Determining the Right Destination for Data
“The decision is not guesswork,” says Amy McLaughlin, project director of the CIRCUITS committee at CoSN. The committee works with school districts to make smart, future-proof decisions about their IT infrastructure. “It is a structured evaluation that looks at bandwidth capacity, uptime requirements, security needs, staffing and the nature of the application.”
The data and applications that are part of this process can contain critical and sensitive data, which is why it’s such an important decision. There are student information systems that contain personal student information as well as their transcripts, learning management systems that contain class curricula and keep track of assignments and testing, HR and payroll systems, identity and access management, email and collaboration systems, and more.
So, what does this decision-making process consist of?
Cost
Districts use cost analysis and cost management tools to optimize their spending on cloud infrastructure. While some districts look to off-load applications and processing to virtual servers, others may want to bring everything back to on-premises data centers. It all depends on whether a district needs consistent processing power and storage or can use and trust cloud storage and virtual CPUs and GPUs. Cloud computing companies such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure provide help in analyzing those costs.
Part of this consideration is the use of Software as a Service. “SaaS plays a major role because it off-loads maintenance, improves accessibility and reduces the burden on local IT teams,” says McLaughlin.
Security
Given how many school districts have been severely affected by ransomware and other attacks over the past few years, cybersecurity is more than just a passing concern. “Security is no longer only a technical issue,” says McLaughlin. “It is a strategic one that influences whether a system stays on-premises, moves to the cloud or becomes a managed service. Cloud services can help because many offer enterprise‑grade security, built‑in redundancy and advanced threat detection. Districts still need strong data governance and clear contractual protections.”
For Robert Wilkinson, a systems architect at Butler Tech, a vocational high school in Ohio that worked with Nutanix to implement an on-premises cloud computing system, “securing the data and trying to avoid the unintentional leaks of student and staff data” is paramount. “This is the biggest driver for me and a big reason to keep it on-premises as much as possible. It is also a known cost per year.”
Performance and Other Factors
“Cloud services only work if the network can support them and if a district has reliable internet access and capacity,” says McLaughlin. If a district’s network access can’t handle the bandwidth needed for cloud services that require intense traffic, it may be better to keep things on-premises. Other factors that must be considered are staffing levels and training, the criticality of the systems being used, and the degree of scalability and resiliency needed.
The tools that are available to manage cloud computing are better, according to McLaughlin, but “the decisions are harder. Districts need clear frameworks, strong vendor management and a long‑term strategy to make cloud adoption successful.”
