This article discusses the ways that the pandemic has impacted higher education in 2020 and the best practices used by Red Hat customers to deal with the resulting challenges.
If you think for a minute about how information technology at educational institutions changed in 2020 during the pandemic, your mind will probably jump to the mass distribution of laptops and their increased use, and instructors and students being thrust suddenly into remote teaching and learning. And you're not wrong. Getting technology into the hands of teachers and students so that the transfer of knowledge can continue uninterrupted is one of the biggest, and arguably the most important, tasks these days. But it doesn't stop there. Here are some of the other top efforts that we have heard about from our customers regarding how they have dealt with the challenges resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Some of these activities are creative, and some are overdue, but they are all amazing ways to help instruction and learning flourish in these new and uncertain times.
Aside from remote learning, the pandemic has created another work stream for our colleges and universities and research institutions. New and novel scientific research and development initiatives have sprung up around contact tracing, treatment and vaccine testing, transmission studies, and more. These types of research come with an increased need for data processing and analytics. Research institutions are investing in tools such as Kafka Streams and AMQ.
These workloads also make up a small piece of the next major investment we are seeing. Universities and health care institutions are seeing a significant influx in online traffic in addition to the previously mentioned research. Students are doing more and more online during this era of social distancing. And it's not just learning. Processes that were previously completed online and in-person—registration, financial aid, extracurricular activities, and more—are now being completed online a majority of the time. The systems supporting these processes, many of which were due for modernization, are now in a dire state. And institutions are starting to update to modern architectures like microservices and containerize these workloads.
One thing is clear: Through all of this upheaval, the day-to-day work continues. Now, however, that work is done remotely. Tasks are being done more frequently and more often by less experienced employees. In order to stay on top of these workloads (for example, applications or networks or platforms) and at the same time stay secure and compliant with regulations such as HIPAA, colleges and universities and teaching hospitals are turning to enterprise-automation software like Ansible for help. This ensures that important tasks are being done with the regularity and consistency required.
Finally, even through all of the chaos and challenges, we are seeing institutions use these resources to help remediate some of the security and financial risks they've been shouldering for years. Many see this time of change as an opportunity to migrate off the legacy systems they've been supporting and adopt modern, enterprise-grade OS and container platforms, like those from Red Hat, that can support them through this time and into the future. The security of long-running systems with older codebases, like enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and mainframes, is a concern. Now, more than ever, bad actors see this time as an opportunity to take advantage of the higher exposure of these weaker systems. This legacy of technical debt is a huge liability that institutions need to free themselves from.
The pandemic made much of 2020 seem like a long, unending night, but there is a bright light in the darkness. In information technology, overdue changes are being made, and connections are being forged. These are trying times, but students, teachers, and health care practitioners are finding new and innovative ways to protect their data, enable those who support them, and advance their research—all of which will help us get through this era and beyond.
If you are interested in learning how Red Hat can support your college or university's IT initiatives, email us today at [email protected].
Damien Eversmann is a Delivery Strategist for Education at Red Hat.
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