Educational institutions need to deploy cloud solutions to improve the agility of their IT infrastructures while reducing costs, says UppCast’s Lavdim Cena.
According to Cena, many educational institutions currently have out-of-date IT infrastructures running on old hardware and software. He explained that by implementing platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solutions such as UppCast – which is built on Microsoft cloud technology – institutions can enhance the security and reliability of their IT environments and enable bring your own device policies.
“Moving to cloud portals is pivotal to helping schools and colleges meet the needs of their staff and students who want to access and share documents inside and outside of the classroom on their personal devices,” he said. “By leveraging UppCast PaaS, individual institutions can create their own branded cloud portals, enabling users to share lessons, documents and video/audio files with others via various devices including the Microsoft Zune portal.”
Cena highlighted further benefits of deploying cloud platforms. They include:
1. Familiar applications: staff and students don’t need to be trained to use new software and tools
2. Immediate access to content: cloud platforms create a virtual learning environment, enabling users to access content remotely on a range of devices
3. Cost-effectiveness: software and data upgrades are automated, which reduces maintenance costs and ensures information is protected
4. Scalability: cloud services can be increased or decreased easily according to demand
5. Back up and replication: data is safeguarded with geo-redundant, enterprise-grade reliability and backed up on multiple data centres, enabling disaster recovery
6. Unlimited distribution channels: by implementing UppCast and leveraging Microsoft Active Directory and single-sign-on, organisations can access Office 365 documents and SharePoint intranet sites to create a full set of education tasks, assessments and other services. For example, UppCast is currently working to integrate its cloud solutions with Office 365 to provide education services to colleges, training providers and businesses across UK and Italy.
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