Why is this project needed?

Currently, our Colleague system is located “on-premises” in one of the University’s two data centers.   The current on-premises infrastructure for Colleague, i.e., the hardware and software required to deliver Colleague’s features and functions, is approaching the end of its useful life and is insufficient to meet the institution’s needs and requirements.  Per recommendations made by the Experience St. Lawrence Task Force, we are moving our Colleague systems from campus into the Ellucian Managed Cloud environment.   This move to the Ellucian Managed Cloud will enable us to meet growing user demand, fulfill the strategic needs of the institution, improve our information security posture, and modernize our systems to ensure the highest continued stability, reliability, and performance for our faculty, staff and students.

This project provides numerous short- and long-term benefits to the University.  First, as part of this migration, we are replacing all of the hardware and software that supports the Colleague systems.  This immediate increase in processing power will allow us to enable additional Colleague functionality that our current Colleague infrastructure could not support.   Other important short-term benefits of moving to the Ellucian Managed cloud include a more secure environment in which to store the University’s most important data and advanced 24/7 “eyes on glass” systems monitoring and response capabilities.   This will help ensure our Colleague systems remain secure, stable, and available to serve the needs of the institution.

Many of the most important benefits of this project come in the form of future capabilities.  By moving Colleague to the Ellucian Managed Cloud, we are positioning ourselves to make future improvements to the Colleague system.  Once the migration is complete, Information Technology in collaboration with administrative and academic offices across campus can begin examining currently unused Colleague features and functionality we may want to activate and implement in the near future.   These activities, to be planned and implemented in future projects and initiatives, will enable us to better leverage the Colleague system in direct support of the University’s institutional mission and strategic goals.