Only little information is available about the diffusion of cloud computing in German higher educational institutions. A better understanding of the state of the art in this field would support the modernization of the higher educational institutions in Germany and allow the development of more adequate cloud products and more appropriate business models for this niche. For this purpose, a literature research on Cloud Computing and IT-diffusion will be run and an empirical investigation with an online questionnaire addressed to higher educational institutions in Germany will be performed to illustrate the state of the art of Cloud Computing in German higher educational institutions as well as the threats and opportunities perceived by employees of higher educational institutions data centers connected to the usage of the cloud. In addition to that, different experts from universities and businesses will be interviewed to complete the knowledge and information collected through the online questionnaire and during the research phase. The expected results will serve to create a recommendation for higher educational institutions in Germany about either they should migration to the cloud or not and introduce a list of guiding questions of critical issues to consider before using cloud-computing technologies.