Dive Brief:
- Higher education institutions are being inundated with data, pressured to both protect it and make use of it, which has led to three key trends in data management.
- According to eCampus News, while third-party vendors often represent risks, the need for 24/7 network availability and built-in redundancy are becoming cost-prohibitive to handle in-house, making outsourcing more popular.
- Modular storage systems make growth easier, as long as the same protections and redundancies are in place to ensure access, and the hybrid cloud offers safe, private storage, as well as access to the power of public cloud computing services.
Dive Insight:
Higher education institutions exist to educate the next generation, but one of the key responsibilities of a modern college or university is protecting and managing data. IT is becoming an increasingly central element of higher education, and virtually every other sector. The risks of not investing enough, or thinking carefully enough about proper policy, or training network users is massive — both in liability from stolen data and in reputation, whether because of a breach or simply persistent downtime. Students and faculty want 24/7 access. Schools that can’t guarantee it are at a disadvantage when compared to those that can.
One important evolution in the higher ed c-suite relates to the chief information officer. Institutions are hurting themselves by asking this person to report to anyone other than the president. The stakes are too high.