How to Build a Cloud Storage Service for Half a Million Users in Higher Education: Challenges Met and Solutions Found

Vogl, R., Rudolph, D., Thoring, A., Angenent, H., Stieglitz, S. & Meske, C.

Zusammenfassung

IT projects across organizational boundaries face unique challenges. This is particularly true for higher education, where experiences with largescale cooperative projects are very limited. One successful example is "sciebo - the campuscloud", a private cloud solution with 500,000 potential users jointly operated by more than 20 universities in the German state North Rhine-Westphalia. Using the example of sciebo, this case study discusses the difficulties of inter-university IT projects, the solutions achieved and the experiences gained from the perspective of the project leaders. It particularly addresses the benefits of bringing in know-how from other disciplines, the technical implementation and the use of innovative instruments.