The topic of G-Cloud attracted wide attention from the audience as a response to its nationwide implementation starting in April. Many agencies are on the waiting list to use the G-Cloud facility provided by Electronic Government Agency (EGA). Therefore, the forum was the first occasion for government ICT decision makers and executives to gather at the same venue for in-depth discussions about G-Cloud’s prospects.
“Cloud computing doesn’t require much of the investment to execute. We can use our own data and resource to develop applications for our users and stakeholders,” Jantima Sirisaengtaksin, principal advisor of Finance Ministry talked during the panel discussion about the Revenue Department (RD)’s e-Tax Refund for Tourist scheme that runs on the Cloud, sharing data and e-service with the Custom Department.
Dr Sak Segkhoonthod, president and CEO of the EGA explained how G-Cloud would bring about collaborative e-government, and best practices for the government ICT operations.
Preparing the IaaS infrastructure for new government projects, the EGA is also pushing forward the pilot of its SaaS and recently signed a MOU with Provincial Administration Department to make Thai citizen identification information accessible through its G-Cloud data centre. This would eliminate the duplicate connections and redundant systems needed to handle the processing of documents between state agencies. Previously, each department wanting to use this data had to sign a MoU with the Provincial Administration Department and establish a dedicated server at the latter’s premises, with dedicated connections.
The government estimates the annual cost savings from this implementation to be up to THB 500 million (US$16 million).
“We will prepare necessary data on our cloud centre. What each agency has to do is to arrange for an agreement with the data owner department, and from there you can immediately start accessing the data without having to install more servers or going through complicated file transfer,” added Dr Segkhoonthod.
People understand the G-Cloud and its benefits, but what is holding many agencies back from leveraging the G-Cloud?
Virtualising IT operations for multiple agencies on G-Cloud is difficult and resource-consuming. Much of the effort is spent on engagement to understand agencies’ needs and answer to their diverse requirements. It’s indeed not an easy row to hoe.
The key concerns of Thai government IT officers are neither on technology nor on affordability, but rather about policy, strategy, security, and especially support required to make the infrastructure and applications responsive to different needs of diverse duties.
“Can you recommend a cloud system for defence as we have high security, and our data is critical. How to balance risk and benefit from the cloud computing because my executive is not convinced about it?” a question asked by Group Captain Busaba Thepsutha, Deputy Director of IT Divison from Royal Thai Air Force.
Like Thepsutha, Nitaya Seedafong, ICT Director from the Treasury Department was not sure about their agency’s cloud direction. She asked: “How can the EGA effectively manage the risk and deliver best value to a very diversified group of applications from different agencies? How do you prioritise and ensure you respond timely and effectively to different departments’ needs?”
The Treasury Department applied for the provisioning of the G-Cloud but has not yet received concrete proposals from the EGA. According to Dr Segkhoonthod, the EGA categorised the enquiries into two groups–brand new project and migration of the existing projects. For agencies with data migration, the EGA needs to sort out agreement on database licences and migration software with software vendors before the transition can take place.
Not convinced with G-Cloud’s prospects, Anant Voratitipong, a honorary president from the Telecommunication Association of Thailand under Royal Patronage and a former senator argued that while sharing infrastructure is possible and good, lots of practical challenges for the migration still have not been addressed.
Dr Segkhoonthod agreed to this point that Voratitipong had made, but added that G-Cloud will be customised to accommodate the diversification of the government work. In term of software, the EGA will provide common software that most of the agencies can use, such as e-correspondence management system (eCMS) or e-budget system. For application-specific software, the EGA will virtualise private Cloud for each organisation.
“It will be like your own private Cloud of each agency, except for the server is located at the EGA’s office,” he added.
Will the flexibility of G-Cloud that the EGA is preparing answer the diverse needs of different organisations? Will possibility of sharing data and services happen?
A cross-boundary collaboration is required to turn diversification into best delivery of services, and eventually make the government strong and smart.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Thanya Kunakornpaiboonsiri
Quelle/Source: futureGov, 04.07.2012
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