IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2013 - 67
G
overnments are facing reductions in
ICT budgets just as
users are increasing demands for
electronic services. One solution
announced aggressively by vendors
is cloud computing. Cloud computing is not a new technology, but as
described by Jackson [1] is a new
way of offering services, taking
into consideration business and
economic models for providing and
consuming ICT services.
Here we explain the impact and
benefits for public organizations of
cloud services and explore issues
of why governments are slow to
adopt use of the cloud. The existing literature does not cover this
subject in detail, especially for
European organizations.
a long-term strategy when moving
services to the cloud, forcing a look
at long-term investment.
Another challenge is the added
cost of adapting existing systems
to cloud technologies. The main
advantages of cloud services are
fast scalability and elasticity [2].
This is useful for seasonal services
like paying taxes online or when
there is suddenly increased demand
on services, such as requests for
information about a new pandemic
flu vaccine. However, the current
systems are based on technologies
into which the public organization
has made hardware, software and
Benefits
The benefits for public organizations are similar to private entities.
The most misunderstood benefit
Cloud services might provide
benefits for public organizations -
but governments have been slow to
adopt their use.
Challenges and Benefits
for Public Sector
If all these models have been
tested by other organizations, why
there are few public organizations
using them?
Most likely security and legal
challenges are the primary concerns, especially in public organizations in the EU under the Data
protection Directive.
Another challenge is integration with current systems. Most
public organizations have been
using information and communication technologies for a long time.
These systems have evolved over
the years; in some cases from silos
based on specific requirements or
new legislation; i.e., using specific
technologies compatible with the
existing systems. Cloud services
are not created with connection
to internal systems in mind. This
implies incompatibility and duplication of systems for the public
organization. A new system that
is completely independent from an
existing system is a good candidate
for using a cloud service. However, most often integration with
existing services is required. The
solution for this problem is using
at all; "non-proprietary and mission
critical" - developed by another
company, and "non-proprietary"
that can be outsourced [3].
If the public organization's ICT
department does not have a clear
financial model, like chargeback,
the number of systems and servers
in the cloud could grow rapidly as
there is not a clear need to decommission systems because of their
maintenance cost.
knowledge investments. To move
these services into a cloud environment where the use of this elasticity
could be useful will require significant changes to the software, or that
it be completely re-written.
There will be services that cannot be easily migrated to the cloud in
the short and medium term mainly
due to complexity and this limits the
possible cost savings due to the need
to retain much of the present infrastructure. Again, the solution is a
long-term strategy, creating new services that can work in a cloud model.
Another way that this will be more
costly is that the previous services
and new cloud services will need to
be maintained simultaneously.
Any existing public organization outsourcing strategy should
also be considered when deciding what services will be moved
to cloud services or not. When
outsourcing, some public organizations classify their services
according to the following definitions: "proprietary and mission
critical," which are not outsourced
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE
|
SprING 2013
relates to cost and this is often what
drives projects to move to the cloud.
Typically costs are mainly moved
from capital to operational expenditures. The degree of benefit resulting
from a move to the cloud depends
on the type of services provided by a
particular public organization.
reducing the ICT staff headcount or reassigning staff to other
more business-related tasks could
be a long-term benefit, but if it is
not handled properly it can create
problems with dependency on the
cloud vendors. As in private organizations, this situation is driven by a
desire to focus resources on the core
business. With cloud operations
there are fewer specific technical
management tasks, but there must
be more staff with knowledge of the
new cloud models and management
of service level agreements (SLA).
Other direct benefits are scalability, elasticity, self-provisioning,
and a pay-as-you-go charging
model. There also may be indirect benefits arising from the use
of services associated with cloud
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