The Challenges of Implementing Cloud Technologies in the Public Sector
Today, the internet works as a medium through which an increasing number of services and products are offered. Chris Cruz, Deputy State CIO of California, in his lecture, said that technology is transforming the government to provide value for people and businesses. The cloud computing paradigm has revolutionized the way businesses and governments work. It is more economical, flexible and convenient to use the cloud to manage and share data. It is an incredible tool for collaboration to help businesses scale up and succeed. It is increasingly becoming a key component for success in the private and public sector. In the public sector, although cloud computing provides significant advantages to governments there are major barriers to its adoption. Issues related to the security of data, migration and integration of new technologies as well as the reliability of the cloud vendor are not uncommon. Chris Cruz said California has implemented a system in which all public offices buy cloud services from one department and acts as a ‘one stop shop’ for cloud technology related requests. Therefore, to test cloud systems, governments experiment with the cloud technology for a period of time before a full scale adoption is deployed.I have found three major recurring challenges in adopting cloud technologies and they will be discussed in this blog post along with an overview of steps that can be taken to prevent avoidable failure.
Migration and integration of new technologies
While governments continue to leverage cloud services to provide the best service to its citizens, a more connected system may have issues related to use of data, security and privacy. A major challenge for governments is to use modern IT technologies that comply with their standards of security and performance [1].
The interface and integration of cloud services has been a challenge in deployment since its inception. On one side there are typical challenges such as adoption, change management and migration with the integration of new technologies into the existing architecture on the other. This might be true for a rigid Software as a Service (SaaS) solution but the introduction of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (Paas) have given organisations the flexibility to tailor their applications to their own needs while not compromising on time and reliability. Therefore, it paves the way for seamless integration with existing systems and leads to consistent performance. It is also important for organisations to follow good practices and understand their needs thoroughly and how the new technology can enhance their work systems. Contingency plans a deep network and storage analysis needs to done before the actual migration to avoid major failures during the deployment phase [2].
Security and Privacy of Data
Public organisations have to make an important decision in selecting whether they adopt new technologies entirely or partially. Data security concerns is one of the biggest hurdles in moving entire services to the cloud however some companies claim data in the cloud can be as secure as data in a closed network with the right measures in place [3]. There are powerful systems in place to protect and backup data that meet the stringent standards of the public sector and organisations can always choose a hybrid system for added authentication. Moreover, stringent guidelines placed by the government reduce security breaches allowing for a combination of private, public and hybrid cloud models [2]. Even if strong systems are at a place there is a need to come up with a complete and consistent security policy that works well with the cloud system.
Reliability of the Cloud Vendor
When public information is stored in a large number of databases, the location of the cloud servers is important to be able to protect data effectively. Therefore, choosing the right cloud vendor that has exceptional availability of service, reliability, security of data and one that understands the needs of the customer is imperative. Additionally, budget is an important part of initialising anything in the public sector, therefore, it is vital to understand the vendor’s price structure beforehand. Hidden costs can be avoided by if systems are delayed the right way [4]. The vendors must have gone through a due diligence process before procurement with a value chain analysis to any avoid disruption to the service in the future. Many public agencies are using cloud brokers as a platform to access multiple cloud vendors and helping them choose the right one for their organisation. They also streamline the automation and license management process to help organisations look into the latest cloud technologies.
Conclusion
The challenges discussed in this post are limited to only prominent issues faced by public organisations (applicable to private organisations as well) in implementing cloud based technologies but if deployed correctly they can greatly improve the efficiency of organisations and add value to their work.
References
[1] – https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/782f/1dca721c1758e8b2a5835ec1a66c3e5fa39f.pdf
[3] – http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en_us/solutions/industries/docs/c11-687784_cloud_omputing_wp.pdf
Users who have LIKED this post:
One comment on “The Challenges of Implementing Cloud Technologies in the Public Sector”
Comments are closed.
marketing and value chain management. I like to keep things simple and minimalistic!
A nice article about the challenges for public sectors to implement Cloud Tech. I hold some same thoughts as you. I think that the data migration and integration are the top consider by the governments when implementing cloud technology because they need to provide a more connected system and provide information more efficiently to citizens, but they also need to ensure the privacy and the security of the information stored in the cloud at the same time. So they need a good planning, good partner, and good project management. And I believe that, once it’s set up, the governments will be able to gather and share information and make decisions faster, with the power of the cloud.
Users who have LIKED this comment: