Telephony
Even the campus phone service is a candidate for migration to the cloud. Many
campuses consider land lines a necessary evil, but not necessarily a place for
investment. Many institutions today run on
unsupported analog PBX systems. Moving
a telephony system to the cloud eliminates
the need to manage a complicated PBX or
VoIP system. The only things to manage on
premises are handsets.
Desktops
One of the most significant challenges of
desktop management is desktop application and patching. In addition, software in
computer labs on campus is not available
to off-site or distance learners. As desktop refresh cycles move to three years or
less, pressures on both capital and staffing
resources increase.
With cloud-based delivery, an institution
can provide virtual services to local desktops via thin client or software client, with
only a few central images to manage. With
this model, users can also access computer lab resources more easily when they
are off campus.
Companies like Panologicand NComputing
provide hardware thin clients, while companies like ICC Global and Secure-24 can
provide the back-end infrastructure for a virtualized desktop