Infrastructure as Code for Business Continuity in Institutions of Higher Learning

Abstract

Running and operating physical secondary back up sites can be expensive. But using the cloud, organizations can lean out some of these associated costs by adopting Infrastructure-as-code (IaC) for business continuity. Business organizations that adopt cloud for business continuity stand to enjoy a number of benefits. These benefits include faster provisioning of computing services, workflow automation, consistency and faster deployment during the cloud migration journey. In spite of the advantages that cloud offers, institutions of higher learning (IHL) in Africa and Kenya in particular, have been slow in adopting it due to various challenges. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to assess the challenges of current configurations and factors that hinder the adoption of cloud for business continuity in institutions of higher learning in Kenya. The paper proposes a framework leveraging on Infrastructure as code and considerations that they must evaluate before adopting cloud for business continuity. Data was collected by use of questionnaires. The questionnaires were given to 92 university staff that had intricate knowledge on cloud computing and analyzed through SPSS. A conceptual framework based on People, Process and Technology (PPT) was used. An experimental study that draws largely from infrastructure as code (IaC) was carried out to simulate a recovery from a local data Centre to Amazon Web Service (AWS) using two cloud formation tools Ansible and Terraform. The experimental results were presented and indicate that, IaC addressed key challenges faced by current setups such as high human resource cost, cumbersome effort, time, higher risk of human error and high maintenance costs. It is hoped the proposed framework will shed light on how IHL can increase their success rates to seamlessly adopt cloud for business continuity.