Abstract:

The financial crisis that the world’s states confront with, affects the national economies leading to pressures with respect to the cutting of the costs at the level of each organization. In the situation of budgetary cuts, universities are confronted with problems in assuring the IT (Information Technology) support necessary to educational and research/development activities. As a response to these challenges, the universities must perform changes in order to be service oriented and to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of all operations. The evolution of information and communication technologies comes to support the consumers, offering them a new pattern of IT supply, management and security by using Cloud Computing. At the university level, Cloud Computing may be considered an extension of SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and may represent an alternative of obtaining fast access to technology while achieving some savings within the institution. The paper offers an approach regarding the use of Cloud Computing within the higher educational system, emphasizing its main benefits and limitations and highlighting data security. There is also proposed a strategy of adopting Cloud Computing within higher education, one that might support its use, understanding and improvement of the practices and agility gaining.