Baby steps into the Cloud

ICT as a service for

education

Microsoft® asked Gerald Haigh, an education journalist, leadership writer

and ex-headteacher, to get to the bottom of people‟s views on the future….

Inspire more

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Table of Contents

3 Baby steps into the Cloud

5 Why do, and should, institutions take that first step?

6 Is it cheaper in the Cloud?

7 But why the Microsoft Cloud particularly?

10 A different style of ICT management

11 The bigger vision of the Cloud

12 What’s the conclusion?

13 The crystal ball?

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Baby steps into the Cloud

We don‟t normally expect a school, college or university to

generate its own electricity. There‟s no building with a bank of

generators, no “Manager of Electrical Generation”, leading a team

of technicians and adding to the woes of a vice-chancellor,

principal, head or business manager. That would surely be absurd,

when all that‟s really needed is a big “On-Off” switch and a phone

to shout down when the service fails.

But we have expected our education institutions to be experts at

running their own “IT Power Stations”, generating their own utility

service. Even though, as consumers, we are increasingly using IT as

a utility service – to communicate, collaborate, work and play.

You may see where this is going. We believe we are at a critical

turning point, and it‟s time to debate the future provision of IT in

education. And at the centre of this change is “the Cloud”.

Attempts to define Cloud computing often make the analogy with

the development of public utilities - electricity, gas, water - where

the move from on-site, or very local generation, through to

national and international distribution has brought increased

efficiency and lower costs.

So, goes the argument, why not provide computing power in the

same way? It can be “generated” remotely by a factory-size bank

of powerful computers (“servers”) and delivered over the internet

to subscribing consumers who can take as much, or as little as they

need.

Gerald Haigh, an

educational writer and

journalist, spoke with a

range of people

involved with the

adoption of Cloud

services in education.

Both within Microsoft,

and from education

institutions already

using Cloud services for

their students and staff.

When I was asked to talk to a range of people about Cloud services, and produce this white

paper, I wasn‟t expecting my very first meeting to give me such a big problem – that the very

first person I spoke with didn‟t like the word “Cloud”!

Daniel Batts, Microsoft‟s Head of Public Sector Business Development, is doubtful about

using the word „Cloud‟ at all. For him, when someone asks what „Cloud‟ means, the answer is

„a service over the internet‟.

The point, says Daniel, is that removing the word „Cloud‟ clears away some of the mystique

and makes it possible to focus on what is actually on offer:

“When we‟ve reset the understanding like that, we can talk about Microsoft, and

the fact that we‟ve actually been doing these kind of services for ten or fifteen

years. We have Hotmail after all, with four hundred million users. We have the

experience and the understanding to deliver Cloud services at scale.”

Daniel goes on to emphasise the seamless relationship between Microsoft‟s established and

familiar products installed on the customer‟s premises and the same ones available as a

service over the web – “in the Cloud”.

“Customers are not being presented with an ultimatum to drop everything in order to move

to the Cloud. There‟s the opportunity to keep some things on your own premises and

migrate others to the Cloud”. In fact, he goes on to say:

”Cloud is not a destination, it‟s a journey – and the direction of travel is driven by

two agendas – cost cutting and the need for transformation of government

services.”

It‟s an explanation, he says, that carries a lot of weight with public sector customers who are

aware of the push for transformation, highly sensitive to budget considerations, and

understandably risk averse about data protection and security.

So, for example, the opportunity to start with a secure, cheap (or free) hosted email service

that comes with extra features that can be brought into use as required is always going to be

attractive. That‟s certainly the experience of the many schools, colleges and universities

across the world which have moved their email service to Live@edu.

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“A baby step into the Cloud”

That‟s what Microsoft Evangelist Ben Nunney calls Live@edu. At least one university ICT

manager raises a weak smile when he hears it – after all, moving 14,000 students over from

the previous system in short order didn‟t seem like child‟s play to him. He got Ben‟s point,

though, which is that for many, perhaps most, educational institutions it‟s not so much a

matter of “moving to the Cloud” in general terms. It‟s more likely to be a straightforward

quest for a better and more cost-effective email system that will meet the expectations of

today‟s students. Live@edu is certainly that, but once that step has been taken, and it‟s up

and running, users can then start looking at the host of Microsoft Live applications that come

with it, such as SkyDrive, Office Web Applications and the Calendar, all of which add up to

an online environment with ample data storage and easy collaborative working.

Why do, and should, institutions take that first step?

If you‟re a university, a college or a school, why would you move away from your existing

email system? After all, it‟s presumably tailored to your specific requirements and looked

after by friendly folk with an office not far away, who‟ll rescue you when you get confused.

Perhaps it‟s because you believe that by doing so you will

“…simultaneously streamline output and lower costs, while also dramatically

increasing capacity and adding new features.”

That, of course is a quote, straight from Chuck Austin of the State of Kentucky‟s Education

Department (link).

In the Spring of 2010 Chuck migrated, over a single weekend, all of the State‟s 700,000

school students and teachers to Live@edu. They did it, says Chuck, because:

“Our students and teachers were struggling with an older system that lacked

capacity and lacked the ability to scale up.”

It‟s surprising how often that‟s the case. Here in the UK, for example, The University of

Aberdeen, in 2007 was among the first educational institution to move its 14,500 students to

outsourced email.

Program Manager Mike Whyment, explained that it wasn‟t a matter of the system not

working, but that it no longer met the vastly increased expectations of today‟s students:

“Our existing student email system was coming to the end of its life. We had a

natural point of reinvestment, either to invest in a new on-site system or

outsource -- which was clearly the cheaper option.”

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And 600 miles south, at Chichester University, another early adopter of email services in the

Cloud for both staff and students, we hear this from James Mason, Head of IT Operations:

“We had an email and calendar system that over the years became inadequate,

and so two years ago we started to look at alternatives. We quickly realised that

for what our students were demanding we couldn‟t afford to buy and had to go

for a hosted solution.”

Then, somewhere in between, in the English Midlands town of Corby, there‟s Lodge Park

Technology College, another converter to the Cloud. This time it‟s Principal Guy Shearer who

explains the shortcoming of their previous email system:

“What the students were given was not as good as what they were using out of

school. We were looking for something that felt as good as you‟d get at home.”

Is it cheaper in the Cloud?

Moving existing services to the Cloud has considerable cost-saving implications. Free or low

cost email is an obvious part of this, but there are other savings that come from buying,

running, maintaining and replacing less hardware and also sometimes needing fewer

software licences. The University of Aberdeen estimates, conservatively, that it‟s saving

£60,000 per year in this way.

And even when budgets are tight, there‟s usually the possibility that money saved can be

productively spend elsewhere. Gartner, respected information technology research and

advisory company, reports that 70 percent of IT spend goes on routine maintenance of

what‟s already in place. Remove even some of that, and the possibility opens up of real

investment for the future. As Microsoft Director of Education Steve Beswick puts it:

“Cloud gives you an opportunity to reduce your spend on existing systems, and

invest more in innovation, rather than being dragged back all the time into

maintenance mode for old systems that require management.”

It‟s a better service for your money in the Cloud.

Users will often say that the improved service offered by a service like Live@edu - every user

being instantly upgraded to have 10Gb of available storage in their email inbox, plus 25Gb of

Windows Live SkyDrive web-based storage, plus all the advantages of a hosted service in

terms of upgrades and maintenance - is at least as important as the fact that its free to

students. (“We‟d still have it if we had to pay for it,” said one headteacher.)

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But why the Microsoft Cloud particularly?

There‟s more than one Cloud provider in the market, which raises the question about why an

educational institution chooses the Microsoft product. From my conversations with schools,

universities and others, there seem to be four identifiable reasons, and as rule all of them

come into play.

1. Personal customer service.

For Guy Shearer and colleagues at Lodge Park, for example, it wasn‟t so much a matter of the

technology as the availability of good face to face advice. As Guy put it:

“Within a day of expressing interest we were talking to a person, we had a visit

and there was a sense that this was someone trying to find out what we wanted

and make suggestions. We didn‟t feel overwhelmed.”

James Mason at Chichester had the same sort of experience. He had a number of very

particular requirements, including the need to integrate Live@edu with the University‟s web

portal under a single sign-in. James was concerned about the degree to which Microsoft, and

the Microsoft partners, would be able to help him with all of that:

“My worry was that because Microsoft is such a big company they might just

provide the kit and leave us to it. In fact they couldn‟t have been more helpful.

Whenever there was a query they answered it quickly and they sent out people

to help us.”

Then there‟s Mike Whyment at Aberdeen, who says, of Microsoft:

“They were more than willing to visit us and sit down and alleviate our fears.”

For Mike Whyment, and also for Guy Shearer, another key question was to do with the

location of the institution‟s data.

2. Where will our data be?

School and university leaders are rightly concerned about where their students‟ data is held,

and who‟s responsible for it. For Mike Whyment the fact that Microsoft hosts its e-mail

service within the EU (in Dublin) was the deciding factor. So much so, he says that if no

provider had been able to make that commitment, they wouldn‟t have moved to a hosted

service at all,

At Microsoft, it‟s a question that Microsoft Cloud Services Business Manager Chris Rothwell

recognises.

“It‟s at the front of the mind when people look at Cloud procurement –„Where is

my data, can you tell me? Is my data private? Do you do things like mine data to

target advertising?‟ But Microsoft doesn‟t have a business model that‟s around

advertising in these services, so we can say there‟d be no benefit for us in that.”

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Customers can also be reassured about compliance with e-safety, as well as ISO:27001 and

EU SafeHarbour requirements, says Chris.

“We have a legal framework and a set of software tools that allow the individual

customer to say, „I know I‟m compliant because I have tools to ensure that.‟”

3. The strength and depth of the Microsoft offering.

Chris feels very strongly that it‟s important for Microsoft to take the debate beyond the more

obvious issues around Cloud services.

“Everybody talks about the well-known benefits – you don‟t have to patch the

software, or install upgrades, or provide support. What they‟re not talking about

is your responsibilities as an educator. They don‟t diminish, and it‟s about which

supplier can help you achieve all the benefits while meeting those

responsibilities. It‟s easy to say „the future is in the Cloud‟ when actually what

users want is to produce the best work they can.”

And this, he says, is where Microsoft scores, because:

“Microsoft as a company invests in education and in productivity.”

So Microsoft Office, for example, he says, is a great and proven productivity tool, that

doesn‟t disappear with the move to the Cloud. On the contrary, it‟s enhanced and enriched:

“Because you talk about Cloud doesn‟t mean you lose the richness of Office. You

don‟t need to throw away the old to bring in the new. Office Web Apps in the

Cloud mean you can keep the things that Office is good at and add to it the

things that Cloud is good at.”

Guy Shearer makes the same point:

“We‟re using Office on the desktop, why wouldn‟t you continue with it online? I

know some colleagues are already using and sharing Office documents on the

web without realising that‟s where they are.”

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4. Live@edu makes it easy to take considered and gradual further steps into the

Cloud.

Microsoft‟s Online Services, like Live@edu, come with a steadily increasing portfolio of

services which together offer greatly enhanced opportunities for collaboration and

communication, and at the same time taking users further into the Cloud. At Lodge Park,

says Guy Shearer:

“The leadership team‟s using Office Web Apps, cutting down on all those emails

with attachments. And the Calendar is becoming the official school calendar.”

Commonly, users all talk about the efficiency of document sharing, avoiding the “which

version is this?” problems. Guy goes on to explain that his students are now using SkyDrive

instead of USB sticks. Providing them with a better and safer option is clearly a more positive

move than imposing a ban on USB sticks,

At both Aberdeen and Chichester, the story is essentially the same – the features are put out

there on loose rein and staff and students are finding ways of using them. Today‟s

universities have many thousands of students and staff, working flexible hours across

multiple locations, often globally. They will expect to gain access to their work and their

email from any device, using any browser, anywhere at any time, without learning that their

mailbox is full or an attachment is too big. The fact that Live@edu is meeting their

requirements means a significant improvement in the quality of service that an institution

offers to an incoming student.

It means also that students, groups of students, departments and staff have to a great extent

to be allowed to explore the Cloud in their own disparate ways. That means it‟s difficult for

any of these pioneers to forecast their future in the Cloud. Mike Whyment believes that

within five years, “Everything will be in the Cloud”. Others point to specific steps forward –

for example, with Microsoft® Office 365 for education, seeing SharePoint in the Cloud, and

integration of Live@edu with virtual learning environments and with management

information systems.

This in turn leads leadership to rethink their approach to the provision of hardware in

education institutions. Guy Shearer suggests that a roomful of PCs can already look old

fashioned - “And soon that could be true of a roomful of fixed laptops.”

And at the University of Aberdeen, Mike Whyment, following the same line of thought

wonders whether it will eventually be possible to get rid of open access PC areas if every

student has their own device.

None of these questions have easy answers. They do, though, arise from the prospect of an

exciting and new kind of future for the way ICT is provided and used in education.

And that, of course, makes for, a new kind leadership.

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A different style of ICT management.

Mike Whyment at Aberdeen says it‟s more than just a change in technology:

“It‟s changing the game. In the past we‟ve documented everything we offer, but

when we look at the Cloud - at Calendar, Skydrive, Office Web Apps and so on -

it‟s not practical to keep abreast of everything and document it, especially as new

applications come out, and existing ones are seamlessly updated.”

However, he says:

“Today‟s student is comfortable with that kind of model of trying things out. If

there‟s something they don‟t know they‟ll find a friend who does.”

Stephen Peverett, Network Manager at Lodge Park, calls it:

“Not losing control but releasing control – trusting the students, moving away

from the mentality that wants to lock everything down.”

Along with that comes, of course, a different role for the ICT staff, some of whom may fear

for their future in a Cloud-based ICT environment. The word seems to be, though, that the

role can change for the better. Mike Whyment points out that there‟s much less routine work

to do on backups and maintenance, but the system still needs to be monitored and

managed.

“They‟re gaining more skills, becoming more employable.”

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The bigger vision from the Cloud

The story for education up to now seems to go like this.

First, comes the awareness that students expect more from the system than they‟re being

offered. As Steve Beswick, Microsoft UK Director of Education, put it:

“A decade ago, the ICT in a classroom was significantly better than the average

student had access to at home. But we‟ve gone through a complete inversion –

now the average student has incredible IT outside of the classroom – at home, in

their room, and sometimes in their pocket. They have high IT expectations.”

In particular, they want high-capacity email, and they want anytime, anywhere access from

their own preferred device.

Then, the search for satisfying this demand shows that only a hosted service will be

affordable.

Next comes the choice of supplier and the installation, followed by a period during which the

full range of the supplier‟s product is explored and used.

There are, though, achievable steps beyond that, when Cloud services are scaled up to serve

basic communication and collaboration needs across a large number of institutions. At that

point the Cloud becomes what Steve Beswick, calls:

“A set of services, which is there for you to use, just like any other utility.”

Steve compares this with the government, or the local authority, building a road on behalf of

the community, rather than giving individual road building grants to individual householders.

He sees it as a major opportunity for government and schools to work collaboratively:

“We deliver a service which is there for every school, college, university – and

every teacher and student. It opens up the possibility of a richer environment for

less cost and we‟re excited about what could happen as a result.”

Microsoft have announced the future vision for their Cloud services for education, with

Microsoft Office 365 for education, which adds new collaboration, communication and

storage services in the Cloud for students, staff and other education stakeholders. This

reinforces the message that the Cloud is developing rapidly, and education institutions

should continue to raise their expectations of what they can achieve using them.

There are other aspects of the Cloud story to be explored in the future. For example, early

research is showing that there are significant environmental benefits from using Cloud-based

services – with reductions of between 50% and 90% in carbon emissions depending on the

institution size (link)

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What‟s the conclusion?

So, having had the chance to speak to people involved in the journey to the Cloud – within

Microsoft and within some of the education institutions that have already begun, let me

share with you some of the absolutely key things that I‟ve seen:

There is no doubt, the cost savings from moving to the Cloud are variable, but for the

adopters so far have been significant and often considerable.

The real savings will come when Cloud services are scaled up to become what Steve

Beswick calls, “A set of services, which is just there for you to use, just like any other

utility.”

Efficiency gains – increased capacity, significant improvements in collaboration and

communication, freedom from routine maintenance and care, are equally important,

especially when money is released for strategic investment for the future.

Cloud services are also credited with reducing the carbon footprint of institutions –

which stands to reason as large data centres will be much more efficient than each

education institution, right down to primary schools, running their own growing bank

of servers.

Communication and collaboration are key qualities in a system which links thousands

of widely dispersed students.

Microsoft has a track record in providing hosted web services to UK education

customers already.

The existing and proven Microsoft software products upon which so many users

depend for their work, far from being displaced by their Cloud counterparts, are

being enhanced and extended by them.

Cloud services need to be released into the institution‟s community so that users can

build their own set of applications and practices. What these users need is guidance

and safeguarding rather than instruction.

The issues for users aren‟t so much technical as ethical, professional and

administrative. (For example, if it‟s technically possible for a student to gain live

access to a tutor at any time of day or night, does this call for good practice

guidelines?)

The future of Cloud services in any institution cannot easily be planned in detail. Its

shape will emerge from a continuing conversation between leaders, users and the

supplier.

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The crystal ball?

One thing‟s certain. The move to Cloud services is already happening and can only

accelerate. And if, as Chuck Austin of Kentucky has it, the effect is to streamline output, lower

costs, dramatically increase capacity and add new features, there‟s no need to ask why.

But the question remains as to the implications for education leaders right now, as they go

about their planning and the answer, surely, is to avoid plans and projects that will reduce

available options in the future.

For example, it seems likely that Cloud services will bring, quite quickly.

Improved functionality of available software and the easy availability of new/updated

products.

A significant increase in the possibility of „anytime, anywhere‟ learning.

The ability to use a wider range of hardware, including the students‟ own devices.

Reduced costs, releasing resources and staff to be used productively elsewhere.

That being so, then governance and leadership teams would be wise to start immediately

approaching with caution many decisions that up to now might seem to have been relatively

routine - the use of rooms or buildings, for example, or the replacement of ICT equipment,

or the profile of specialisms across teaching and support staff.

Some leaders might find that sort of uncertainty to be daunting. Most, though, will see it is a

time for boldness, creativity and the chance to improve the life chances of the young people

in their care.

Gerald Haigh’s books on school life and leadership, including “The Jobs and Interviews

Pocketbook” from Teachers’ Pocketbooks and “Inspirational – and Cautionary – Tales for

Would-be School Leaders” from Routledge, are available from bookshops and Amazon

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