EMC has given the public sector a blank canvas to develop cloud computing solutions that could cut government costs and showcase Ireland’s technology talent
THE GOVERNMENT unveiled its first cloud computing initiative on Monday with Cloud4Gov, the fruits of a partnership between IT multinational EMC and the IDA. EMC is hoping to prove the concept and make the model available to other governments while the state agency is keen to develop Ireland’s cloud capabilities to attract further foreign direct investment.
At the launch, the Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte reiterated a commitment to cloud computing that first appeared in the Programme for Government. He described it as a priority for development and support but was light on detail. More clues about which public sector processes will be heading to the cloud might become clearer in a cloud strategy report to be published within two months.
Jack Mollen, executive vice president of human resources at EMC, said that the cloud would make IT services as commoditised as mobile apps and Ireland had a vital role to play in their future. “It will be one of the major industries of the 21st century and Ireland is at the forefront of its development,” he said.
The Cloud4Gov platform is being made available for free to the Government to test and develop applications and services that can leverage the much-hyped advantages of the cloud. Infrastructure and applications will be run out of a central data centre, procured on a pay-as-you-go basis, avoiding the heavy capital outlay that plagues traditional IT projects.
VMware and Cisco are also involved, having co-developed Vblock with EMC, the converged infrastructure that underpins the new platform. They already sell it as a tried-and-tested combination of computer power, storage and networking, with built-in security provided by RSA, the security division of EMC.
The hope is that the Cloud4Gov will be used to build and host applications or services that improve public sector processes. There is nothing to stop government departments doing something similar on existing Amazon or Microsoft public cloud platforms, but the difference with Cloud4Gov is that it’s a private cloud. The infrastructure and data will reside in a government data centre on the government network, alleviating concerns about where citizen information is held.
A second private cloud will sit in EMC’s Cork campus and be made available to small firms who had previously found it prohibitively expensive to develop solutions for government. Some projects are already in the pipeline, according to Ward. “It means more businesses can compete for more tenders. So it’s not just about cutting costs, it’s about stimulating growth, jobs and entrepreneurship.”
The other aim is to save the Government money. “It is widely recognised that you can achieve massive savings through cloud computing. Analysts like Gartner talk of 50 per cent cost reductions,” said Jason Ward, country manager for EMC. He believes Cloud4Gov could reduce the Government’s annual ICT expenditure by 25 per cent.
Cloud4Gov is a blank canvas waiting to be used. While Ward is too diplomatic to suggest the processes that would be a good fit, he paints a picture of long-term benefits that go beyond cheap infrastructure. “The option to securely store, access, share and analyse data in a private cloud could make the Government an exemplar for database decision-making, leveraging intelligence and information from all of its vast resources,” said Ward.
The cloud discussion is increasingly about ways to harness the proliferation of digital data and use it for predictive analytics. In the case of the public sector it could be healthcare professionals digging down into information to identify emerging trends, something that is difficult and costly with systems and infrastructure that are in disconnected siloes.
The cloud could also reduce the risk of failed IT projects like PPARS, which cost the State millions yet never worked. “You had to make a huge upfront capital investment in new infrastructure before you even thought about deploying a project. That’s all gone with the cloud,” said Ward. “If you start down a route of testing new solutions and it doesn’t work you can switch it off and use the infrastructure for other projects. And you only pay for what you use.”
He quotes analysts who say that between 30 and 70 per cent of IT projects fail, usually because too many parties are involved, data sources are siloed and there’s a lack of joined-up thinking. “Cloud4Gov provides one centralised area to manage all of the infrastructure so the cost of deploying new projects is greatly reduced,” he said.
Not everyone is convinced that the cloud is a public sector panacea. Dr Joe McDonagh, associate professor of business and information technology at Trinity College, argues that the problem lies beyond the latest iteration of IT delivery. “The management piece that shapes and guides all government organisations is missing,” he said. “The cloud is just a new arrangement for reducing the cost of infrastructure. The real job is forging ahead with efficiency gains through shared services, but that isn’t being tackled at all.”
He believes an opportunity was missed a decade ago when the government could have seriously committed to shared service centres for all major support functions – finance, HR, IT – and reaped huge efficiency gains.
There is also a track record of systemic failure when it comes to managing IT, according to McDonagh. He said that the Public Service Broker, the last time there was an attempt to leverage technology to increase efficiency, foundered because government departments and agencies didn’t buy into it.
“If the cloud is to have any relevance, there has to be a clear modernisation strategy that includes a role for the new technology,” he said. Right now, he doesn’t believe those pieces of the jigsaw are in place.
