services to the students, staffs and other stakeholders.
The third one would be ICT service department has been looking for better, efficient and effective way or solution with less budget for our operation, so cloud computing is one of the good approach to do that.
Me: How can cloud computing be a realistic solution for higher education to provide an effective learning environment?
Mohamed Noor Harun: Cloud computing could be a good solution, provided few important area or criteria that can be look carefully. For example cloud still new even though it has been around for the past three or four years I think. But in term of maturity it still not that matured so we have to look in term of maturity of the cloud computing, its reliability and also its security.
The other one is the readiness and acceptance of the university itself whether the management or the technical staffs are ready for the cloud computing technology.
The next one would be in term of cost versus effectiveness and efficiency whether by deploying cloud computing would be cost less compare to existing hardware base infrastructure and whether that could be more effective or more efficient compare to existing setup.
The next criteria would be we have to take care or make sure the ISP or internet server provider itself either the cloud computing service provider or the ISP which provide the inter connection to the University is reliable to provide the good service to us
Another criteria that we have to look into is in term of legal issues, what happen if for example whatever what we store or we have in the cloud the computing infrastructure can be access or broken by somebody who do not have the authorizes itself so we have to look at the law which govern the cloud computing. At time being we do not have any law on that. So this is quite critical factor that we have to look into.
Me: What are the challenges to adopt cloud computing in university generally and UNIRAZAK specifically?
Mohamed Noor Harun: Cloud computing is still new to everyone. So this is the main challenge, when we talk about knowledge and skill everybody is still looking or learning about cloud computing. We are also the same. The next one is in term of experience and reference. It is quite scared that very little shared experience by others so we have to look around and play around with the technology itself by our own to get our own experience.
The next challenge could be education, most of the end user or management there are still lack in term of awareness about what cloud computing is all about. So we have to educate and we have to make sure that the end user and management is well aware about the cloud technology.
The other challenges would be in term of risk management. Risk is quite high if for example ISP or internet service provider cannot guarantee their service level properly. If the ISP also cannot guarantee on the internet link reliability so that part is quite risky.
The same goes to the legal matter when anything that got to do with our data. If any unauthorized access and so on we have to deal with service provider and other third part for example the internet link provider so that risk we have to mange properly. So these are the challenges that we have to look. As for our plan for the cloud computing, basically we have done our own Research and Development and testing on cloud environment since 2010, so last year and this year we are doing all those testing.
For the next year for example we plan to have our own pilot implementation for the network system infrastructure but this one will be base on our private cloud computing. The same goes for our application database where we wish to plan to do it in next year also and for virtual desktop we plan to do it in 2013. So basically our first phase would be for the private cloud computing implementation rather than the public.
The public cloud would be our second phase where we would deploy our backup somewhere in 2014 and then the second stage for the public would be for our selected application somewhere in 2015.
So for the final stage we would have two different cloud platforms, one is the private and the second one the public. Anything that critical and important to our university would be run on our private cloud and those that mean for the public would be running on the public cloud. The same goes for the backup and disaster recovery, where it will be running on the public cloud. So that are our plan for the cloud computing.
Me: In your opinion, do you think that cloud computing would become widespread in the educational field, and why?
Mohamed Noor Harun: For the educational field I think there is a mixed acceptance by the institution some would say they would take the risk and deploy the cloud technology within the environment but I think most of them would rather deploy or implement their own private cloud computing first then some of them, I would say less critical or less important application can be deploy to the public cloud computing.
So I think this is the safer approach or strategy for any university to adopt because anything that goes within their own private cloud, they still can be manage and handle properly by their own staffs. Whereas the public cloud, if the application or server that are not that critical so it still can be manage properly since there would not have any legal or security issue so I thing that would be the approach adopted by the university.
One that I said early is the private cloud computing the other one is the public cloud. Those that are not critical will goes on public where as critical would go only on private cloud.
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