Like a wide range of industries, higher education institutions have adopted cloud solutions that offer a variety of immediate and longer-term benefits specific to the needs of universities and colleges.

Cloud computing is especially effective in supporting content services platforms that aggregate documents and information across multiple repositories to connect disparate applications. Content services are integral elements of a comprehensive digital transformation strategy, according to Gartner.

By moving to the cloud, higher education institutions can support the current shift to virtual learning, which may become a long-term trend and give IT staff more time to focus on improving the student experience and ramping up virtual learning programs. In addition, cloud access enables remote, work-from-home processes and empowers staff by providing access to information with intuitive experiences on any browser or device, from any location

AnIDG surveyof CIOs, CTOs and other technology leaders companies with 250+ employees found three top three reasons to adopt cloud solutions all directly relevant for higher education.

Disaster recovery. Sometimes, the worst happens. Cloud solutions offer better disaster recovery capabilities, including the ability to replicate content in multiple locations. For higher education, that means students and staff can get up and running as soon as possible after an emergency.

Data availability. Like any organization, colleges and universities need 24/7 access to mission-critical information where and when they need it as soon as they need it. Cloud solutions can increase uptime.

Cost savings. Compared with on-site hosting of software solutions, hosting in the cloud reduces operational costs, including staffing, overtime, maintenance and physical security. With higher education institutions under pressure to contain costs, cloud hosting offers a way to stretch your budget.

Cloud-based content services deliver value whether they are used in a single department or across the campus. For instance,John Carroll University(JCU) in Ohio wanted to eliminate manual, low-visibility tasks in its academic petition process through which students request and seek review of academic overrides and petitions. JCU implemented cloud solutions to improve processes and reap the benefits without extensive training required. That allows the university to invest more in professional development rather than installing software on each users computer.

Three keys to success in the cloud

Because of these benefits, the options and choices relating to cloud technology have expanded significantly. Nearly every content services provider offers a cloud platform. In evaluating options, here are three factors to consider in choosing the right partner:

1. Ability to meet needs across the campus.An integrated set of capabilities helps reduce reliance on overlapping point solutions as well as data fragmentation. Administrators need simple, configurable tools that empower them to easily build solutions and integrations with core applications. By giving systems the ability to share data, end users focus on students instead of searching for information.

2. Easy upgrades.Cloud-based technology should enable convenient, frequent releases and a streamlined upgrade process. This is especially important when an institution may have deployed multiple solutions. Scalability is key to ensuring all users can access the best, latest versions. Even for institutions that may have just a few solutions deployed, ahosted infrastructureenables institutions to move more quickly than a system managed on-premises. By increasing deployment speed, institutions enhance ROI.

3. Preventive accountability.When there are problems at the campus data center, it is essential to minimize downtime and that need increases with each solution deployed. A comprehensive solution should provide a full suite of safety and security features, including disaster recovery, data availability, incident response, geographical disbursement, and access to experts. Its essential that your partner offer secure data centers around the world to deliver 99.99 percent uptime and availability. You need a seasoned team of cloud professionals available 24/7/365 to provide you with oversight on governance, risk, compliance, security, network and infrastructure, database services, and support.

With the impacts ofCOVID-19, the technology needs of higher education institutions will continue to evolve, and many changes are likely here to stay, such as virtual classes and work-from home options. Behind the scenes, forward-looking institutions will be relying a lot less on on-premises infrastructure and a lot more on the cloud.

By making documents and information more readily and easily available, youll earn top grades from your end users, IT staff, and most importantly, your students.

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter @MarketScaleFacebook facebook.com/marketscaleLinkedIn linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Original post:
3 Keys to Success for Using Cloud Solutions in Higher Ed - MarketScale

Amazon on Tuesday said its billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, would step down as chief executive officer and become executive chairman after nearly 30 years at the company.

The transition will promote the companys current cloud computing head, Andy Jassy, to the next chief executive of the company, as Bezos hands over the reins for the first time since he founded Amazon and oversaw its evolution from small online bookstore to ubiquitous retail juggernaut.

Jassy, 52, joined Amazon in 1997 after Harvard Business School. I took my last final exam at HBS, the first Friday of May in 1997, and I started Amazon next Monday, Jassy said in a Harvard Business School podcast in September. No, I didnt know what my job was going to be, or what my title was going to be.

Jassy went on to found Amazon Web Services, according to the companys website, a cloud hosting product that creates the infrastructure used by millions of companies, schools, and governments to run websites and apps.

In the years since, AWS has grown into a cloud platform used by millions that dominates legacy players like Oracle and Microsoft.

The company now owns almost half the worlds public cloud infrastructure market. It boasts a dominant 30% market share of the cloud computing market.

Competitors are eyeing Amazons top spot, however, with Microsoft and Google announcing growth in their cloud computing businesses in the fourth quarter.

His promotion underscored the importance of web services to Amazons future, said Tom Johnson, chief transformation officer at Mindshare Worldwide.

Jassys background in steering AWS shows just how top-of-mind those services are to Amazons business strategy, Johnson said. It will be interesting to see how that affects their strategy and balancing that priority with a growing ad business and the commerce behemoth.

Bezos said in a letter to staff on Tuesday that he had full confidence in Jassy. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have, he said. He will be an outstanding leader.

Bezos added that he would stay engaged in Amazon initiatives. But I will also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, the Washington Post, and my other passions, he wrote. Ive never had more energy, and this isnt about retiring. Im super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have.

Jassy is known for understanding technical details, and has bestowed a rock-star aura to keynotes at AWSs annual Las Vegas conference. He has occasionally spoken out on social issues, tweeting about the need for police accountability after Breonna Taylor, a Black woman, was killed in her home by white policemen during a botched raid, and in favor of LGBTQ+ rights.

Amazon said it was not announcing an AWS replacement for Jassy yet.

Go here to read the rest:
Who is Andy Jassy? Amazons new CEO ushered in the era of cloud computing - The Guardian

Lord Holmes, the Conservative life peer, said it was important theGovernment did not rely too much on one supplier.

"If AWS is reached for as a solution to all, it's not too difficult to see where that road leads...What we're currently seeing is the latest iteration of the biggest player being able to eat the largest piece of pie," said Lord Holmes. "That should be at least of significant interest to the private sector as well as the public sector."

Lord Maude, the former minister for the Cabinet Office, said: "When it comes to hosting, we've regressed into allowing a small group, and one vendor in particular, to dominate.

"If you take a view of the Government as simply as a customer, it makes absolutely no sense for the Government to be overly dependent on one supplier. No one would sensibly do that."

The comments follow an industry roundtable this week, organised by British cloud supplier UK Cloud, into the issues with the current procurement system.

Suggestions at the roundtable included the Government bringing in external advisors to assist onprocurement, ensuring technical expertise. Names such as Stephen Kelly,the former chief operating officer of HM Government, and Dame Margaret Hodge MP also were attending.

Baroness Nicky Morgan, who chaired the event and acts as an advisor to Grayling, a lobby group that is understood to have previously worked with UK Cloud, this week said there remained "alot of work to do across Government to ensure procurement capability is improved".

Others, however, have warned against an "outright protectionism" when awarding contracts.

Robert Colvile, from theCentre for Policy Studies said:The Government already has a strategy in place to ensure that it doesn't depend on one supplier for cloud computing. But that must not shade into outright protectionism, or 'buying British' purely for the sake of it.

"It's clear that the priority - as with all our procurement - should be to get the best quality at the best price.

The Government is preparing for an overhaul of its procurement processes. In December, it published its "Procurement Green Paper", which detailed planned changes to itsprocurement rules, including ways it could increase transparency and provide more opportunities for smaller domestic businesses to bid for government contracts.

A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: "Amazon Web Services is just one of the Governments thousands of cloud service providers and our procurement decisions are always based on getting value for taxpayers and the best quality services."

Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.

More:
Tory grandees weigh into row over Amazon cloud contracts with government - Telegraph.co.uk

Cloud computing has become routine, as anyone accessing word documents from work through their smart phone can attest. However, cloud computing has begun to impact every aspect of audiovisual production and distribution. What is cloud computing for video processing and delivery, and what are the points for and against it?

What is Cloud Computing for Video Processing and Delivery?

Cloud computing for video delivery is commonplace. Someone creates the video and uploads it to an account on the cloud. The video is made available to their paying subscribers or the general public. The cloud host may have a single copy of the file viewable to whoever searches for it. Or they may have dozens of copies of the file distributed across data farms around the world to minimize delays and meet high demand.

Cloud computing for video processing generally refers to someone accessing video editing and processing software through an account. You use software maintained by the service, and you can choose to save your files there. Publication moves the video from your working files location to the cloud services public facing servers.

What Are the Benefits of Cloud Computing for Video Processing and Delivery?

The benefits of cloud computing for video processing and delivery are the same as many other cloud computing applications, though there are addition benefits for video hosting and streaming media services. Cloud computing can scale up almost immediately, and it can be scaled down almost as quickly. This is true in terms of memory and bandwidth. And youll only pay for what you need. For large institutions, shifting to the cloud lowers the cost to store and distribute each video, as platforms like YouTube can attest.

Depending on the cloud computing service you use, you can access a wide range of software applications at a relatively low cost per employee. Allow your video editor or animators to access the same high-end software as your rivals. Furthermore, when they can store the video to the cloud, the files are accessible to other team members no matter where theyre located. A side benefit of working in the cloud is that the files are backed up along with everything else. You dont risk losing your newest commercial or livestream because someones laptop was stolen or corrupted by malware.

Cloud computing is starting to include the entire video delivery chain from content management to online ads. Moving to the cloud so that your files are seamlessly integrated with these other tools is invaluable.

What Are the Risks and Downsides of Cloud Computing for Video Processing and Delivery?

As several free speech social media startups learned, one of the risks of cloud computing on a Big Tech cloud is that your service may be cut off if the companies that control the servers decide they dont like you. Your video distribution could be limited because they dont like the topics you cover or even because the keywords associated with the video are considered problematic.

You can eliminate this risk by choosing a cloud that is on-premises. Or you can balance the cost-savings with greater control by choosing a hybrid model for your video and cloud computing. You could then control what data is stored on the cloud and what is saved inside your own network. That can protect critical data from hackers while giving you access to enterprise-level software applications.

Whatever model you choose, youre going to have to balance cost with intangibles like disaster recovery.

Continue reading here:
What is Cloud Computing for Video Processing and Delivery? - CXOToday.com

HOSTNOC might not have the same level of popularity as some of the established players in the market but it is a new player that is worth keeping an eye on. With an umbrella of services and products designed to fulfill diverse business needs, HOSTNOC is here to give IT service industry market leaders a run for their money.

What makes HOSTNOC stand out from the crowd is its bang for buck proposition. By delivering top of line hardware at affordable prices, it is making technology more accessible for small and mid-size businesses. With so much going for it, we decided to give HOSTNOC a try and here are our thoughts.

Introduction

HOSTNOCis one of the newest entrants in the IT service landscape that offer something for everyone. Whether you are looking for a dedicated server, cloud server, VPS server or web hosting, you will find all that under one roof so you dont have to go to other service providers for different services.

HOSTNOC uses modern hardware to deliver unrivaled performance. The flexibility and scalability of their solutions make it an ideal choice not only for current but also for your future IT needs. With thousands of satisfied clients and counting, you can rely on them. HOSTNOC guarantees99.99%uptime and when you combine that with round the clock monitoring and backup services, you get a perfect combo that gives you premium support you wont find anywhere else.

Here are some of the reasons why you should choose HOSTNOC over other options.

What really makes HOSTNOC a worth considering option is that they do not cut any corners or make compromises on key areas such as performance despite the low price. As a result, you get the users to get superior performance without breaking your bank.

With HOSTNOC99.9%uptime guarantee and round the clock customer support, you get peace of mind.Add to that the real-time security monitoring and daily data backups, you can rest assured that your data is in safe hands. HOSTNOC takes things a step further by offering DDoS protection to ensure your business doesnt have to face downtime in case of a DDoS attack.

When you factor in all those features and compare it with affordable pricing plans, you get the best value for your money. HOSTNOC makes dedicated servers accessible for even small size businesses and startups by offering them at cheap rates. Want to reduce the burden over your IT teams shoulders, you can opt for HOSTNOC managed services. They offer managed services for both servers and cloud as well as hosting.

Here are some of the services HOSTNOC offers:

If you are a small business who always wanted to experience the performance and reliability offered by dedicated servers but could not due to budget constraints then, HOSTNOC have you covered with pocket-friendly packages. Choose a pricing plan according to your business needs and pay only for what you use.

Do not let the low price of HOSTNOC cheap dedicated servers fool you. They are not only inexpensive, but they are also powerful, a surprising combination that you rarely find with other service providers. That is one of the biggest selling points of HOSTNOC dedicated server packages as they combine power with affordability.

Do not need a dedicated server because your needs are basic? HOSTNOC have you covered with their shared, cloud, andVPS servers. Strike the perfect balance between price and performance with HOSTNOC VPS servers. You can also go with the shared server if you are on a tighter budget.

Get the performance, reliability, and security of a dedicated server at a price of a shared server with a HOSTNOC VPS server. HOSTNOCs VPS server offers a perfect middle ground between price and performance. It gives you the best of both worlds that too at an unbeatable price.

HOSTNOC chooses premium hardware for its servers which makes them deliver exceptional performance on a consistent basis. Users can also choose from faster SSDs or traditional HDD based servers depending on their needs.

SSD-based VPS servers deliver faster read and write speeds as well as power efficiency but they also cost a little more. Meanwhile, HDD based servers give you more storage capacity at a lower price but you have to deal with slightly slower read and write speeds. You will notice the difference when loading applications as SSDs based servers deliver much better application loading time and a better user experience thanks to its responsiveness.

This makes it an ideal choice for handling higher traffic loads. Whats more, the hardware resources are dedicated which means that even if your server is accessed by multiple users simultaneously, your performance will not be affected. Want more resources and bandwidth? Get our unlimited bandwidth VPS and stop worrying about resources.

Unlike traditional hard drives, solid-state drives dont have any moving parts, which makes them more reliable and durable. As a result, SSDs are less prone to hardware issues caused due to moving parts such as heating and hardware degradation over time. Our best VPS server hosting delivers the reliability and stability businesses need from their servers.

Our VPS server puts users in the driving seat by giving them complete control over their servers. Users can choose their desired operating system as well as the applications they want to run. HOSTNOC gives its users root access, which makes server tweaking a breeze. You can open a port without having to contact the server provider.

Thanks to advancements in virtualization technologies, VPS servers have dipped in price. With HOSTNOCs VPS servers, you can take advantage of dedicated server performance and security without having to own a best dedicated server.HOSTNOCalso offers different packages to cater to your varying business needs. Take advantage of discounts and special offers and get a pretty good deal on both dedicated and VPS servers.

Pros and Cons

Here are some of the pros and cons of HOSTNOC.

Pros:

Cons:

Read the rest here:
HostNoc Review: The Best Dedicated Server Hosting in 2021 Times Square Chronicles - Times Square Chronicles