Innovation in LMS: The Nature of the Cloud - Why it Works

Happy New Year from Moodlerooms! As a way to kick-off 2011, we're going to continue highlighting more excerpts of Khalil Yazdi's whitepaper, Innovation in LMS: Underlying Economic Drivers--Motivating a New Model for the Provisioning of Course, Teaching and Learning Management Software Systems.

Last week, we highlighted Yazdi's examination of how the Cloud (cloud computing, specifically) changes not only the traditional IT delivery model, but raises campus technology leaders' expectations in regard to LMS scalability and flexibility and users' subsequent expectations of LMS availability, access and "speed."

Today's post explores the many merits of the cloud and its nature as a "utility service," much like an evolving and dynamic data "ecosystem" that is more collectively known as the internet.

As we continue exploring Yazdi's arguments, let us know how you think LMS delivery is evolving, and what you'd like to see from this wave of LMS innovation. Feel free to discuss in the comments below.


Innovation in LMS: The Nature of the Cloud - Why it Works

Despite the highly complex nature of the Internet, access and usage is managed by virtue of a simple set of shared standards without the need to force singular and monolithic solutions – proving that shared protocols and widespread adoption of interoperability standards enable diverse use while providing an efficient, agile and low-cost environment. As a “utility service” that has become essential to economic and social life, the Internet is not a centrally managed national (or global) utility – rather, it operates more like an evolving and dynamic ecosystem.

Cloud-based services leverage this characteristic – a relatively minimal set of standards for identity, data and processes can dramatically reduce the costs of services provisioning and empower high levels of diversity in use. In an oversimplified rendition, the key components of application support include a base technical layer, a middleware layer and a business applications layer. The “base” technical layer provides core infrastructure, includes physical connectivity (network infrastructure) and basic operational hardware and software services (servers, storage, etc.). Essential services, often described as “middleware,” include user access control (authentication), data management, simple (shared) business processes, and business analytics (or business intelligence tools). The business applications layer provides for those systems and processes that directly support the line-of-business and represent the direct point-of-service to end users (including both consumers and operational staff). Application development and configuration management are part of this layer – something that will be important to LMS users, particularly those who are part of an open-source community.

Traditionally, these technical layers are controlled and managed by institutional IT in a segregated manner with relatively limited sharing of support resources across applications. That is, licensed LMS software is loaded on dedicated servers, utilizes dedicated storage systems, has its own identity and access controls, and data and content are created and managed by the software in a proprietary manner. In short, the LMS environment is just another stovepipe in the institutional IT managed technology environment. Of the three layers, the one that is most specifically tied to institutional IT is the middleware, where data management and user identity, role and access are defined. When the institution is responsible for supporting the business application and providing the infrastructure to support it, the responsibilities for data and access reinforce the need for a silo support environment.