UK Government's Latest Reports on the G-Cloud Published
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request the UK Cabinet Office has this month published its latest ("Phase 2") reports on the G-Cloud Programme. The G-Cloud Programme sets out to define how the public sector could utilise the cloud computing approach to ICT delivery and to explore what benefits and challenges this approach creates. The G-Cloud Programme is a core element of the UK Government's ICT Strategy and is an enabler of cost savings targets for the 2011-2014 period, as well as other government objectives such as enhanced public services, improved data centre services and the green agenda.
It is envisaged that the G-Cloud will provide a variety of managed, common, utility and custom services for public sector organisations through a dedicated private cloud and trusted public clouds. Public sector organisations would be expected to use G-Cloud services as their first choice where available and where they fit their business needs. This will be a significant change from today's ICT landscape across the public sector as organisations will no longer procure and own the end-to-end ICT lifecycle for their services. It is hoped this this will drive efficiency and value through standardisation, sharing and re-use of services, as well as providing a route for rapid access to a portfolio of G-Cloud services.
Proposals under consideration by the UK Cabinet Office include the creation of a central G-Cloud authority to measure the merits of competing technology standards. This central authority would have as a primary objective the ability to impose technological, commercial and security standards on the public sector and its suppliers to create the equal opportunity necessary for G-Cloud to operate efficiently. The G-Cloud Programme also envisages an Applications Store for Government (ASG) being implemented to provide the public sector with an ICT marketplace to readily source, share and promote ICT services. The ASG would be a single online retail website for Public Sector organisations to use when purchasing ICT services. The proposals seek to avoid ‘lock in’ to a particular infrastructure provider by ensuring there will be a choice of at least two infrastructure providers for each application, and that public sector purchasers should be able to transfer their chosen application service to another infrastructure provider if required at some future point. In parallel to the development of G-Cloud services and the ASG, it is hoped that a cross public sector rationalisation, virtualisation and consolidation exercise will deliver a reduction in data centres (with the first tranche of data centre consolidation targeted by August 2011).
The UK Cabinet Office is due to publish a formal G-Cloud proposal in March as part of the government's overall ICT strategy. ICT suppliers doing business with the UK public sector (in Northern Ireland and elsewhere) will be awaiting further developments with interest. The UK Cabinet Office's recently published Phase 2 reports on the G-Cloud Programme are available here.
