With the rise of remote, hybrid and HyFlex learning, colleges and universities face a more intense workload than ever before. And thanks in part to a combination of staff burnout and a lack of skilled workers, schools seldom have the full IT staff required to continuously update and maintain the processes necessary for the institution to function. Fortunately, there’s a solution: automation.
The Need for Automation in Higher Ed
It wasn’t long ago when students, professors and other faculty met almost exclusively in person. However, now that higher ed involves communicating and collaborating from anywhere and everywhere at once, there’s been a significant rise in the technology, time and other resources required to meet university needs — resources that often aren’t allocated as the IT department might desire. As a result, IT teams are being asked to do more with less.
Automation isn’t a technology solution meant to put IT staffers out of their jobs. It’s a tool designed to help bridge the gap caused by already lean teams facing steadily increasing workloads. By creating an automated infrastructure, universities can save time and resources, easing the burden put on IT staff, while also collecting valuable data.
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In today’s educational landscape, institutions need IT teams to be as agile as possible. Automation helps make this happen, whether teams are deploying and maintaining hybrid infrastructure — where the joint physical and cloud locations allow increased control and flexibility — or the even more cloud-intensive infrastructure approach institutions are turning to as they mature in their cloud adoption.
Building an Automated Infrastructure in Higher Ed
Automated infrastructures aren’t one-size-fits-all. To properly implement and sustain automated infrastructure, schools should thoroughly evaluate the current state of their infrastructure and what they ultimately would like it to be. CDW•G can help.
LEARN MORE: Four tips to secure automated network management in higher ed.
When it comes to helping your IT staff bridge the gap between workload and resources, CDW•G can support your team with staff augmentation and the deployment and management of infrastructure automation. CDW•G is uniquely positioned to help your higher ed institution identify blockers to change and implement long-lasting solutions to optimize your infrastructure throughout its entire life cycle.
This article is part of EdTech: Focus on Higher Education’s UniversITy blog series.
