Education
AWS for Schools, Universities and Institutes in Colombia
The virtual campus goes down on enrollment day or during midterms, and nobody wants to touch the campus server. CloudTing designs and runs a platform on AWS that grows on its own when everyone logs in and shrinks when nobody is there, with student data encrypted and backed up.
What we solve
- Moodle or another LMS that adds capacity on its own for enrollment, exams and grade closing
- Student and teacher data encrypted, with a record of who looked at it
- Daily backups in a separate account and a low-cost academic archive
- Videos and class material served from CloudFront, fast in any city
- Spending caps and alerts per term, so the bill holds no surprises
- IT team access with MFA and no shared users
Who it is for
- Schools running the virtual campus on their own server or on hosting that falls short
- Universities and institutes with sharp peaks during enrollment and exams
- Vocational training institutions with online courses
- Small IT teams that need technical backup without hiring more people
What Colombian law requires
- Law 1581 of 2012 protects the personal data of students, guardians and teachers, and its article 7 sets special rules for data about children and adolescents.
- Article 12 of Decree 1377 of 2013 says that data can only be processed in the best interest of the minor and with authorization from their legal representative, after hearing the minor according to their maturity.
- Law 1581 limits sending personal data to countries without an adequate level of protection. Colombia's data protection authority (SIC) published the list of adequate countries, which includes the United States and Mexico.
If you are a higher education institution
- AWS Academy gives institutions with accredited programs a free, ready-to-teach cloud curriculum, with labs for students.
- We help you keep the academic account apart from production, so student labs never touch the virtual campus.
What we do not do
We do not give legal advice or certify compliance. We put the technical controls in place and leave the evidence (logs, configurations, recovery tests) so your legal team, compliance officer or auditor can confirm what applies to you.
Reference architecture
A typical pattern for an education platform: CloudFront and AWS WAF in front, Moodle or another LMS on ECS Fargate with auto scaling, grades and enrollment in Aurora encrypted across two zones, course files on EFS, videos and homework in S3, and backups in a separate account with the archive in Glacier.
How we start
- 1Free review: we look at access, encryption, backups, cost and what evidence exists today
- 2Report with prioritized risks and a proposed AWS architecture
- 3Migration or fixes in stages, without stopping operations
- 4A real recovery test, with RPO and RTO measured
- 5Ongoing operations and support, if you need it
Frequently asked questions
Does Moodle run well on AWS?
Yes. Moodle runs in containers with a managed database and shared files, which is exactly what the diagram shows. The advantage is that during enrollment or exams tasks are added on their own and then shut down, instead of paying all year for a server sized for the worst day.
Can we store data about minors in the cloud?
The law does not forbid it, but it requires authorization from the legal representative and respect for the minor's best interest. On the technical side we encrypt the data, log who accesses it and keep backups apart; the authorization and the data policy are set by your institution.
How do we keep the bill from spiking?
AWS Budgets sets a budget per term with alerts before you hit the cap, and auto scaling lowers capacity when there are no classes. Old files in S3 move to cheaper storage on their own.
Can you migrate the virtual campus we already have?
Yes, in stages and outside the critical dates of the academic calendar: first a copy on AWS to test, then the switch in an agreed window with a plan to roll back if something fails.
Next step
AWS for Schools, Universities and Institutes in Colombia