Mapping Cloud-based Facilities for Academic Use

Abstract

The pay-as-you-use service model is one of the key factors for the success of cloud computing paradigm: resources are used only when needed and charged on basis of their actual usage. There are ICT services through cloud which are even provided free to educational institutions and institutions can benefit from these services. Universities necessarily do not have enough resources to spend on subscribing or establishing ICT facilities but these facilities are essential for improving the way faculty & student interact, communicate, and carry research activities. Faculty, staff and students have access to services like institutional email, 1 TB drive space, Office applications free which otherwise require purchased licenses. In this paper, the different free services provided for educational use are discussed, analysed for perception of its adoption. Further, case study of these services implemented at university of Kashmir has been chosen as the research methodology to discuss and demonstrate the educational cloud services. According to the results, clear understanding and operational ease, high reliability, ease of accessibility with no financial implications is achieved. This guarantees the desired performance level and minimises the expenditure otherwise to be incurred on setting up or subscribing to such services.

Keywords: Cloud computing, Cloud services, Educational cloud, Hybrid computing, Mapped computing, Universities.

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