Comments on: 4.2. The Government Cloud or “G-Cloud”

By: Richard Melville

Richard Melville — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:58:22 +0000

I completely agree, Hugh — modularity is the key, and with systems built on open standards and FLOSS interoperability between modules would be assured.

By: Hugh Barnard

Hugh Barnard — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:14:36 +0000

How about going the other way, small-scale, well-bounded, federated systems which can interoperate. This is bio-mimetic because it is cellular and does not produce huge unaccountable, unmanageable monoliths (we see no details of the G-cloud, but civil service culture + the usual suspects will ensure that it is large and complex and unmanageable). The small well-bounded systems have good ownership and can fail (remember our banks? there used to be many, smaller ones) from time to time.

The common parts are standards, languages, software components and applications which are reduced incrementally, again so that ‘bad’ calls can be backed out.

I also agree with other commentators about the blurry nature of the G-Cloud (a private EC3, a huge REST accessible hash store etc. etc.) until will know this, we can’t call the security and point of failure concerns, But I am already concerned by the ‘handing off’ of management and ownership. Too much of that already.

By: PS57

PS57 — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:49:20 +0000

We need to rise ‘above the cloud’ – Web 2.0 is changing business models dramatically, and the Cloud concept is the response to this change. Google is leading the way and as the ‘clash of the titans’ (google vs Ms) gets underway the public sector like everyone else has to place its bets…if we end up in a Google web-based, world then it will not be ‘if’ a cloud but when and all the issues to do with security, ownership and portability of data will just have to be dealt with….

By: Jez

Jez — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:10:21 +0000

Re:William says:
>>“Work on developing the G-Cloud strategy will be initiated in the autumn 2009″

Does this mean the work has already started (in secret)?<<

That's Autumn 2009 on the Home Office DB system, it's actually Spring 2010 on 90% of the government departmental systems and Summer 2011 on the rest (except the F&CO, where it's June 1st 1963).

Unfortunately, that's about as compatible as the various government department database systems currently are.

Kudos to Steve Horgan for making most sense here.

By: jforbes

jforbes — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:26:37 +0000

“One recurring theme in large-scale IT is grandiose schemes that are going to be transformational but instead turn out to be incremental instead. It would be much better to forget the hype, recognise the actual costs and pace of transition and work on that basis instead of the ‘with one bound they were free’ approach.”

Most sensible comment I have read on here.

By: Steve Horgan

Steve Horgan — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:02:02 +0000

On the one hand the author admits that the Cloud Computing model is in its infancy but other hand they say that they are relying on it for most of the anticipated savings from this strategy. Betting your business on unproven technology concepts is rarely a good idea.

As mentioned previously, there seems little understanding of the way services have to be redesigned to fit into this model, and for the bulk of the government’s existing IT estate this will probably not be worthwhile, except as the very long term renewal cycle allows.

One recurring theme in large-scale IT is grandiose schemes that are going to be transformational but instead turn out to be incremental instead. It would be much better to forget the hype, recognise the actual costs and pace of transition and work on that basis instead of the ‘with one bound they were free’ approach.

By: anon

anon — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:41:34 +0000

Gov has been using private-cloud equivalents for many years, it is has been a cornerstone of IBM’s business since the 60’s. The information assurance lessons learnt are equally applicable to x86 virtualisation (which is what the current Cloud buzz is all about).

By: barryd

barryd — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:51:27 +0000

A private cloud for government? In my day we called that a server.

By: William H

William H — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:08:33 +0000

Government uses a lot of string. And clearly it has its own distinct requirements, as well as massive purchasing power.

Our vision is that government develop and implement a G-String enabling framework that enables public bodies to source string from a secure, resilient, flexible and cost-effective service based environment. It can use the G-String to conceal the poverty of its ambitions.

By: William

William — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:02:02 +0000

“Work on developing the G-Cloud strategy will be initiated in the autumn 2009″

Does this mean the work has already started (in secret)?