IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The eHC has high-end cloud-connectivity for medical data storage and is equipped with basic cloud-integrated diagnostic equipment, a telemedicine studio, laboratory and a pharmacy. Patient data is transmitted to the Health Cloud, and medical diagnosis is enabled through remote consultation using built-in videoconferencing abilities.

The Centre will be manned by paramedics, which, along with remote consultation capabilities, will reduce the need for on-site doctors. Remote monitoring of the eHC functioning and its equipment will also be done through the Health Cloud.

Cloud Computing has already been pushed forward as the panacea for today’s IT infrastructure problems: instead of running separate services and data centres to meet the same requirements, everything should be centralised, computing capacity and server resources should be pooled and then consumed on a “pay as you go” basis.

The same issues come up again and again — with government officials, educators and industry practitioners alike.

And all of the concerns are legitimate, when you consider the value of the data we are talking about moving to the mysterious cloud, particularly from a government perspective. Yet caution has been taken to such an extent that we can forget that it has been around — and has been used by all internet users — for years.

Certaintly Cloud Computing is one of the core strands of the proposed National IT Policy that is being put in place to increase revenues of the Indian IT and services industries from $100 billion at present to $300 billion by 2020.

The Hong Kong government has launched a private cloud platform to host e-government services shared by various bureaus and departments.

Dubbed Government Cloud Platform, or GovCloud for short, the scheme differs from those such as the UK’s G-Cloud programme and the US’s GovCloud scheme in that it is purely for internal government use, rather than being used as a procurement portal.

Macao and Alibaba Cloud will work together to upgrade the special administrative region (SAR) into a smart city by applying cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI), according to an agreement signed on Friday by Macao SAR government and Alibaba Cloud.

Macao SAR Chief Executive Office Director O Lam and President of Alibaba Cloud Hu Xiaoming signed the Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement to Build Smart City at a ceremony presided by SAR Chief Executive Chui Sai On and the board of directors of Alibaba Group Jack Ma.

China, where cloud computing is one the fastest-growing industries, accounted for around 10 percent of global cloud-computing investment last year, which totaled $28 billion, according to IDC.

Kitty Fok, vice-president of IDC Asia-Pacific, said that China's IT market is expected to have a volume of $163.2 billion this year, accounting for 7.6 percent of the global total.

“We have seen trends of centralisation and decentralisation coming one after another like a pendulum,” Mak says. “But it is not history repeating itself here. The notion of moving backwards is only conceptual, at the actual level there are a lot of things we could leverage.”

Hong Kong's Office of the Government CIO has formulated a pan-government strategy setting out the major programmes to facilitate the Fragrant Harbour administration's transition to cloud computing.

The commitment has come from Hong Kong's acting secretary for commerce and economic development (SCED), Gregory So, to a special meeting yesterday (Monday, 21 March 2011) of the Legislative Council Finance Committee on the policy areas of communications and technology.

The usage rate of Hong Kong e-government services has risen dramatically, reaching 12.9 billion information searches and electronic transactions by 2012 - a 2.7 times increase from 2010.

“We have established a government cloud platform (GovCloud) to develop shared electronic government services. It will comprise of core infrastructure and a shared pool of computing resources that can be dynamically provided to e-government services, based on individual demand,” shared Lai.

GovCloud is a large-scale IT infrastructure project initiated by OGCIO last year. In an interview with FutureGov last year, Victor Lam, Deputy Government CIO, explained that the government private cloud would be used to host common apps for shared use for Hong Kong government departments.

“GovCloud is the Government’s first major private cloud computing initiative and is important central IT infrastructure with full cloud computing functions. It provides computing resources, including server, storage and network resources, for bureaus and departments,” said a spokesman from the Office of Government Chief Information Officer.

GovCloud is a large-scale central IT infrastructure for hosting e-government services for shared use by bureaux and departments. Such services include electronic information management, electronic procurement and others.

Speaking at an industry forum organised by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO), Mr Mak said, "Cloud computing is a global trend.It is important for the Government to capitalise on this technology to meet rising public demand and expectations.

"We are going to establish a Government Cloud environment progressively over the next few years for supporting a range of business applications with government-wide utility. The aim is to bring about overall improvement opportunities for operation efficiency, customer services, as well as reducing effort, time and risks in the implementation of IT systems," Mr Mak said.

"GovCloud is the Government's first major private cloud computing initiative and is important central information technology (IT) infrastructure with full cloud computing functions. It provides computing resources, including server, storage and network resources, for bureaux and departments," a spokesman for the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer said.

"The Government has formulated a strategy to adopt cloud computing in delivering its e-services. We aim to establish a government cloud environment progressively over the next few years to support a range of government-wide applications," a spokesman for the OGCIO said.

The platform, which is projected to cost the government roughly $242m over a five year period, was first proposed in May 2012 as a way of making public services more agile in the way it procures IT services.

Compliance in the cloud refers to the process that monitors controls and provides reporting, while retaining evidence of compliance with legislative or industry mandates and internal policies. Important to bear in mind is that compliance requirements are country- and industry-specific. Cloud computing represents a new paradigm, but like the platforms before, cloud will not replace everything. The question to ask is, what parts of a company's technology and data portfolio should exist in the cloud?

CA's State of the Internet 2010 report uncovered criminals’ growing reliance on cloud web services and applications to distribute their software.

Cybercriminals are using web and internet applications (Google Apps), social media platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Wordpress), online productivity suites (Apple iWorks, Google Docs, and Microsoft Office Live), and real-time mobile web services (Twitter, Google Maps, and RSS Readers).

Up until now, the only official symbol of Czech eGovernment has been eGON, a cartoon figure that symbolises the computerisation of public administration to produce a faster, cheaper and user-friendly public administration using ICT. eGON is used to symbolise the transformation of public administration and promote among citizens the easiness of use of important public services such as Czech POINT and Data Boxes.