Effective Planning/Procurement and the Human Aspect of Cloud Services

Andrew Keating (Internet2), Bob Flynn (Indiana University), and Patricia Sperry (University of Notre Dame) will present on strategies and approaches that the research and education community have used to plan for cloud service adoption, procurement, and purchase services and to guide staff professional development in the cloud service environment. Ultimately, we aim to equip attendees with an understanding of how the emerging cloud team is a cultural change from the IT infrastructure and organization we've experienced in the past.

Andrew Keating, director of cloud service programs at Internet2, will review the results of the community's collaboration on cloud service delivery, risk mitigation, and evolving standards on cloud service security, identity, accessibility, and architecture. He will encourage participants to think through how they and their institutions can participate in and become more knowledgeable about the risks and benefits associated with developing a cloud strategy in conjunction with their peers.

Bob Flynn, manager of cloud technology support from Indiana University Bloomington, will lead an exercise that illustrates how free offerings are not always free, how paid offerings may or may not be better than free offerings, and how in the enterprise, the user may not be (completely) right. Even with a strong IT governance process, the final decision of which solution to purchase is seldom clear-cut. No single stakeholder holds all of the information necessary to make the best choice for the institution. In this session you will play a key stakeholder role, deciding which of the cloud storage offerings from Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, and Box is right for your institution. Come challenge your assumptions about the cloud!

Patricia Sperry, manager of IT support services–talent development at Notre Dame, will share her experience in working with higher education IT staff to help them adjust to the shift to the cloud and how to give them opportunities to gain the skills the university needs from IT in the future.

OUTCOMES: Learn to develop a cloud strategy with access to a proven toolkit developed by universities for cloud readiness * Understand the balance between user request and enterprise responsibilities and how to decipher vendors' price quotes when choosing cloud service * Get staff onboard for cloud services by understanding the gap and building the framework