Infrastructure as a Service for Sustainable Learning Management System in Public Universities in Kenya: A Case of Kibabii University

Institutions of higher learning in Kenya have faced significant challenges in Learning Management Systems (LMS) when hosted onsite without backup systems due to system downtime, security vulnerabilities, high operational costs, and limited scalability. The purpose of the study was to assesses the onsite LMS performance and cloud LMS and impact of onsite LMS on users, with particular focus on how cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) can enhance LMS sustainability. .A case study design were used where Kibabii University was selected as target population, this is because it has already implemented both cloud-based and onsite LMS platforms, the research analyzed data from 310 respondents comprising 275 students, 25 lecturers, and 10 ICT staff. The study employed both quantitative and inferential analysis, the statistical analysis tool used was SPSS. Results revealed a significant positive correlation between LMS performance and sustainability. The findings indicate that majority of users experienced frequent downtime with onsite systems, while majority also views that it requires 3-24 hours for system restoration during downtime. In contrast, cloud-based LMS demonstrated key features supporting LMS sustainability including scalability, cost-effectiveness, security, high performance and reliability. Cloud IaaS significantly improves LMS sustainability through enhanced performance, reduced downtime, improved scalability, and better resource optimization, making it a viable solution for sustainable educational technology in resource-constrained public institutions. Furthermore, the study recommends cloud-based solutions to address infrastructure limitations and enhance system sustainability in public universities.