Colleges? And data centers
 

Do colleges have their own data centers or do they outsource hosting and data storage? I am pretty certain that the college I sent to had their own type facility even though it was not a large data center building.

In my experience, colleges and universities are a lot like businesses, mixing various "as-a-service" models with in-house data center resources, including private clouds. There are 3 types of computing here: academic, administrative and research. At the moment, the big trend in academic computing -- where services are provided for students and teaching -- is outsourcing email, although some institutions, like SUNY, are pushing the envelope to target more applications for the cloud. In administrative computing, which is the "business" of the college or university, software-as-a-service is common for many non-critical applications, but large data centers prevail. In research computing there are usually a variety of on- and off-campus data centers of varying sizes funded by specific projects. Hardware is generally purchased using one-time funding; infrastructure and operations typically starve for lack of operating funds. Outsourcing and sharing is rare, except for supercomputers and other expensive and specialized equipment.

I expect that academic computing, where cost is important, but security and control are not, will be the first to adopt the cloud. Administrative computing, where traditional business concerns (cost, risk, control and security) dominate, will be next. Finally, in research computing, cost is a factor, but control is key, so these data centers will persist, probably forever.

This is based on my experience with private universities; public institutions may be different and all private universities won't be identical.


Ken

I would guess that some colleges outsource their data center and some of their other IT needs. Yes, I believe some do have buildings that are used as a data centers. They are usually smaller than the traditional data center since they are only serving the college.