DediPower is expressing support for HEFCE’s planned £12.5 million investment designed to deliver efficiencies to Universities through shared services in cloud computing infrastructure and applications.
DediPower confirms that virtualisation, the technology behind Cloud, is ripe for exploitation by educational organisations prepared to pool their resources and share infrastructure in an environment optimised for today’s digital learning platforms. It also throws out a caution to HEFCE to ensure that any new Cloud platforms are fully supported with stringent SLAs and contracts that allow for future enhancements and system flexibility.
Chris Miller, CEO of DediPower, comments: “With virtualisation, we are able to achieve rapid roll-out of storage capacity in a fast-access, collaborative environment. With Cloud infrastructure, SaaS applications can be launched across all linked universities, colleges and schools in a matter of minutes – irrespective of size, scale or location.
“Our experience shows that Cloud offers substantial cost savings to any organisation that is dependent on digital content and access; however it must also be properly designed, delivered, supported and controlled. Security, data safety and integrity are crucial and the HEFCE will have to ensure that outsourced Cloud programmes include stringent SLAs to ensure the best solution for Universities today and tomorrow. ”
With up to £10 million of the HEFCE’s investment planned specifically for cloud computing and shared IT infrastructure and support, DediPower envisages much of this will cover virtual servers, storage and data management applications. Miller explains, “Centralising infrastructure in this way allows servers to be optimised to provide better performance at the lowest cost; while reducing risk by safeguarding against outage, downtime and data loss.”
Already working with leading educational SaaS providers including UniServity, SAM Learning and Semantise as well as educational providers including the College of Emergency Medicine, DediPower is well aware of the challenges that face the sector.
Miller concludes, “With intense pressure on funding and resources, it is vital that any investment demonstrates clear performance benefits – improving teaching, student development, research and administration. It also has to deliver a viable return through cost savings and efficiencies. Properly managed Cloud can do all this and more. We are delighted that the further educational sector is now embracing Cloud with the funding necessary to make it succeed.”
For more information, visit www.dedipower.com
