A strategic approach to providing cloud services for research and education community

Abstract

The emergence of cloud services and technologies is providing the education and research community with many new and innovative ways to help institutions meet their user’s requirements. Cloud services bring many opportunities and benefits but are complex and present many challenges and risks. A well-defined strategy is essential to define the right approach to navigate through the many options and decisions required to provide successful cloud services. In this paper we do not propose a strategy for adopting cloud services for research and education institutions. Instead, we propose a methodology to guideline policy makers in research and education institutions to define an effective strategy to help ensure success in adopting cloud services.