As academic institutions grow larger, the structuring of the reference department becomes an issue. The reference collection should be kept in a private cloud, with all the library data distributed into a number of subject-specialised departmental libraries. The private cloud allows easy monitoring and management of cloud resources.
There are several reasons why an organisation may need to develop private cloud services. These include: security concerns involving data privacy and trust; optimising existing in-house resources; the considerable cost to transfer data from local IT infrastructure to the public cloud; full control over mission-critical activities that operate behind their firewalls; and teaching and research.
Implementing private cloud computing allows digital libraries to create personalised portals for the staff and students as well as for academic and administrative use by the library department. This proposed approach allows individual departments to upload data from the departmental server to centralised cloud storage. Here we discuss some of the key benefits of the proposed architecture.
Ease of access to digital resources
Cloud storage based on representational state transfer application programming interfaces (API) provides web support architecture. It supports a cloud administrator and traditional block- and file-based data. As a result, it will help students and faculty members to have easy access to data in major storage locations.
Efficient resource administration
The movement from virtual data centres to private clouds necessitates the management of service consumption from managing infrastructures. Administrative capabilities can be efficiently scaled up to respond quickly and fulfil on-demand service requests by staff and students. A private cloud solution is designed to support various work environments with numerous administrative, security and service-level requirements.
Cost-effectiveness
The successful implementation of private clouds not only reduces operational costs but also allows organisations to improve their quality of service, achieve faster delivery models and quickly respond to business needs. One of the highest operational costs of a virtual data centre is administrative support, and manually responding to increased demand in a cloud model will provide efficient cloud storage administration for the entire sector. Cloud computing also uses fewer physical resources and requires minimal hardware to power and maintain the service.
Large storage of digital data
The cloud offers powerful storage and computing. It also supports a number of convenient and quick applications for powerful computing and storage of a large amount of data. Data services on cloud environments are always available, durable, and can store data from a few bytes to a large number of bytes. They allow on-demand resource allocation, 24/7 accessible service and real-time configuration facilities.
Easy search
Storage of data on the cloud means that the virtual data source is stored and managed from multiple connected and distributed resources. Using cloud computing technology allows archival and disaster recovery, provides strong data backup protection, greater accessibility and reliability.
Enhanced data
Access to private cloud storage requires the continuous availability of data at any time or place. A cloud provides the flexibility to accommodate decreasing or increasing demand requirements. We can increase server capacity according to the requirements of the university administration and students. The benefit of increasing server availability is that if one server goes down, user data is automatically transferred to another.
Facilitate knowledge
The cloud has proven itself to be an effective solution for staff, students, administrators, and the public. ‘Cloud literacy’ can advance and facilitate opportunities for students and staff. Providing opportunities and awareness will improve economic prospects and offer great value to students, staff, administrators, universities and colleges. Knowledge as a service is an emerging concept that integrates data and the student community. It ensures that services will be delivered to the right community of practice at the right time, in a suitable manner.
Security
Cloud computing presents strong security considerations. Control over the infrastructure and data security is part of private cloud installations. Cloud computing is extremely secure, and within the private cloud, user data is available behind a dedicated firewall. Public and hybrid cloud systems are often not as good as private cloud security, as to solve security issues cloud administrators are able to allocate resources.
Developing a professional community
Cloud computing technology allows libraries to build networks among library and information science professionals and other interested individuals, including those searching for information through social networking tools. Facebook and Twitter, the most famous social networking sites, play a vital role in building community power. Cooperative efforts by libraries will increase efficiency and save time.
Digital automation
Many cloud providers organise different cloud-based services, such as digital content, cataloguing, acquisitions, processing systems, and include cutting-edge technologies in educational institution and digital libraries, and they also support numerous standards, such as Z39.50, XML and MARC21.