Welcome to our new eNewsletter, Spotlight on IT.聽 Each month we will spotlight a different trend or topic in the information technology world.聽 If you would like to receive this publication in your inbox,聽
For this month鈥檚 spotlight, we鈥檙e talking all about the cloud.
Due to an innovative and evolving IT world, nowadays when we hear the term 鈥渃loud鈥�, we don鈥檛 often think about what we see in the sky, but rather, the promise and convenience of accessing files from any location.
There are four options when it comes to the cloud: private, on premise, hybrid, or public cloud and more and more IT departments are turning to the cloud for their infrastructure, platform, and software needs.
Cloud Market
With the promise of speed, flexibility, reliability, accessibility, and cost benefits it鈥檚 no surprise that cloud computing is on the rise.
- There are聽聽in the world today and 60% of server workloads are already virtualized.
- In 2013 there was an estimated聽of data stored on the cloud. That鈥檚 1,073,741,824 GB of data.
- In 2014, the聽聽was worth 56.24 billion U.S dollars. This value is predicted to increase to 128.3 billion U.S dollars by 2019.
- In 2015,聽聽generated $7.88B in revenue. This number was up 69%聽from the previous聽year.
Cloud Research
Researchers are turning to cloud computing resources for on-demand access to easily accessible and collaborative resources, and high performance computing.
- A 杏吧原创 researcher has a that would enable researchers to share information, tools and resources related to research on the management of smart facilities.
- The is a service available to educators and researchers that uses Virtual Computing Lab (VCL) technology to deliver research and education software packages.
- Research Computing Services provides researchers with the support, expertise and resources necessary to conduct research computing at 杏吧原创. Amongst other services, the team offers access to open and commercial software through 杏吧原创鈥檚 OREC.
- are using OpenStack, a cloud management solution to manage virtual computing and storage resources, to provide fast and convenient computing and storage resources.
Cloud Strategy
A 2015 found that 鈥淐IOs expect a significant shift in focus within the next five years, away from managing primarily infrastructure and technical resources and toward managing vendors, services, and outsourced contracts.鈥�
- Several institutions, such as the , , and have adopted the formal cloud-first strategies that aims to move the vast majority of computing to cloud-based providers. And recently released their Cloud Computing strategy.
- According to a recent , Software as a Service (SAAS) is 鈥渂y far the most commonly used cloud computing service in Higher Education鈥�.
- is the top challenge for cloud computing followed by data ownership.
- Prior to signing cloud computing contracts, our Legal Council have indicated that they require a standard security assessment completed (including a Privacy Impact Assessment) and submitted to General Council.
Staying Safe in the Cloud
University departments planning on using cloud聽services need to be aware of the聽security policies and standards as well as provincial and federal laws that come with the cloud computing territory.
颁补谤濒别迟辞苍’蝉听Cloud Computing Guidelines听补苍诲听Cloud Computing Policy聽outline the security requirements on the use of cloud computing in order to protect confidential and information being processed, stored, or transmitted by cloud computing services.
5 Things We Thought You Should Know
- CUAD2016:听聽was a resounding success thanks to the hundreds of faculty and staff who came together to celebrate our connection to each other and this great university.
- Infographic: This month鈥檚听颈苍蹿辞驳谤补辫丑颈肠聽highlights service desk stats, the rise in malware in higher ed, and traffic to the ITS website.
- Web Services Events:聽In June Web Services hosted two events: a聽聽and a聽聽and they have聽two events coming up in July.
- Clutter:聽ITS is in the process of turning off the clutter feature on all 杏吧原创 email accounts.聽, including how you can turn it back on
- Security Tip:聽At 杏吧原创, over the past four months we have seen聽a聽46%聽increase in聽spam and emails with malicious attachments and last month over 80% of email messages coming into our email gateway were blocked by our spam blockers.聽to protect against phishing, malware, and ransomware