IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Many IT professionals in the public sector are starting to look at cloud computing technologies for their organisations, but there aren't too many who have already taken the plunge.

New research from Insight EMEA has shown 57 per cent were considering the likes of cloud hosted applications and services. However, only 22 per cent had installed the solutions.

The Insight EMEA survey said that 57 per cent of respondents in the public sector were now evaluating cloud-hosted applications, but that only 22 per cent had deployed cloud technologies.

67 per cent had deployed server virtualization solutions to drive down IT costs and consolidate IT hardware, and others were found to be deploying or evaluating other virtualization technologies like application or desktop virtualization.

The government's plans for a public sector network (PSN) that will change the way data is shared between departments and outside agencies has come under fire from experts who have warned it is being rushed through.

The PSN will replace the large numbers of individual networks owned by public bodies with a single telecoms infrastructure that will host the new Government Cloud.

As well as establishing data-sharing efficiencies between government departments, local authorities and the third sector, the government claimed that PSN will deliver at least £500m in savings per year.

NVT, based at Bellshill in Lanarkshire, won a framework contract with the Scottish Government this year which could provide a maximum £6.8m of revenue over four years, depending on how many government agencies opt in to the shared computer support.

Stephen Park Brown, managing director of NVT, said the contract was on track for around half that total, with Strathclyde Police the latest organisation to join the framework.

In the realm of information technology, all roads are leading to cloud computing even if the road maps are not yet complete. The government’s G-Cloud strategy is a prime example of where organisations are heading and what they hope to achieve.

Key benefits of cloud computing, whether evolutionary or revolutionary, are scalability and shared computing. Scalability is critical when organisations experience growing demand for data storage. For example, hospitals face skyrocketing storage demand due to advances in imaging technology. In a traditional set-up, electronic picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), storing ultrasounds and radiography, are housed on individual machines or external drives. Capacity needs to be managed to ensure sufficient space and personnel are at that particular location for retrieval.

“In all cases, whether regarding the backend joint processing on human services grants or a regional GIS mapping portal, we are driven to be customer focused,” said Brenda Cooper, CIO of the City of Kirkland, in an interview with FutureGov Asia Pacific.

The value in these shared services is that citizens have a single sign-on point for all kinds of information.

Despite the Federal CIO Council’s efforts to convince agencies to adopt cloud-based ICT services the US government has been lagging behind the private sector in terms of uptake.

“There are clear indications that Fiscal year 2014 will continue to be a flat year for cloud computing investments,” said Shawn McCarthy, Research Director at IDC Government Insights.

Colorado will be one of the first states to make the move to Google cloud, following Wyoming and Utah.

The state will save approximately US$2 million a year by bringing fifteen siloed and disparate email systems into one unified communications platform. The move will cut the cost of maintaining current email systems by nearly half and will also allow employees across departments to find co-workers and communicate more effectively with one another.

Apparently so, if it is based on consumer-driven requirements that will help organizations develop strategic and tactical strategies, and provide specific guidance on implementing the on-demand, pay-for-what you-use computing model.

That’s why the Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC) recently released a "Practical Guide to Cloud Computing", which is targeted at IT and business decision-makers interested in obtaining the benefits of cloud computing. And if a farm girl from Italy can grasp the concept, all the better.

The most common application, according to a FierceGovernmentIT tabulation, is email, with 14 agencies having decided to choose a cloud version. In a close second is website hosting, with 10 agencies having named it as a cloud-suitable function. (Scroll down for a graph of all 78 services.)

At a May 25 hearing of the Senate Homeland Security, Vivek Kundra, the administrator for e-government and information technology--who also goes by the title of federal chief information officer--said a move to cloud computing by federal agencies should cause $5 billion in cost savings.

The General Services Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs are among the first agencies taking a serious look at moving their HR applications to the cloud.

VA released a request for proposals to the four private-sector shared service providers-Accenture, IBM, Carasoft and Allied Technologies.

Where will federal, state and local agencies turn for help in satisfying government mandates for moving their computing, data storage and applications to the cloud?

Will they rely on their parent agencies to set up and provision those services? Will they make arrangements directly with public cloud providers such as Amazon or Salesforce? Or will they tap the government’s general contractor, the General Services Administration, which wants to establish itself as a cloud services broker?

To more quickly slice $5 billion from the government's annual $80 billion information technology tab, the Obama administration has released requirements for expediting cloud security approvals. Protecting data in the cloud -- or remote storage and software accessible online -- has been a stumbling block for some federal managers, officials said. The Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is a process aimed at guaranteeing a vendor's goods adhere to baseline controls so that any agency can immediately deploy the services, without reassessing the product's safety.

In a bid to highlight its cloud services to governments, Amazon is offering $250,000 in service credits to the cities and companies with innovative cloud projects.

Amazon Web Services is luring potential government customers again this year with its AWS City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge.

The contest awards $250,000 in cloud service credits to eight government and company customers that exemplify excellence in the categories of “Best Practices,” “Partners in Innovation,” and “Dream Big” — a category extolling the virtues of ambitious innovation. While a play to enhance innovation and modern methods in the public sector, the contest also doubles as a strategic move by the Seattle juggernaut to create enticing use cases it can transform into selling points to draw new public-sector customers.

The report, Best Practices: Regional Community Cloud Hubs — The New “Trickle Down” Effect That’s Boosting State and Local Computing by IDC Government Insights defines regional community cloud hubs as one government agency — most likely at the state level — that could serve as a host facility and offer cloud-computing services to other government agencies (most likely local governments), which can then be shared. The host facility could then gain revenue by selling the cloud services to other government agencies, which in turn would help the host facility gain revenue to offset their own IT costs, according to the report.

A proposed $35 million e-government account that supports FedRAMP, the cloud security effort, was gutted under the pact lawmakers struck on Friday to avert a government shutdown. While the details on how the account will be divvied up among programs are still unknown, Congress reduced the fund to $8 million.

If Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has his way, California will be operating under a “cloud first” technology procurement policy in the near future.

Newsom called on California agencies to embrace an immediate move to the cloud and be a leader in open data and transparency, during his keynote address at the #Innovate conference on Monday, Dec. 2. The lieutenant governor has directed his staff to draft two separate executive orders to assist the California Technology Agency and the office of Gov. Jerry Brown should both offices want to move forward with the proposals.

The city of San Jose, Calif., is stopping its investment in several siloed platforms and stepping into the cloud, says CIO Vijay Sammeta.

In a buildout with Microsoft Office 365 and Storsimple, the city will begin work immediately, with plans for project completion sometime early next year.

A few weeks after Los Angeles threw in the towel on a plan to move its police force onto Google’s cloud-based email platform, Pittsburgh announced that it had shifted 3,000 employees -- including city cops -- to the cloud.

It took just four months and stayed within budget, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said at a January press conference that featured him and Google executives dumping an old city email server into a recycle bin. The city says the move will cut annual email costs by 25 percent and employees will get 500 times more email storage.

Local governments can employ the tool to guard against cyber attacks and protect citizens’ privacy.

Digital structures are needed to protect government information and operations. A group participating in a National Institute of Standards of Technology challenge is offering a secure cloud-based platform that can improve the digital and actual health of a city and protect its information.

For several years, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, known as NIST, has hosted the Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC), a public-private partnership meant to encourage collaboration and standards development. The GCTC includes more than 200 projects directed at advancing the ability of cities to operate safely and effectively in the digital age. NIST is currently drafting related framework standards for cities or local governments to use.