VMware's Tait still confident over public sector Cloud prospects

Is Cloud ready for the mainstream public sector? It's a question that perhaps is still hard to answer in government circles.

While there are many advocates for Cloud in the public sector, equally there are many sceptics. With Cloud notably absent from the Government ICT Strategy published earlier this year and considerable speculation that the original G-Cloud plans are set to be watered down, all eyes will be on the publication of the government's revised Cloud implementation strategy later this year.

One person who's had a lot of involvement in Cloud work to date is Andy Tait, who until the end of March was deputy director of the G Cloud programme at the Cabinet Office and is now head of public sector strategy for Cloud services company VMware. Tait remains a strong advocate of Cloud Computing and of its potential to transform public sector service delivery:

“My work at the Cabinet Office created a base line for how we imagined the public sector could move towards the Cloud. There will be an implementation plan for Cloud available some time towards the end of September.”

But what will that strategy contain? The original G-Cloud vision was couched in the kind of grandiose, all-embracing language of a New Labour ICT initiative. But with the Cabinet Office clamping down on big spending on ICT and preaching the cause of localism, that original national vision is likely to have fallen out of favour. Tait is also waiting to see the detail, but notes that there are perhaps some clues already in the public domain:

“ The government ICT strategy reinforced three key themes – data centre consolidation, the G-Cloud and use of Cloud services and an Apps Store for government.”

The wider push towards reform and transformation of public services delivery favours the Cloud, suggest Tait when he says:

“ ICT has a significant contribution to make, but the public sector must face up to a fundamental transformation from direct and dedicated approach to ICT to a more dynamic and shared common infrastructure which is possible through virtualisation and Cloud Computing. ”

Tait concedes that there are hurdles to be overcome in pitching Cloud technologies and services into the public sector, not least the threat of vendor lock-in:

“ We don't want Cloud to be a lock in. One of the clear requirements we identified was the concept of portability. We imagined that going to the Cloud needed to avoid becoming a one way trip only. We needed to avoid proprietary Clouds such as Salesforce.com or some of the Microsoft Clouds. But inside the private Cloud within the boundaries of the Public Services Network (PSN) are a number of standards that ensure the portability that allows you to extract your data and move your infrastructure platform.”

He adds:

“ There are information assurance challenges. I can't speak for the government now, but they do recognise that the only that the Cloud can go forward is if data integrity can be assured. ”

While awaiting the publication of the detailed implementation plan from the Cabinet Office, Tait has his own thoughts on how Cloud adoption might proceed:

“ In the short term we are likely to see more Cloud common platforms based on high levels of virtualisation and existing within the perimeter of a public network. That way, government not only has more assurance of how that data's being managed, but also of seeing programmes take bold steps into using Cloud services. ”

Cloud vendors will play their part, he suggests:

“ Over the past few weeks, I've come across a number of organisations, including my own, which are building the initial frameworks and foundations for Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings for the public sector. There are good opportunities to build those sort of platforms for development and testing.”

Tait concludes:

“ Over the coming years we will see organisations getting ready for the Cloud, virtualising the applications within their own boundaries as the first steps towards full Cloud. It is a first step though. If you virtualise all the servers within the boundary of your own organisation, I wouldn't describe that as full Cloud. Public Cloud services will become more mature. We will get more confidence in using them and we will see best practice in how we use the Cloud so that the guidelines will become more clearly. That will enable organisations to gain the benefits that Cloud can offer. ”