At a Library Board meeting some months ago I was asked by a board member if we had considered moving our library technology to the “cloud” with the inference that we would not need the level of funding we were requesting for hardware, software, networking equipment, electrical, etc. Caught off guard I went blank for a minute. What cloud? – then, it hit me, he was talking about outsourcing like SAAS (Software as a Service). I lamely explained that we actually did have some technology that was remote hosted, some that had been but hadn’t worked out well and some that had.
This morning’s session “Updates on Cloud Computing Uses for Library Services” provided an excellent explanation of the pros and cons of the various forms of cloud computing: SAAS, IAAS, PAAS. To put it simply, libraries use the cloud to store backups remotely, create and offer access to remote hosted digital collections, online services and various online applications. The pro is that the cloud is currently less expensive than maintaining traditional in library hardware and software requiring specialized technology staffing to operate. The dark side of cloud computing is losing access due to the remote host becoming unavailable as in the remote host location being in a natural disaster or power outage or having a significant network/technology problem. The fix for this problem is having multiple remote hosts so if one goes down, the other is still available. Another issue for libraries to consider is the availability of sufficient bandwidth at the user level. The network must be able to support the access. Our library learned that lesson when we outsourced our staff email and it crawled every afternoon until we upped our internet bandwidth from 10ME to 100ME. For the most part cloud computing works well, and promises to keep improving as more and more libraries move to cloud based services.