Abstract
The adoption of cloud computing technology in higher education institutions and universities to fulfill their evolving computing needs is an emerging research field. Saudi Arabia is the largest economy in the Gulf region, which makes KSA a potential market for cloud computing technologies. In addition, KSA's higher institutions differ from other institutions around the world as they have uniquely separated campuses of males and females. Cloud computing has its own advantages since it can often decrease infrastructure and maintenance costs, improve operational efficiency by allowing various computing devices to complete tasks, and increase the user's ability to access resources, applications, and data anytime, anywhere. However, there is a lack of tools to help the decision makers at higher education institutions analyze and evaluate the best cost-effective manner to adopt cloud services. Thus, there is a need for a cost-benefit computing tool that is based on a comprehensive multilayer framework to evaluate the costs of various services offered by different cloud service providers such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. In this study, an attempt has been made to develop the computing tool and its accompanying framework for cost-benefit analysis to study the suitability of different cloud computing deployment models for the higher education environment. The proposed tool will support decision makers at institutions to assess the various tangible benefits of adopting cloud services versus in-house services, while taking into consideration the various intangible benefits. The developed tool has been evaluated by experts through interviews. The results showed that the framework can analyze the costs and benefits through comparison between different cloud models, which saves time and effort for decision makers to find the optimal solutions.