All around the world, public sector organisations are beginning to understand the transformative impact that the cloud can have on their operations. The Estonian government, for example, has created its Virtual Data Embassy Solution, which is undoubtedly at the cutting edge of national e-governance policies. Global pharmaceutical tech company Catalent, meanwhile, has boosted global efficiency and productivity with cloud services. And the UK’s Department for Education is using the technology to help it improve education and learning, and to achieve greater transparency.
“It’s a huge market,” explains Microsoft’s chief technical officer for the Worldwide Public Sector division, Jennifer Byrne. “Spanning governments, education, healthcare and more, there’s a wide variety of interesting examples of how the cloud is being used in some really effective ways. The cloud not only facilitates new levels of operational efficiency, but it helps public sector organisations to deliver their services in a much better way. It can help create more resiliency and remove the burden often associated with traditional data centres. Overall, there’s a great diversity in the way in which customers are using the cloud and it’s wonderful that we’re now seeing them being very creative with it.”
But despite the clear success stories, there’s still room for progress. “There are two key areas where we spend a lot of time helping customers in order to make the cloud a more viable option,” Byrne explains. “The first challenge is in ensuring that public sector organisations understand the underlying technology that needs to be in place in order to get the most from the cloud. We spend a lot of time investing in solutions such as Active Directory and Azure ExpressRoute which help to make our customers’ connections fast, reliable and secure, ensuring a smooth transition.
“The second area is around trust. The trust equation is extraordinarily complex – there are many elements involved. It’s important to understand that trust is an attribute of a relationship that exists between two entities. Whoever is entering into that relationship retains the right to run the trust calculation however they wish. Different people have different criteria.”
Byrne says that there are four key areas that Microsoft believes are important for cloud service providers to demonstrate trustworthiness, which fall under its Trustworthy Cloud Initiative. These are: cybersecurity, data privacy, compliance and transparency.
“When it comes to cybersecurity, Microsoft has a global, 24/7 incident response team that works to mitigate the effects of cyberattacks and malicious activity. It also proactively partners with law enforcement to combat cybercrime through its digital crimes unit.
“In terms of data privacy, our customers now realise that the Microsoft cloud is far more secure than they imagined. They see the controls in place that are more stringent and advanced than they ever could achieve in their own data centres,” Byrne continues.
Microsoft is also heavily investing in ensuring compliance. “We meet all industry standards that exist today, whether they be local, international, industry-wide or industry-specific,” Byrne says. “Microsoft was also the first to adopt the uniform international code of practice for cloud privacy, ISO/IEC 27018, which governs the processing of personal information by cloud service providers.
“Transparency is also incredibly important – and we are committed to being as transparent as possible, exposing customers to the level of detail they need in order for them to make their own decisions about their security,” Byrne adds.
As time goes on, and the landscape evolves further, Byrne says that it’s a given that Microsoft will keep pace with advances in all of these areas. “We will continue to deliver a rich, secure cloud offering that helps our customers to have more seamless, productive experiences,” she says.
The cloud is also a fundamental part in Microsoft’s strategy to create more personalised computing in a more empowered world. “We are understanding that in order to really empower customers we have to think about products and services as being more highly personalised,” Byrne concludes. “Windows 10, for example, allows people to move across the different personas that they have across their entire life in a more productive way. I’m looking forward to seeing how this will translate across the public sector in the months to come.”
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Lindsay James
Quelle/Source: OnWindows, 15.10.2015
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