Potential Solution To A Disruption In The Tertiary Education Industry

DISRUPTION IN BUSINESS
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A potential solution to a disruption in the tertiary education industry
Tertiary education is formal learning post-secondary education. According to the world bank, tertiary education comprises colleges and universities. The question that everyone has asked themselves at some point is whether or not tertiary education is a business. Like any other business, tertiary education involves the exchange of services for money. Although the government may sometimes subsidize the amount of money required for tertiary education, the learners are expected to raise the money for the studies. This money collected is used to run the institutions, pay non-teaching staff and also help in repairs and maintenance within the institutions.
Because tertiary education institutions are businesses, it is essential to put in place strategies to help them stay operational. The institutions must be ready for any changes that may affect their operations. By being ready, the institutions must be faced to face disruptions and remain operational. One of such a disruption that a college or university is likely to face is a breakdown of Information Technology systems. IT systems are prone to wear and tear and with time, these systems may break down or fail to operate. In a university setting, 95% of all the operations in the university are heavily dependent on IT from fee payment to performance evaluation, staffing and also the contracts being undertaken by the institution.
One such case where an IT system goes down is a fire in the server room. The server room is the brain of any network, and it controls all activities that take place in the network. When a server room is destroyed by fire, all the activities such as resource sharing, provision of internet access, DNS mapping, among other services offered by the DHCP will be impaired. Also, all students who study through the university's online platform will be denied access to their accounts and their studies will be interrupted. These and many more problems such as communication breakdown are the likely effects of the server room going down. What happens when the server room goes down?
When a server room goes down, it is highly probable that the campus will experience losses. In a case where a server was providing connectivity for the employees, server failure translates to employees being paid for doing nothing. Online learners may be interrupted in their studies, and online instructors may be inconvenienced. Therefore, the primary goal when a server goes down is to get the server back up. The backups come in handy in this process. All the necessary activities should be back in operation using the backups.
After the system is back online, the campus should evaluate the amount of damage done. Calculations should be made in order to determine the amount of loss that the server failure has brought. Also, the campus will need to out in place new machinery and incase the network administrator, and his team cannot handle the whole recovery process, personnel with adequate know-how should be out-sourced. In the process of getting the server back at full operation, conservative actions are taken with the required urgency. These actions are putting preventive measures to avoid another crisis. Fire extinguishing and protection systems like fire protection doors, fire detection services and automatic fire extinguishing systems.
Another essential utility useful in the server recovery is the installation of the ventilation and cooling systems. Also, a constant power supply is a crucial requirement as a small interruption as short as 10ms will lead to IT malfunctions. A standby generator may help solve that problem of constant power supply. Malicious software and DDoS attack may target the system, which means that the system should be made reliable and available but safe in order to prevent attack by hackers. The server should also be configured with defence systems. Such defence systems include firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems, Intrusion Prevention Systems and honeypots. According to Cisco, a firewall is a network security device that monitors incoming and outgoing network traffic and decides whether to allow or block specific traffic based on a defined set of security rules. On the other hand, an Intrusion Detection System enables monitoring to be automated for servers and networks. On attempted break-in, the Intrusion Detection Systems gives an alert, and the Intrusion Prevention System automates measures to be taken when the alert is received.
Equally important, a continuity management strategy is then laid down. In the strategy, ways of counteracting server failures are laid down, and then an impact analysis follows. In the impact analysis, prioritization of systems to be protected is done, and a way of calculating loses reached. After that, risk analysis follows, and it aims to make any security risk, and their respective causes are known. This helps in developing countermeasures in order to reduce any potential danger. The final stage in recovering from the disruption is selecting a continuation strategy. The decision on the continuation is based on a cost-benefit analysis that includes important factors like the resources required, solution reliability and the estimate of time for the process of recovery to be complete.
In conclusion, in a university or college, when a disruption occurs, all the necessary measures should be taken in order not only to return the institution to its state before the interruption but also to prevent a similar disruption from occurring. This helps maintain the credibility and transparency in education and skills delivery. Proper strategies should also be laid in order to ensure that the primary functions of ...