5 Reasons Now is the Right Time to Move Learning to the Cloud

Enterprise Thinking vs Cloud Thinking

Over 60% of higher education institutions report that they are currently reviewing, converting to, or running their LMS in the Cloud.

- The Campus Computing Project: 2014 National Survey of Computing and Information Technology in US Higher Education

60%

Enterprise Thinking vs Cloud Thinking

• Dedicated, high-availability environments

• Infrastructure failure is challenging and avoided

• Designed for solidity

• Manual processes

• Infrequently updated

• Monolithic change

Enterprise

• Commodity, fungible environments

• Infrastructure failure is expected and embraced

• Designed for resilience

• Automated processes

• Frequently updated

• Granular change

Cloud

vs.

Why Cloud? Why Now?

Flexibility

Scalability & Elasticity

Reliability

Innovation & Change Management

Big Data

FlexibilityOverview

• Heavy virtualization

• New resources can be spun up (or spun down) in minutes or even seconds

Rapid Provisioning

• Cloud services designed for highly scaled, shared management of resources

• Redundancy leads to durability

Resource Sharing

FlexibilityBlackboard Cloud Architecture

• Multi-tenant architecture

• Rapid provisioning supports both horizontal and vertical scaling of Learn

Scalability & ElasticityOverview

• Dynamic provisioning of resources in response to system performance

• Scale either horizontally or vertically

Auto-Scaling & Elasticity

• Move the content to the “edges” of the network

• Reduce latency

Content Delivery Networks

Scalability & ElasticityBlackboard Cloud Architecture

• Expand to meet demands of peak periods

• Reduced latency through Amazon CloudFront

Reliability Overview

• Built for resilience

• Increased reliance on monitoring

Fault Tolerant Application Design

• Vulnerability detection

• Self-healing environments

Deployment Automation

Reliability Blackboard Cloud Architecture

• Self-healing environment

• End-to-end automation ensures consistency and quality

• Zero downtime updates with very high success rates

• Native denial of service protection

Innovation & Change ManagementOverview

• Always current

• Painless updates

Software as a Service

• Test-driven development

• Ready to deploy at any time

Continuous Integration

• Smaller releases = less change management

• Feature toggles

Change Management

Innovation & Change ManagementBlackboard Cloud Architecture

• Rapid delivery of updates

– Incremental updates on a regular schedule

– Less change management

– Faster bug fixes

– Appropriate feature controls to manage change

Big DataOverview

• The three “V’s” – high Volume, high Velocity, high Variety

• Modern technologies designed for big data sets

Characteristics

• Student retention

• Data-driven decision making

Why Big Data?

Big DataBlackboard Cloud Architecture

• Re-tooling our collection of data and our instrumentation

• Cross-product data stores

• Individualized reporting for faculty and students where they need it, when they need it

– No more “reporting backwater”

Physical & Network SecurityTo protect your infrastructure & the mission-critical information it contains

Data SecurityTo recover lost data and restore courses

RedundancyTo limit the effects of “anything” going wrong

ReliabilityTo maintain the system if the physical surroundings are compromised in any way

ScalabilityTo enable and support growth

People & ProcessesTo effectively & efficiently support the environment 24x7x365

Monitoring PracticesTo track and report what is happening on the network and ensure responsiveness

Change ManagementTo ensure ongoing successful utilization of the technology

Critical Factors to Consider in ManagingYour Online Learning Environment

Is someone available every night and weekend to handle problems that may arise??

Do you have enough people on staff with the expertise needed to successfully support this mission-critical environment??

If any one person is out sick or leaves, is there someone else who is trained, ready, and able to perform his or her duties? ?

Are there more strategic or mission-critical projects that you / your team could be working on if you had more time? ?

Do you have peace of mind when it comes to managing your learning environment or are you bogged down in minutiae??

Blackboard’s Approach

Rethink Teaching and Learning And the Business of Education

Program Selection

& Marketing

Student Support

& Retention

Learning Delivery

Career Placement

Learning CoreTraditional learning delivery

Learning Environments to meet varied student and institutional needs

Learning InsightMeasuring effectiveness of online and traditional programs

Learning EssentialsOffering online courses and programs

Learning Insight & Student RetentionDeveloping strategy and tactics to maximize student retention

Expanded Cloud Strategy

UserExperience

MobileFirst

Big Data

Key Focus Areas

Blackboard and the Cloud

Blackboard Collaborate

Blackboard Connect

Blackboard Engage

K12 Central

xpLor SafeAssign MyEduBlackboard Transact eAccounts

Already a major providerof cloud services to education:

Our seven data centers onfour continents represents the largest private cloud in education world-wide

Learner-CentricSolutions

In Development

In Development

In Development

In Design

In Design

Improved customer experienceZero downtime updates

Better innovation and market responsivenessGet enhancements and new features more quickly

Higher quality Get fixes and maintenance to you more quickly

Easier change managementSmall updates instead of monolithic releases

Delightful user experienceLearner-centric interface coming to the Cloud

Better supportLess variety of versions, environments

How to Summarize & Communicate the Benefits