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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology ENGINEERING (IJCET), ISSN 0976INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPUTER 6367(Print), ISSN 0976

6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME & TECHNOLOGY (IJCET)

ISSN 0976 6367(Print) ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), pp. 61-72 IAEME: www.iaeme.com/ijcet.asp Journal Impact Factor (2013): 6.1302 (Calculated by GISI) www.jifactor.com

IJCET
IAEME

CLOUD COMPUTING-A NEW WAY TO ROLL OUT E-GOVERNANCE PROJECTS IN INDIA


Prof. Manas Kumar Sanyal1, Sudhangsu Das2, Sajal Bhadra3
1 2

(Department of Business Administration, University of Kalyani, Nadia, WB (Department of Business Administration, University of Kalyani, Nadia, WB 3 (Department of Business Administration, University of Kalyani, Nadia, WB

Abstract E-governance serve the citizens need always in better way. Information and communication Technology (ICT) made lots of changes in governance process but at the same time it requires efforts for changing process, building infrastructures and capacity enhancement. Cloud computing can help Government to speed up in rolling out of eGovernance projects and to reach out it to a larger number of people in a short period. Since, Government is putting a lot of effort towards Information Technology (IT) cost shrinking and making it available for all citizens equally in urban and rural areas, Cloud computing may lead to significant role not only to scale down the cost of operations for rolling out egovernance initiatives but also expedite the process as well. It entails use over the Internet of computing hardware, software and network infrastructure and applications that are remotely hosted. Present study is about to analyze and to examine the application of cloud computing pay-per-use approach in context of Indian e-Governance projects. Also, authors have proposed an effective model for incorporating the concept of cloud computing in Indian eGovernance, which would reduce cost and will be accessible to all states in India. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been adopted to validate this proposed model. Keywords: E-GOVERNANCE, CLOUD COMPUTING, ICT, PAY-PER-USE, SDC 1. INTRODUCTION According to announcement of NEGP plan of Government of India (GI) on 18th May 2006, all public services will be accessible to common people locally through common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs. GI has declared 27 mission mode projects and 8 components to reach out
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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

these services to common people [8]. The existing and ongoing projects has proven that eGovernance projects have smoothen the Government services by providing transparency, effective working, instant response and availability of Government information to the end within a time frame. The existing e-Governance projects in India are mainly implemented in distributed nature and maintained state wise individual infrastructure for the same kind of Government services that increases the total e-Governance projects roll out cost. To avoid these discrepancies, the new concept, Cloud computing can hold a lot of financial benefits for Government to roll out e-Governance projects. Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction [11]. Cloud computing technology is beneficial to all users. It meets every bodys requirement without neglecting security and privacy at the time of business transaction over the Internet, and at the same time provides ease of use for the client. With the Cloud computing technology individual can connect to the cloud from personal computer or portal devices, over the Internet to mirror own data into Cloud account. For large-scale businesses, company can eliminate capital investments to buy an additional number of hardware, software, services for all employees since cloud computing platform contains all the necessary functions and software for every one easy access and computing of the cloud. Cloud computing vendors are claiming that cloud computing will transform the way IT is consumed and managed, promising improved cost efficiencies, accelerated innovation, faster time-to-market, and the ability to scale applications on demand. The main objective of Government is to enable the e-Governance projects to meet the wide range of requirement for Government to Citizen, Government to Business, Inter/Intra Government Employees, and Government to Employee services with the help of Cloud computing technology in an optimal manner with regard to cost, security, flexibility, operational reliability and robustness. The Key drivers for Government to adopt cloud computing strategy are: Value for Money Cloud Technology can help the Government to reduce duplicate efforts and increase savings by effective utilization of resources through virtualization Allow for measured payment (pay as you use) Reduced energy use Enable agencies to reinvest in, and concentrate on, core objectives Adopt, where fit for purpose, modern technologies and practices that improve ICT effectiveness and efficiency No need to purchase hardware, software licenses or implementation services for individual needs

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

Flexibility Create a flexible services-oriented environment for agencies Rapid provisioning and deployment of services and on demand scalability and elasticity for services and capabilities Increased scope of the availability of the latest version of software On-demand self sufficient service Ubiquitous network access Location independent resource Rapid elasticity Cloud architectures allow rapid deployment of turn key test environments with little or no customization Operational reliability and robustness Provide more reliable and robust systems to reach out the all Government services to common peopleCloud can help in analyzing huge volumes of data and detecting any fraud. Ensuring data privacy, storage persistence and reliable DBMS backup Ensuring robustness and scalability on demand Cloud computing might give extra milestone to Government of India to reduce implementation cost for its different states and help to moving towards uniform ICT compliance country. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW In the year 2008 Saxena Meetali described the impact of technologies on the practices and administration of Governments and the relationships between public servants and society [13]. Authors also explored how e-Governance initiatives of Government of India transformed the rural masses and the changing face of Rural India with the help of application of Information Technology is brought out. Bagga, R. K. and Gupta Piyush identified different aspects of e-Governance approaches in India in 2009. The main study was in critical issues, challenges of e-Governance projects and finally focused on different approach and methodology for project [1]. In the year 2009, Gujarathi, D.M., Patil Rakesh S. also emphasized the major factors responsible for successful of implementation and sustenance of different e-Governance projects for social development in rural area [8]. In the same year, Shirin Madon explained about the proliferation of e-Governance projects in developing countries and their impact on local communities. Shirin Madon drews on 18 years of research in India in which time many changes have occurred in terms of development ideology and in governance reform for achieving development goals [16]. According to Gartner in 2009, the interest of cloud computing is growing among the industry to implement IT services in more cost effective way. The Vendors are also started to change the Cloud computing strategy and variations like private cloud computing and hybrid approaches, compounding the hype [9]. In the book Handbook of Cloud Computing , Borko Furht, Armando Escalante have explained clearly how the cloud computing is reshaping information technology to scale down IT cost. This book have published in the year 2010 and presents the systems, tools, and services of the leading providers of cloud computing; including Google, Yahoo, Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft [2]. Mukherjee, K. and Shaoo, G. have described the way of accessing e-Governance in cloud computing architecture
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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

in 2010 and conclude that cloud computing could be future frame work in e-Governance by providing massive computing power, unlimited storage capacity, Less Maintenance cost, availability of use full e-Governance web services [7]. In the year 2010, Prasad, A.,Chaurasia S.,Singh A., Gour G. highlights the key point in favor of service oriented cloud computing acceptability in e-Governance. Also Authors present tight similarities between generic Governments functioning and the service oriented cloud approach [12]. Rastogi, A. in 2010 proposed a framework to overcome existing problem in e-Governance services like Infrastructure Development, Accessibility, Security, Trust and privacy, Transparency, Permanent Availability and preservation, Cost Structure. Author drawn a conclusion that People can get services than traditional computing with reduced cost with the help of cloud computing [15]. 3. CLOUD COMPUTING: OVERVIEW In terms of implementation of cloud computing, there are three type of cloud computing shown in figure 1 [17]. Private cloud is build up in such a way whose services are provided by an IT department to those in its own organization without limitation of network bandwidth, security, software, and hardware. A private cloud become highly virtualized, stringing together mass quantities of IT infrastructure into one or a few easily managed logical resource pools. Since, the Private cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an organization, It is also called internal cloud computing. Public Cloud Services delivered over the public Internet and available to anyone who wants to purchase the service. The cloud services generally hosted into central server away from the users and it made accessible to the general public or a large industry group as pay-per-use basis. This type of cloud is called external cloud computing and provides all the benefits of the cost reduction, scalability and easy maintenance. Hybrid Cloud is a combination of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that interoperate together and enables high level portability to data and application. It manages the normal work load of private cloud computing as well as having the capability to meet the peak demand of public cloud computing. This type of cloud computing is seen as future of cloud computing.

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

According to the concept of cloud computing, there are three levels of cloud computing as shown in figure 2 [5] .Each level provide a service that is virtualized, where they do not have to depend on any physical artifacts. SAAS (Software as a Service) is a service designed to use software as rental basis instead of purchase. It becomes most popular type of cloud computing for its high flexibility, great services, enhanced scalability and less maintenance. Also Users does not require to install application in own computer. Yahoo mail, Google docs, CRM applications is the best example of SAAS. PAAS (Platform as a Service) is referring to a platform that can be accessed on demand. It provides infrastructure on which software developers can build new applications or extend existing ones without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning hosting capabilities. In other words, it provides the supporting infrastructure to enable the end user develop his own solutions.

IAAS (Infrastructure as a Service) provides flexibility to the users by allowing them to access infrastructure like Storage, Network equipment, Hardware, Web server, Data Base space etc. As per the requirement, there is no point to worry for an organization to buy this costly infrastructure in order to run the application. Organizations only hire the required infrastructure from IAAS providers and load up their libraries, applications, and data. A popular use of IAAS is in hosting websites. 4. EXISTING E-GOVERNANCE SERVICES In our present study we have examined existing e-Governance approach in context of India and developed a new framework to configure cloud computing to deliver Indian eGovernance projects. Efforts has also been made to estimate the benefits after incorporating the cloud computing. The Government of India has prepared a common e-Governance delivery model across the country to provide citizen service in better manner. The main objective of this approach is to launch state wise application, Common Service Centre (CSC), e-Kiosk machine, State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and State Data Centre (SDC). CSC and e-Kiosk directly interacts with the common citizen as front tier of this model to collect the data through various e-Governance services. In the figure 3, it is being depicted that CSCs and eKiosks are available at nearest locality of the people so that people can access it easily for nominal fees. These front tier outlets are also broadband enabled, thus it is connecting the rural citizens through the Internet and SWAN. The SWAN provides connectivity up to block level with 2 Mbps (E-1 link) leased line of BSNL. The SWAN is conceived as the primary information highway to increase data processing and

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

service delivery efficiency for various e-Governance services across districts through Blocks, Subs Divisional Headquarters, Gram Panchayats, and Municipalities [10]. The main Goal of SWAN is to provide backbone network for data, voice & video communication. The SDC is connected with the all CSC through SWAN to provide Central Data Repository of the State, Secure Data Storage, Disaster Recovery, Remote Management and Service Integration etc. SDC would also provide better operation & management control and minimize overall cost of Data Management.

5. PROPOSED CLOUD BASED E-GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK As we know that Government of India are deploying e-Governance projects for each state under NEGP plan and providing fund for each state to implement the projects in the country, GI fetching financial crisis to provide these huge amount of fund and as a result the implementation process of e-Governance projects are being delayed. We are proposing a new framework to incorporate cloud computing for e-Governance services to minimize the implementation cost of e-Governance projects in India. In the figure 4, we have mentioned some e-Governance services of GI like E-Police, E-Court, GIS, Telemedicine, E-District, and Environment Management etc. as SAAS of cloud computing for end users. For this purpose, GI can build a single application for each service to share among all the state in India by hosting the application in central web server, which facilitates to reduce deployment cost as well as maintenance cost and technological up gradation cost. In our framework we have considered all e-Governance application services in central level to give an account wise
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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

access for all application developer as pay-per-use basis to deliver PAAS of cloud computing. Few of the services is being depicted in the figure Fig-4 like OS provisioning, Queuing, Database service, Middle ware, Server load balance, work flow service, Billing management, Content Management, License management, Integration service, Backup service, Security service. Application developer will get an access to license for the specific service as per the requirement and just need to pay membership fees for the license. It will be effective to save development cost of service or purchase cost of service. To implement eGovernance, GI is about to set up State wise Data Centre to store all the Government data into one Data Centre regardless of application or nature of the data. Each SDC is having its own Security plan, Backup plan and Disaster plan to ensure seamless and secure data service. In our proposed framework, we want to incorporate IAAS of cloud computing by introducing a central controller service among the all SDC to backup all data into a single backup server and backup server will be designed in such a way so that server will be capable to provide data in any kind of disaster. Instead of multiple backup servers and multiple disaster recovery, single point backup will help to cut down server maintenance cost and Database server hardware cost. Along with this, proposed framework will enable on demand access for all the costly hardware like web server, network bandwidth, storage, DSN and DHCP etc., mainly used by the Network Architect to avoid individual cost.

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

6. TESTING: THE TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE MODEL TO ADOPT CLOUD COMPUTING IN E-GOVERNANCE PROJECTS It is always difficult to take decision to adopt new technology for any kind of situation in enterprise level. So, Hypothetical test for any conceptual model is very important to avoid any bad impact before implementation of the model. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) may be used to test any conceptual model regarding adoption of new technology, to measure how the users going to accept and use the new technology. The main objective of TAM is to forecast idea about the user acceptance and to find out any design fault before users have any significant experience with a system [4]. Davis suggested that Users inspiration can be explained as perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), attitude toward using, and behavioral intentions to use. Mainly Davis hypnotized that behavioral intention of a user determinant that whether users are going use or reject the system [4, 5]. Presently, Researchers and practitioners are using this tool enormously to test acceptance of any new technology as it is very cost effective and less time consuming. In this study, Authors also have used TAM to test the above mentioned conceptual diagram towards adopting cloud computing in Indian e-Governance projects. The logical flow of TAM is used to measure the user acceptance are shown in Fig-V

Fig V: TAM Acceptance diagram Authors have conducted survey among 38 Government IT executives who are closely working in different e-Governance projects in India and 45 Could Computing IT professionals to justify the prospects and benefits of cloud computing adoption in Indian e-Governance projects. Two different set of questionnaires has been used to collect different kind of information from Government IT executives and cloud computing IT professionals respectively.

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

The following constructors have been identified based on the survey response

TABLE 1: Cloud computing, TAM acceptance constructors


Constructors Description Response in Percentage

Perceived Usefulness

Government IT executives & IT professionals believe that use of cloud computing will give extra mileage in the process to roll out e-Governance project.

92

Perceived Ease of Use

The degree to which Government IT executives & IT professionals have been agreed that cloud computing will make implementation process, maintenance process and extensible process easier.

94

Attitude Toward Using

Good to feel mentality among the Government IT executives & IT professionals to accept cloud computing in e-governance projects

80

Behavioral Intentions to Use User Satisfaction

Having thought in mind to use cloud computing for long time Government IT executives satisfaction will extend. believe that User

84

91

World wide Acceptability of cloud computing Demand of cost reduction & maintenance simplicity in e-Governance Data Center.

popularity of e-governance projects among all

98

Governments are looking for cost reduction in data center investment, and alternative solutions for the current complex maintenance process.

93

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

In respect of above identified constructors, The TAM diagram Fig. VI, has been used to test the cloud computing acceptability in Indian e-Governance projects-

H1a

Technology Acceptance Model


Perceived usefulness H3a
H5

Demand of cost reduction & maintenance simplicity in eGovernance Data Center

H4a H2 User Satisfaction Behavioral intention Adoption of cloud computing in E-Governance

Worldwide Acceptability of cloud computing


H1b

Perceived ease of use

H3b H4b

Fig. VI: TAM Diagram towards acceptance of cloud computing in E-Governance

Hypothesis The below mentioned factors has been hypothesized in this study to realize the acceptance of cloud computing in Indian e-Governance projectsH1a: Government already having some demand to reduce investment for data center in each state in India. Also Government IT Mangers frequently face problem to do maintenance in data center. This kind of thought made influence for perceived usefulness. H1b: Worldwide Acceptability of cloud computing have major role on perceived ease of use to adopt cloud computing in Indian e-Governance projects. H2: Perceived ease of use of cloud computing in e-Governance projects also influence perceived usefulness to adopt cloud computing in e-Governance projects. H3a: Perceived usefulness to adopt cloud computing in e-Governance projects positively increased user satisfaction in e-Governance projects. H3b: Perceived ease of use to adopt cloud computing in e-Governance projects positively increased user satisfaction in e-Governance projects. H4a: User satisfaction in e-Governance projects has positive effects on Behavioural intention of user. H4b: Government Leaders having positive attitude to accept cloud commuting in eGovernance projects. H5: Behavioural intention of user positively makes possible to adopt cloud computing in eGovernance projects.

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

7. RESULT In a nutshell, from the TABLE I and FIG. VI, World wide acceptance of cloud computing in various kind of data center is a main factor which helps to all Government IT executives, Leaders and IT professionals in different domains to make some perception that uses of cloud computing in e-Governance projects also would be easy to use. The implementation cost and maintenance cost of data center for each state is always treating as road blockage for Indian government as the cost is used to get simply multiplied by the number of states that are going to use the data center. So, cost reduction is always in mind of Government, IT executives, & Leaders, which influenced to them to make some perception that usefulness of cloud computing in e-Governance data center would be great success. The past experience of IT professionals in cloud computing also has put them in same perception about the usefulness of cloud computing in e-Governance projects. Users those are using cloud computing in others field has got tremendous success and uses of e-Governance in India are also being able to make user happy to get Government services, these points leads to get perception that users would be satisfied. Therefore, cloud computing in e-Governance projects could be a solution to roll out eGovernance projects in India. 8. CONCLUSION Adoption of Cloud Technology to e-Governance in India will improve the interconnectivity, radical cost reduction, easy maintenance of application and Data Centre. This study also concludes that Pay-per-use concept helps to speed up to roll out eGovernance project in India. REFERENCE [1] [2] Bagga, R. K. and Gupta, P. TRANSFORMING GOVERNMENT: eGOVERNANCE INITIATIVES IN INDIA, Icfai University Press, 2009. Borko, F., Armando, E., Handbook of Cloud Computing, Springer, 2010. Coursey, D. and Norris, D. Models of e-Government; Are they correct? An empirical assessment, Public Administration, Review, volume 68, Number 3, pp 523536,2008. Chanwick, A. and May, C., Interaction between states and Citizens in the age of the internet: E-Government in the United States, Britain and the European Union, Governance An International Journal of policy, Administration and Institutions, volume 16, Number 2, pp 271-300, year 2003. Davis, F.D. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13 (3), pp. 318-340, 1989. Davis, F.D. User acceptance of information technology: system characteristics, user perceptions and behavioural impacts. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies 38, pp. 475-487, 1993. Grant G., and Chau D., Developing a Generic Framework for E-Government, Journal of Global Information Management, Volume 13, Number 1, pp 1-30,year 2005.

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 2, March April (2013), IAEME

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