The direction paper has been applauded by those within government and without as a leap forward that outstrips similar attempts by the United States and the United Kingdom.
More importantly, the Australian Government uses the paper to make an affirmation di Maio says had to be made: “Cloud has to be considered but always on a basic cost-risk basis, not that you have to go the Cloud because it’s cool.”
Jump into the pool
Regardless of AGIMO’s attempts to allay any sense of ‘coolness’ from Cloud movements, its direction paper already counts six examples of Federal Government departments and two from the Western Australian Government progressing with proofs of concept or migrations to some element of Cloud. In each of these cases, the departments have clearly delineated between public and in-confidence data in seemingly desperate attempts to take advantage of a delivery model they believe will deliver the savings and efficiencies required of them. For Andrew Mills, CIO of the South Australian Government, it’s a matter of doing whatever is necessary to meet the business priority.
“I don’t see any issue if someone is organising a conference or seminar, using a Cloud solution to do the registrations,” he says. “In some senses it’s no real different to what we did when client-server came in. As each new wave comes in, we’ve got to look at it, and assess it.”
As with any new technology, Cloud has posed a security and regulatory challenge for government, surpassing many of the risk management frameworks in place. It’s an issue that the directions paper of AGIMO in some part attempts to resolve, but one that Mills says isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution.
“State jurisdictions are so broad that the risk factors for the organisation are quite different. You can’t impose a single solution for everyone. You have to provide the tools and let them work out the needs for their business.” Here, too, vendors play a part. Eager to pick up a piece of the annual ICT pie, it is no surprise that many of the ‘education’ sessions held in Canberra and at government departments around the country have gone some way to convincing IT heads that the data jurisdiction is not a worrying one in many aspects.
In its response to the draft version of the strategy paper, industry-led ICT group the Australian Information Industry Association warned against “over-emphasising” concerns over data sovereignty and loss of data control. Doing so, it stated, would only play to keeping the status quo of departmental ICT without the efficiencies and cost reductions Cloud services purport to provide.
For Mills, the vendor play comes with the territory: “It’s about learning. That’s not a negative to them, we need to work with them and we will work with the providers on those issues and look at what it needs and what it doesn’t need.”
Click here for part two of 'Government Cloud: Fad or lofty ideal?'.