Government Cloud: Fad or lofty ideal?

Enter any Cloud conference, training session or seminar and you’re immediately faced with all the hallmarks of a cult. Vendor employees are no longer engineers or sales people — they are ‘evangelists’ sent to spread the good message of Cloud; their Cloud, to be precise. When presentations aren’t peppered with marketing jargon about their ‘game changing’ services, they’re often littered with judgment Clouding puns.

This article is part one of a two-part series on government use of Cloud computing.

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Yet, what seems most out of line is the audience reception. Just try to recall the last time an IT manager waxed poetic about the wonders of mainframes or air-cooled data centres, at least with the same fervour with which they talked about their latest Cloud implementation. It seems those pushing Cloud products could simply sell the air that make up their namesakes, labelled with a brand, and still turn a buck.

Fresh from successful ventures in the private sector, Cloud providers have flocked to Canberra in search of the largest ICT buyers in

Australia, those with budgets surmounting $4.3 billion annually: Those in Federal Government.

The trend has turned into a ‘revolving door’ of Cloud providers at government meeting rooms bringing a bounty of free trials and consultations; mana from heaven for those unwilling to spare the loose change in their pocket without good reason.

But all that raises the question: Is the Cloud a vendor-driven fad or is it a legitimate solution to the cost and service constraints faced by a government determined to return to fiscal surplus by 2012-2013?

The vendor conundrum

The answer to this lies partly in the role of vendors in the IT decision making process; however, depending on who talk to, providers are either all-powerful or minnows in a pond of big fish.

Frost & Sullivan analyst, Arun Chandrasekaran, is certain any government move to the Cloud, regardless of local, state or federal jurisdictions, would involve consultation between the strategists within the departments, the CIOs that front IT spending and the end-users that seek something more from the tied-down application spectrum.

“They have less of an influence than they probably think they have,” he says.

But those decisions are easily muddied when the vendor messages approaching the public service attack CIOs from all sides.

“It’s still unjustifiably confusing,” says Gartner analyst Andre di Maio; someone who has watched the Cloud moves of governments globally for several years.

The current situation is akin to the talks around multi-sourcing several years ago, a ‘second wave’ that is highlighted by use of terms like ‘hybrid Cloud’; ones that often do more harm to an organisation’s understanding of the technology than good.

But, di Maio says, users are getting smarter. His proof of this is none other than the Australian Government’s Cloud Computing Strategic Direction Paper; an in-depth, 45-page document released in April by the government’s lead procurement agency that sets out direction guidelines which departments should consider when investigating Cloud models. Both di Maio and the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) behind the direction paper stress its contents are by no means “strategy” but rather a step forward to potentially utilise Cloud services in ways that “improve business outcomes through eliminating redundancy, increasing agility and providing information and communication technology services at a potentially cheaper cost”.

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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?'.