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Data Centre Strategy, G-Cloud & Government Applications Store Programme Phase 2
Summary of Vision
Introduction
1.1
At the core of the programme is the vision of providing political, business and ICT
leaders with greatly improved agility, flexibility and choice in the ICT that enables the public
sector and to deliver substantial cost savings on both existing and new ICT services. This will
involve a wholesale move to shared utility style ICT services for use as the default across
the public sector. Citizens, staff and the third sector will benefit from greater innovation and
choice and from more personalised presentation of relevant services from across the public
sector.
1.2
The programme is being designed to address key ICT related objectives set out by
the Operational Efficiency Programme, and those of the Green ICT Strategy, Digital Britain,
Building Britains Future and Smarter Government.
1.3
Recent developments in ICT have made it possible to consolidate ICT Infrastructure
in a way that delivers increased flexibility and responsiveness to business needs whilst
reducing costs. This change involves a move from ICT being provided individually by
organisations procuring their own separate ICT infrastructure, to a new model in which ICT is
provided as a utility which is known as Cloud Computing. The flexibility provided by Cloud
computing has enabled its rapid growth and a corresponding lowering of costs.
1.4
Public sector organisations will benefit from ready access to a wide range of preaccredited ICT services. These will include both public cloud services and common and
custom private cloud services procured by other public sector organisations. Services will
offer usage based pricing, elastic scalability (up or down), and there will be in built flexibility to
switch to alternate services or providers.
1.5
Cost savings will be founded on driving down the number of unique public sector
services through rationalising, sharing and re-using software and infrastructure across
organisational boundaries, joining up buying power by establishing an open and transparent
marketplace that delivers latest best prices to all, and by introducing standard, automated
processes across the entire ICT lifecycle;- from purchasing new solutions through to
migrating existing services to a new supplier. Industry standards will be used as is for public
cloud services. For private cloud services common standards and services will be driven up
the stack to the maximum possible extent; the technical standards landscape will be
controlled by the CTO Council through the cross government Enterprise Architecture (xGEA).
1.6
G-Cloud services will be selected and procured from the Government Applications
Store, and automatically provisioned either from public cloud providers, or from a private
cloud platform hosted in one of a much reduced number of List X compliant government data
centres; these will also support legacy services during the transition period.
1.7
The way forwards involves substantial change from todays ICT delivery model;public sector CIO teams will shift from managing the whole ICT lifecycle, to the selection and
integration of relevant services. A federated (rather than centralised) implementation
approach is proposed, allowing many public sector organisations and suppliers to contribute
re-usable assets that can be sourced by others from the Government Applications Store.
Retained ICT organisations will be able to increase focus on business engagement and
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achieving value adding outcomes as less effort will be needed on infrastructure management.
There will be choice in the road-map for each organization; the route chosen will depend on
business priorities and the current ICT and contractual landscape.
1.8
Major change inevitably creates execution risks. Other public and private sector
organisations that have pioneered the move to a shared utility ICT delivery model have had
strong central drive and leadership. Most private sector organisations have had "someone in
charge" on a global basis. The US government has introduced the Klinger Cohen act and
Economic Development act, which mandate some elements of a more common public sector
approach to ICT. The main areas of challenge in successfully moving to the new model
include leadership, business change management, stakeholder engagement and creating a
win-win proposition for business leaders, users of ICT services, public sector ICT
professionals and the ICT supplier community. For the UK, leadership by the CIO Council is
central to achieving the transition within the public sectors devolved, federated organisation.
Engagement of Permanent Secretaries and other business leaders will be also be crucial.
The programme will allocate significant resource to the soft aspects of change; this will
include centrally co-ordinated communications support and sharing of experience.
1.9
The new approach enables substantial benefits in small and medium sized public
sector organisations including local authorities which may be relatively easier to realise in the
short term, as well as significant benefits in central government in the longer term.
Implementation planning will ensure appropriate balance to mitigate the risk that focus on
large organisations crowds out the potential delivery of larger benefits to the majority.
1.10 Establishing and maintaining trust will be essential for public sector organisations to
move to the new model individual organisations will remain responsible for the service they
provide to the public and will need to be able to count on G-Cloud services as being at least
as good as those used today. G-Cloud will be the internal brand for secure, trusted and
shared public sector ICT services;- all G-Cloud services will have common characteristics
including pre-certified standards compliance covering areas such as service delivery,
technical (data, inter-operability etc) and information assurance, provisioning from an efficient
and sustainable data centre, and will be available through the Government Applications Store
at a value for money best public sector price.
1.11 Given that significant value comes from up front, sharable work on commercials,
service management and information assurance, frameworks will be developed in each of
these areas to enable certification/validation on a component level, so that work does not
have to be repeated when components are assembled into new combinations.
1.12 The transition to the new approach will be achieved through a series of business
focused implementation programmes, each of which will deliver financial and other business
benefits. Some of these will be progressed in parallel. Potential implementation programmes
include Consolidating Data Centres, Utility Applications, Efficient Hosting, Streamlining
legacy, Empowering Business Change, Delivering for Citizens and Staff.
1.13 The programme is adopting a "learning by doing approach through the Quick Wins
work strand. Quick Wins will launch a number of initiatives in February 2010 including several
prototype cloud development environments and a demo version of the Government
Applications Store. These will be available free of charge to public sector organisations. The
strand is exploring extending its scope to build proofs of concept of some automation and
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management services. The Quick Wins strand provides a foundation that can potentially be
used to develop a full proof of concept of the future G-Cloud model. CIO Council members
are encouraged to help build programme momentum and early experience by signing their
organisations up to participate in the Quick Wins pilots.
1.14 While further work is needed to determine implementation timescales, the ambition is
to deliver substantial cost savings in the period 2011-2014, to have the proposed approach
fully in place for new services within 3-5 years, and to complete the majority of legacy
rationalisation and migration within 10 years.
G Cloud
3.1
There will be 3 main categories of G Cloud branded services:Software as a Service (SaaS) which includes managed services, common, utility and
custom services, all of which can be configured for use by many Public Sector bodies.
Platform as a Service (PaaS); a framework overseen by the CTO Council that will be
used to create and manage provisioning of new business applications based on
shared re-usable components ; and
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for hosting existing applications. This includes
services providing capability for
o Managing, securing and storing data
o Hosting applications
3.2
The G Cloud brand will offer dedicated private services for public sector
organisations, and trusted public cloud services in each category. Public cloud services are
developing rapidly, and are already used by a number of public sector bodies, for example for
services that do not involve personal data. The range and sophistication of public cloud
services will continue to grow and more of the Public Sectors ICT needs will be met from
public clouds as todays constraints are addressed over time. These constraints currently
include:-
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Information Assurance requirements e.g. data centres are outside the UK;
End to end performance of services from public clouds may not be guaranteed; and
Proprietary standards used by some public clouds create the risk of lock in.
3.3
G-Cloud private cloud services will address these constraints, enabling earlier use of
the shared utility model across the public sector. Private G Cloud services will typically be
provisioned by suppliers using an industry standard platform for example Microsoft Azure,
VMware, or Eucalyptus, an Open Source platform that implements Amazon Web Services
standards.
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able to transfer their chosen application service to another infrastructure provider if required
at some future point, although this may involve some data migration activity.
4.7
Following selection of the application and infrastructure provider, the purchased
service will be provisioned through an automated process in the organisations data context.
This will require standards for common data items, again to be specified by the CTO
Council. Subject to policy and individuals decisions, these standards will also ease the
process of sharing data between different public sector organisations.
4.8
While the Government Applications Store will have a centrally managed master
catalogue, there will be the capability to configure views of the catalogue for specific
communities, for example to enable focus on services most relevant to a particular type of
organisation, or to grey out services which are not approved by the users organisation.
There will also be the ability to support Communities of Interest, encouraging public sector
organisations and individuals to innovate by creating/configuring and then sharing locally
generated applications. Closed loop feedback will provide visibility of whats working,
enabling future trial and purchasing decisions to be informed by others experiences.
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Contents
1.
2.
Introduction.................................................................................................................................. 12
3.
3.1.
3.1.1.
3.1.2.
Green Agenda..................................................................................................................... 14
3.1.3.
3.1.4.
3.1.5.
3.1.6.
3.2.
3.2.1.
3.2.2.
3.2.3.
3.2.4.
3.2.5.
3.3.
3.3.1.
3.3.2.
Green Agenda..................................................................................................................... 23
3.3.3.
3.3.4.
3.3.5.
3.3.6.
3.3.7.
4.
4.1.
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4.1.1.
4.1.1.1.
4.1.1.2.
Interaction ........................................................................................................................ 29
4.1.1.3.
4.1.1.4.
4.1.1.5.
4.1.1.6.
4.1.1.7.
4.1.1.8.
Information Access......................................................................................................... 29
4.1.2.
4.1.3.
4.1.4.
4.1.4.1.
4.1.4.2.
4.1.5.
4.2.
4.3.
4.4.
4.5.
Roadmap ................................................................................................................................. 40
4.6.
Transition ................................................................................................................................. 42
5.
Principles ..................................................................................................................................... 43
5.1.
5.2.
5.3.
5.5.
Transition Principles............................................................................................................... 50
6.
Scenarios ..................................................................................................................................... 51
7.
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 52
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8.
Appendices.................................................................................................................................. 53
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A3.6.2. Challenge:.............................................................................................................................. 64
A3.6.3. Outcome: ............................................................................................................................... 64
A4. Appendix 4 Drivers for Change ................................................................................................. 65
A4.1. Strategic Drivers for Change .................................................................................................. 65
A4.2. Financial Drivers for Change.................................................................................................. 65
A4.3. Non Financial Drivers for Change ......................................................................................... 66
A4.4. Technological Drivers for Change ......................................................................................... 67
A5. Appendix 5 Programme Risks................................................................................................... 68
A6. Appendix 6 Information Assurance .......................................................................................... 78
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1. Purpose of Document
The G-Cloud, Government Applications Store and Data Centre Consolidation Phase 2
programme started on 5 October 2009 and will run till 12 February 2010. The programme
comprises seven workstrands and a Programme Office function. These workstrands have
been staffed by a mix of civil servants, consultants and industry volunteers.
This document provides a Vision of how the G-Cloud, Government Applications Store and
Data Centre Consolidation will deliver ICT services to the Public Sector. The Vision builds on
the Government Data Centre Strategy Phase 1 Report produced by Phase 1 of the
programme; it is also based on the Government ICT Strategy.
The Vision should be used by stakeholders to gain an overview and high level understanding
of G-Cloud.
The Vision is underpinned by further documents which provide more detail in addition to that
provided in the Vision, these include:
Commercial Strategy
Technical Architecture Strategy
Information Assurance Strategy
Service Management Framework Approach
Service Specification
Transition Approach
Business Plan
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2. Introduction
The Government Data Centre Strategy Programme Phase 1 identified the desirability of
consolidating existing public sector data centres and creating a private government
computing cloud (G-Cloud) for the public sector. This document describes the Vision of how
a consolidated set of public sector data centres and a G-Cloud would provide ICT services to
the public sector. It will be used by Phase 2 of the Data Centre Consolidation, G-Cloud and
Applications Store programme to develop more detailed business case and plans,
specifications, architectures and a transition strategy for and to the G-Cloud.
UK Government currently has an extensive and disparate ICT estate supporting the delivery
of services. The emergence of cloud computing and new application delivery models offer
the opportunity to consolidate and improve this existing ICT estate through provision of
standard, commodity ICT services to the whole of the public sector through a government
cloud (G-Cloud).
The government will develop an integrated set of strategies for consolidation of existing data
centres in the public sector, delivery of ICT services through a government cloud (G-Cloud)
and the development of an Application Store for purchase of G-Cloud services.
These strategies will address a number of government objectives:
Reduction of ICT costs
The reduction in cost will include a lower cost associated with future change
in ICT service provider specifically the cost of transition to a new provider
Through consolidating and optimising use of existing spare ICT capacity and
decommissioning unused capacity
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Integrating with wider Government ICT initiatives e.g. PSN, Desktop Strategy
to ensure that the overall government ICT Strategy is supported by the GCloud
In order to implement the G-Cloud and support these strategies a set of multi dimensional
changes will need to occur:
Technical implementation of a G-Cloud architecture covering applications , data
management storage and security services;
Process implementation of processes to use and manage G-Cloud services;
Commercial implementation of a commercial framework to permit contracting of
services from the G-Cloud; and
Cultural a shift to sharing and re-use of ICT services from the G-Cloud
The remainder of this document describes the Vision for Datacentre Consolidation, G-Cloud
and Application Store which will meet these objectives. The services described will be
available to all UK public sector organisations from small bodies through to major central
government departments. The Vision described is for 10 years hence, although many
aspects of the Vision can be implemented within 2 years.
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3.1.1.
Budgetary Pressures
In April 2009, HM Treasury published the Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP) Final
Report which estimated that overall savings of around 20 per cent of the estimated 16
billion annual Public Sector ICT expenditure (3.2 billion) should be achievable without
compromising the quality of frontline public services. These savings must now be found by
delivering ICT services more efficiently.
3.1.2.
Green Agenda
Government runs some of the worlds largest computer systems and is Britains largest
purchaser of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). This technology is used to
improve the lives of millions of people and can enable smarter ways of working to reduce
carbon. However, this same technology is a major consumer of energy and natural
resources. UK government has made a number of sustainable operational commitments:
Central government office estate will achieve carbon neutrality by 2012;
UK to reduce greenhouse gases by 26% or more by 2020, 60% by 2050; and
Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) targets.
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ICT globally emits comparable levels of carbon to the aviation industry, and emissions
continue to grow. Recognising this, the Greening Government ICT Strategy set two
challenging targets which support delivery of mandatory SOGE (Sustainability on the
Government Estate) targets:
government ICT will be carbon neutral by 2012, and
carbon neutral across its lifecycle by 2020.
In order to deliver on these commitments delivery of ICT services to the Public Sector in new
more energy efficient ways which support the Governments climate change agenda need to
be developed and implemented.
3.1.3.
Digital Britain
The delivery of services to the public by ICT enables wider Government aims for the UK in
the global digital economy and citizen engagement. The Government in the Digital Britain
Report (June 2009) identifies the need for the UK to be at the leading edge of the global
digital economy. The Report also states that an ambitious and clear programme of The
Digital Switchover of Public Services, to primarily electronic and online delivery, will
unlock significant cost savings, whilst at the same time serving to increase levels of
satisfaction. The achievement of these aims will require a step change in the efficiency of
ICT procurement and delivery by the Public Sector.
3.1.4.
ICT Procurement
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3.1.5.
The CIO Council agreed the overall ICT strategy for Government in summer 2009.
This ICT Strategy supports existing core public sector goals, set in Digital Britain, Building
Britains Future, Excellence and fairness, and the Operational Efficiency Programme:
improving public service delivery
improving access to public services, and
increasing the efficiency of public service delivery
At the heart of the strategy is the creation of a common, secure and flexible infrastructure
that is available across the public sector. It comprises the strands depicted below:
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3.1.6.
The Data Centre Strategy Report produced by the Strategic Supply Board for the Government CIO
Council in September 2009 had a number of findings including:
There is a major opportunity for government to make significant cost savings whilst
delivering improved agility, flexibility, resilience, security and environmental
sustainability. High level analysis suggests a reduction in ICT data centre
infrastructure costs will deliver a net 900 million of cost savings over 5 years, with
recurrent savings of more than 300m a year thereafter;
There are significant variations within the current estate that are not justified by
differences in business needs, which will be rationalised by the approach proposed
in this Vision;
Other organisations have successfully delivered major ICT consolidation
programmes to create a dynamic ICT infrastructure and there is considerable
experience to draw on;
The challenges in consolidating ICT infrastructure are organisational and cultural
rather than technical; and
There is the potential for further cost saving and operational benefits by delivering a
government private Cloud (G-Cloud) in addition to data centre consolidation.
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3.2.1.
The G-Cloud model can bring many beneficial changes to the delivery of ICT across the
Public Sector but will it really deliver? In the section below how Cloud computing has the
foundations and track record to succeed is described.
3.2.2.
What is the evidence that Cloud computing is becoming a standard ICT delivery model:
Large ICT Services Suppliers have invested in the implementation of large global
public clouds;
The ICT industry itself is migrating to the use of clouds to deliver in house ICT
services; and
Private sector organisations are adopting Cloud computing to deliver ICT services.
3.2.3.
What is the evidence that the key elements of the G-Cloud Cloud computing, Data Centre
Consolidation and Software as a Service (SaaS) are capable of delivering the promised
benefits:
Bechtel have adopted a cloud computing model with a resulting saving of 60% on
their ICT costs;
In a data centre consolidation programme Hewlett-Packard have reduced the number
of data centres globally from 85 to just 6;
IBM have reduced their data centres globally from 155 to 7; and
Telegraph Media Group has used SaaS to
-
However in order to gain the benefits of Cloud computing the Public Sector will need to
adopt a new approach to ICT services. The existing approach of defining and procuring
bespoke systems which meet the specific needs of a department will need to shift to an
approach which makes use of standard or generic systems which are available at lower cost
and adapts the processes of the department to use the system.
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The commercial potential of cloud computing and cloud services is widely accepted, both in
private industry and in the public sector. The opportunities for cost reduction and efficiency
in the UK public sector are real and achievable, but require significant changes to
procurement practices, delivery frameworks and across the supplier landscape.
A pre-requisite for realisation of the commercial objectives are a set of UK Government
technical & operational standards that can define the G-Cloud based on a (significant)
number of competing infrastructural service providers operating at any appropriate security
level.
However Government has a significant legacy of applications which exhibit many pre-cloud
symptoms, including low server utilisation and high operational costs. It must be understood
that the cloud computing and cloud sourcing paradigms do not always directly lead to
reduced costs - the real challenge will be to ensure that sufficient economy of scale and
standardisation is reached quickly enough to deliver a net saving.
3.2.4.
Does the G-Cloud depend on new and untried technologies which mean that the Public
Sector must take on significant technology risks in its implementation?
In fact the innovation of the G-Cloud model is in its approach to the governance and
management of ICT in the Public Sector rather than the deployment of new technology.
Cloud computing is based on significant amounts of existing technology. Specific aspects of
the G-Cloud may require new technologies but this will not be the norm for the majority of
the G-Cloud if a prudent approach to its design is implemented.
Instead for G-Cloud to be successful Public Sector leadership will need to encourage
existing ICT services to be re-used where possible avoiding bespoke solutions to common
challenges across the Public Sector.
The successful introduction and implementation of the G-Cloud is a leadership not a
technology challenge.
3.2.5.
Key Risks
The programme must manage effectively a number of risks in order to deliver the G-Cloud
benefits. These risks cover a number of key areas including: Commercial, Information
Assurance, Technical Architecture, Organisation and Governance.
The full list of key risks to delivery of the programme are listed in Appendix 5. However a
number of key risks are highlighted in the following sections.
3.3.9.1 Commercial
A Commercial approach will be implemented which manages the following risks:
Current resource constrained environment prevents up front investment for G-Cloud
becoming available;
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Pricing and contractual framework for the G-Cloud is attractive to Public Sector but
discourages suppliers from making services available on the G-Cloud;
Business case may double count savings with other Public Sector programmes;
Procurement regulations do not allow additional consumers after initial procurement
of the service; and
Take up of G-Cloud proceeds too slowly so benefits will not be significant enough to
attract Public Sector organisations in future.
3.3.9.2 Information Assurance
An Information Assurance approach will be implemented which manages the following risks:
Aggregation of data in G-Cloud raising IL levels beyond 4 and preventing use of GCloud services by public bodies with lower IL infrastructure; and
Common infrastructure and shared nature of G-Cloud cannot be assured by
departmental SIRO model and so are not accredited.
In addition the challenges of situational awareness on the G-Cloud will require approaches
to be developed during the implementation of the G-Cloud.
More details of the Information Assurance principles and approach to risks are provided in
Section 5.3 and Appendix 6.
3.3.9.3 Technical Architecture
A Technical Architecture for the G-Cloud will be developed which manages the risk that
adoption of G-Cloud locks the Public Sector into a particular vendors proprietary standards
as industry standards for Cloud technologies are not currently agreed
3.3.9.4 Organisation and Governance
An Organisation and Governance approach will be implemented which manages the
following risks:
G-Cloud is not taken up or deployed effectively across the Public Sector due to decentralised nature of ICT governance in the Public Sector; and
Senior stakeholders may not support the implementation of the G-Cloud.
3.3.9.5 Public Sector Network
The G-Cloud programme will have a number of dependencies on the Public Sector Network
programme. Programme managements will work together to ensure that these
dependencies are managed or mitigated in order that the G-Cloud is implemented as
planned.
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3.3. Benefits
The new world of the G-Cloud offering utility computing from consolidated data centres and
encouraging re-use of ICT assets through the Government Applications Store will bring a
comprehensive set of benefits across the Public Sector ICT landscape.
3.3.1.
Budgetary Pressures
The G-Cloud will deliver a fundamental contribution to the cost savings for OEP and will
facilitate and accelerate the OEP targets. This will be achieved by:
Data Centre Consolidation
-
G-Cloud
-
3.3.2.
Green Agenda
The G-Cloud will lead to more efficient use of ICT by the Public Sector so lowering the
carbon emissions associated with delivering ICT services:
Consolidation of data centres will reduce footprint of building estate;
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Virtualisation will drive higher server utilisation reducing server footprint; and
Re-use of ICT assets will lower development and project resources used to
implement new services and systems.
The G-Cloud will also facilitate smarter ways of working through integration of government
information and data sources, further reducing governments environmental impact and
carbon footprint.
3.3.3.
Digital Britain
The G-Cloud will deliver greater agility and speed in the delivery of policy and services,
underpinned by the adoption of shared infrastructure at lower cost. The agility will result from
the ability to re-use existing assets and the new commercial model reducing procurement
timescales and costs.
The G-Cloud will through the Government Applications Store create a marketplace with a
low cost of entry to new and small ICT suppliers encouraging the development of new UK
ICT businesses and supporting the UKs position in the digital world.
3.3.4.
ICT Procurement
The commercial model of the G-Cloud will be based on pre agreed frameworks. This will
remove the need for lengthy and costly procurements. This will reduce costs for both the
Public Sector and Suppliers. In addition the Public Sector will be able to deliver ICT services
faster in support of policy.
Procurement law will apply to the G-Cloud, and all normal rules will need to be followed. It
will be important to get this right at the outset. This is particularly the case given the arrival
of the regulations implementing the Remedies Directive on 20 December 2009. This puts an
increasing emphasis on the use of legally compliant procurement vehicles.
3.3.5.
Current Initiatives
The G-Cloud will complement and support the implementation of existing Public Sector
programmes:
PSN: the G-Cloud will offer PSN a route to market through the Government
Applications Store. In addition the G-Cloud will use PSN services to connect users to
G-Cloud services.
Strategic Desktop: the G-Cloud will provide ICT services for the Strategic Desktop
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3.3.6.
Existing data centre space and infrastructure will be rationalised into a smaller set of secure
physical data centres these will host both the G-Cloud and existing legacy applications
during the migration period. The outcome will be a significantly smaller footprint in highly
virtualised shared data centres which meet government standards for resilience, security
and sustainability at an overall lower cost. This will result not only in a reduction in the costs
of data centres but also in the risks of disruption to delivery of ICT services to the Public
Sector.
3.3.7.
ICT Market
The market for Cloud services, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS is expanding; the G-Cloud and
Government Applications Store will offer the Public Sector the opportunity to access this
market. The expansion of this market will provide the Public Sector with new services and
greater competition will help to that these services will be cost efficient.
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4.1. G-Cloud
G-Cloud: bringing utility convenience to public sector ICT shared, flexible, agile,
transparent and efficient allocation of ICT when its needed, through sharing standardised
resources to reduce costs
The G-Cloud is the delivery of Public Sector ICT by a shared secure utility style ICT
services infrastructure, underpinned by a new commercial model enabling public bodies to
have the option to pay only for the service at the time when they use it. This approach is now
developing rapidly and is known as Cloud Computing. It is enabled by common standards,
and by heavily automated secure business processes that enable substantial reductions in
costs.
G-Cloud is the Public Sector brand for the use of certified cloud computing.
There will be 3 main categories of G-Cloud branded services:Software as a Service (SaaS) which includes managed services, common, utility and
custom services, all of which can be configured for use by many Public Sector
bodies;
Platform as a Service (PaaS) will be will be used to provide a platform for creating
new business applications based on shared re-usable components. The platform
offered will be approved and overseen by the CTO Council;
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) will provide ICT infrastructure primarily computing
resource and data storage.
The G-Cloud will be a UK Public Sector implementation of cloud computing that will provide
both secure, private cloud services and access to certified public cloud services, for example
those provided by Amazon cloud services. These services will range from ICT infrastructure
services through to application and information services and to ICT professional services
such as service management.
The G-Cloud will offer dedicated private services for public sector organisations, and trusted
public cloud services. The range and sophistication of public cloud services is growing and
more of the Public Sectors ICT needs will be met from public clouds as todays constraints
are addressed over time. These constraints currently include:Information Assurance requirements e.g. data centres are outside the UK;
End to end performance of services from public clouds may not be guaranteed; and
Proprietary standards used by some public clouds create the risk of lock in.
G-Cloud private cloud services will address these constraints, enabling earlier use of the
shared utility model across the public sector. Private G-Cloud services will typically be
provisioned by suppliers using an industry standard platform for example Microsoft Azure,
VMware, or Eucalyptus - an Open Source platform that implements Amazon AWS
standards.
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The services offered by the G-Cloud will be defined in a Service Catalogue which any public
sector organisation can use to purchase ICT services. Each service will be described in the
Service Catalogue, its description will include details of the service, service levels offered,
service reports provided, if relevant the increments of capacity offered, time periods or
increments for which the service can be procured and the price of the service.
Services provided by the G-Cloud will be up to security level IL4 only.
In order to provide services in the G-Cloud a supplier will undergo a certification process for
both their organisation and each of their services. This certification process will ensure that
services meet the quality and information assurance requirements of the public sector and
will provide consuming public bodies with the confidence that G-Cloud services are suitable
for supporting provision of services to citizens. The information assurance certification will
represent a partial accreditation, a residual element of accreditation which cannot be carried
out centrally remaining with the consuming organisation.
A public sector body will govern the certification process, overseeing and managing the
approval of suppliers and their services.
4.1.1.
The G-Cloud will provide a variety of application and information services to the public
sector. These services will vary from the purchase of software licenses to access to
government stores of information where this is appropriate from a statutory and information
assurance perspective. The focus will be on re-use of existing assets and use of commodity
services. Existing common application services where possible will be offered so that public
bodies do not need to develop or commission development of new application services.
ERP
Flex Desktop
Gateway (Citizen
and Business
Authentication)
Payment of
Grants
Government
Banking
Government
Vetting
DVLA./IPS
Verification
Authentication
Services
Correspondence
Handling
Secure Data
Handling (GCHQ)
CIS (X)
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Applications available on the G-Cloud will vary from personal productivity tools through to
complex departmental specific applications which are tightly integrated with their data. The
services available for each class of application will vary.
A large proportion of these applications will already be in use elsewhere in the public sector,
so their provision to other public bodies via the G-Cloud will promote re-use of applications
across government allowing the cost reduction for the public sector through both larger
volume discounts and avoidance of new development costs.
Applications will generally be provided as Software as a Service (SaaS), where the body
using the application will pay using a pay for use model.
Applications will be available on at least two different infrastructure platforms so that public
sector bodies can transfer loads between infrastructure suppliers if required.
The different classes of application are described below:
4.1.1.1.
These are personal productivity applications where data will be specific to the individual or
body. Examples are Email, Calendaring and Contacts.
4.1.1.2.
Interaction
These are applications which support contact and interaction with others. Examples are Peer
to Peer communications and Social Networking applications.
4.1.1.3.
These are applications which either support collaborative working or provide support for
common tasks. Examples are workflow and records management.
4.1.1.4.
These are applications which support public sector staff in their daily duties. Examples are
travel booking and expense claiming applications.
4.1.1.5.
Departmental Applications
These are applications with data specific to and useful to a department. Examples are
computer based training or small departmental databases.
4.1.1.6.
Data Services
These are applications providing access to data. Examples are management reporting and
access to geographic data.
4.1.1.7.
These are applications which support the functioning of the public body; they will have data
which is specific to that public body. They will require tuning for a particular department.
Examples are a HR application or a CRM system.
4.1.1.8.
Information Access
These are applications provided by a department to other public bodies which give access to
data held by the department. The data will generally be tightly coupled to an application. The
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G-Cloud will provide this service as a gateway using CTO Council endorsed G-Cloud
services to connect the two public bodies.
This service will only be permitted where statute allows the data to be shared with the
requesting public body and information assurance requirements for the data are adequately
supported across the G-Cloud.
An example of this service is CISx from the DWP.
4.1.2.
The G-Cloud will provide a variety of ICT infrastructure and platform services to the public
sector. These services will be based on a layered architecture model, and are standardised
to widen their applicability to multiple public sector consumers.
IL Level Options
Resilience
Service Level
Database
Operating System
Memory Capacity
A public body will be able to purchase services at multiple layers. For example on one
occasion the body could purchase a server capacity service onto which the body loads its
own operating system and database. On another occasion the body may choose to
purchase a database service into which the supplier has packaged underlying operating
system and server capacity.
Data across the Public Sector continues to expand. A key infrastructure service offering will
be storage services for data, such as SAN services. This offering will enable public bodies
to access and store their data cost effectively in resilient, secure storage, with the ability to
expand or contract the capacity without major capital investment in their ICT infrastructure.
There is an opportunity for greater development of services for Data Management, Storage
and Security separately from services provided for applications processing. This Data
Capability can become a long-term asset in that applications can be chosen accordingly to
meet a given organisations current business priorities.
The G-Cloud will provide data services for storage and management of:
Operational data;
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4.1.3.
Data is one of the key assets of the Public Sector. As it develops, the G-Cloud will become
the repository of a significant portion of Public Sector data. Data also persists beyond an
application, with migration between applications being required as the application stack
changes.
Cloud providers are addressing the new challenges and opportunities management of data
in a cloud environment offers:
Microsoft has implemented cloud-based data platforms which seek to provide a
database service which meets the needs of primarily network based application
access;
Cisco are offering SAN consolidation services and security approaches for multiple
organisation use of SANs;
Amazon offers database services including tools which are scalable to meet the
needs of cloud services; and
Other suppliers are developing data and database services for the cloud.
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The continuing expansion of data is a key challenge for Public Sector ICT. The G-Cloud will
provide access to a cost effective, secure and resilient data storage capacity which can be
expanded or contracted rapidly in accordance with business needs of the Public Sector.
In addition the G-Cloud can provide database services which will allow access to structured
data which can be used to support new business services.
The Public Sector will draw on G-Cloud data services for storage and management of:
Operational data;
Management Information data for analysis and reporting; and
Archive data for storage.
The management of this data by the G-Cloud will encompass its complete lifecycle including:
creation or migration onto the G-Cloud;
monitoring of growth including provision of additional storage capacity as needed
protection through appropriate resilience and security;
migration to cost effective storage facilities as full operational use ceases; and
archival or secure destruction at end of life.
The G-Cloud will offer data services which enable wider, but secure and legislatively
permitted access to this resource across the Public Sector.
The development of data standards for the G-Cloud will support widening of access and
ease of data transfer at contract termination for public bodies.
Data is currently often tightly coupled with a business application within a public bodys ICT
estate. However as data usually persists beyond the life of the application, transition from a
legacy application to a new or enhanced application can involve an expensive and time
consuming activity of data transfer including data structure changes to fit with the new
applications requirements. The definition of data standards for G-Cloud which recognise
data persistence has the potential to reduce the amount of effort to migrate data.
In addition the G-Cloud offers the potential to make existing data assets more widely
available across the Public Sector. Capitalising on this potential will require the G-Cloud to
define data standards and a data strategy. A Data Strategy will be developed in Phase 3 of
the programme.
The G-Cloud will offer data services which are compliant with the security and the legislative
constraints that data held in the Public Sector must operate under.
The Public Sector is already adopting standards to make Public Sector data more available
in line with the objectives of bodies such as the National Archives and with the launch of
data.gov.uk. G-Cloud data strategy and standards will be aligned with the existing public
sector work.
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However data obtained by the Public Sector must only be used in the manner allowed and
specified by the associated legislation, the strategy for data and the operational controls of
the G-Cloud will ensure that data is not accessed or shared in violation of this principle. This
will require the storage of data in separated infrastructure storage areas. The G-Cloud will
data tools to permit the wider sharing of appropriate data in a controlled manner.
4.1.4.
4.1.4.1.
Both suppliers and larger public bodies will offer service management services on the GCloud. This service will manage the overall delivery of services from the G-Cloud so that an
integrated and consistent operational service is provided. These services will include the
service management of operational services such as change management, incident
management and service reporting. The service management will be based on a common
industry accepted framework such as ITIL. This will enable suppliers of service components
to use a standard method for interaction with the service integrator and public sector
consumers. These services will be of particular value to smaller public bodies with limited
ICT expertise available in their organisation.
4.1.4.2.
These services will provide public bodies with services which will integrate G-Cloud
components into coherent services which can be consumed by a public sector body.
4.1.5.
The G-Cloud will provide a wide range of ICT and business services across all of the Public
Sector. These services will be made available over time in line with the G-Cloud roadmap.
The initial G-Cloud services will therefore be limited in range and coverage across Public
Sector compared to the end Vision for G-Cloud.
However even in the final Vision the scope of G-Cloud and Government Applications Store
does not include:
Services which are not ICT services or business services not supported primarily by
ICT systems, for example
- Facilities management;
- Catering services;
- Stationary procurement;
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The Government Applications Store will provide a portal for public bodies purchasing
services from the G-Cloud. Open Source software and services will be available in the
Government Applications Store encouraging cost effective services to be provided in this
market.
While the Government Applications Store will have a centrally managed master catalogue,
there will be the capability to configure views of the catalogue for specific communities, for
example to enable focus on services most relevant to a particular type of organisation, or to
gray out services which are not funded by the users organisation. There will also be the
ability to support Communities of Interest, encouraging public sector organisations and
individuals to innovate by creating/configuring and then sharing locally generated
applications. Closed loop feedback will provide visibility of whats working, enabling future
trial and purchasing decisions to be informed by others experiences.
Certification of a service will include review and approval of its information assurance,
service management and commercial elements.
In order to avoid lock in to a particular infrastructure provider there will be a choice of at
least two infrastructure providers for each application. In principle purchasers will be able to
transfer their chosen application service to another infrastructure provider if required at some
future point, although this may involve some data migration activity.
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Following selection of the application and infrastructure provider, the purchased service will
be provisioned through an automated process in the public bodys infrastructure and data
context.
The Government Applications Store will continually be updated with new services. It will be
an open marketplace encouraging new suppliers to join the existing community of ICT
suppliers to the public sector. In order to support new suppliers joining a prototyping facility
will be available on the Government Applications Store. The prototyping facility will allow a
supplier to offer free for a period a new service without complete certification. If this service
is taken up by public bodies the supplier will be able to subsequently upgrade the service
to certified and chargeable. This will provide an agile way for new and smaller suppliers to
trial new services and join the Government Applications Store. Services that add new value
will be welcomed into the portfolio provided they meet the minimum assurance requirements
the approach will be light touch and will emphasise validating service outcomes rather
than auditing the detailed implementation approach.
The Government Applications Store will also list requests for new services from public
bodies. Suppliers and other public bodies will be able to review these requests and decide
whether they wish to provide the suggested service. If new services are created in response
to the requests they will be required to undergo certification before being made available on
the Application Store.
The public sector body will be responsible for identifying in advance:
which services users in the body can purchase;
which users are allowed to purchase services; and
which disallowed services can be seen by users. So that if necessary a user
can raise a request/justification for a currently unapproved for purchase
service to be made available for purchase within their public body.
The Government Applications Store will be designed so that potential purchasers of services
are directed to existing managed services, then common and utility services only if these
sources do not yield a satisfactory option will the purchaser be able to commission a custom
solution, which must meet G-Cloud certification standards. This approach will encourage reuse of existing services, thereby reducing cost for the public sector by preventing
unnecessary development of new applications and maximising volume discounts with
existing Suppliers.
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A set of the data centres will remain outside the G-Cloud to provide specific non commodity
type services that the G-Cloud is not designed to provide. An example of these services
would be where a public body requires services at IL 5 or IL 6 security level.
It is intended that Data Centre Consolidation will be progressed through three parallel
projects which will;
Consolidate Public Sector owned Data Centres
Consolidate Private Sector owned or operated Data Centres
Procure new services from the market both for infrastructure and Data Centre
facility services
A standard benchmark (e.g. Rack as a Service) will be established to enable the comparison
of the cost and quality of facilities from the various sourcing routes.
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Department C
Department B
Department A
Service
Management
Service
Management
Service Catalogue
Regulatory
or Authority
Body
responsible
for
Standards
and
Certification
G- Cloud
Application
Services
Infrastructure
Services
Professional
Services
The options for organisation and governance in the G-Cloud are being developed by the GCloud Phase 2 programme.
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4.5. Roadmap
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The programme will manage the organisational and cultural activities required to transition
public bodies to use of the G-Cloud. The G-Cloud will require a cultural change in the ICT
departments of public bodies. In the G-Cloud identification of business needs and matching
re-usable assets rather than procurement and management of custom solutions will be
critical to cost effective delivery of ICT. An approach to equipping the ICT department with
the structure and skills to successfully move to this G-Cloud way of working will be provided
by the programme to participating public bodies.
While the definitive approach to implementation of the G-Cloud will be delivered in Phase 3,
a potential approach is outlined in the succeeding paragraphs:
A planned engagement programme across public bodies will identify the early adopter
public bodies for creation and re-use of G-Cloud services. A small group of early adopters
across Central and Local Government in year 1 will pioneer use of the G-Cloud. The GCloud will be extended to larger groups of public bodies in further years, with existing
adopters expanding the percentage of services they draw from the G-Cloud over time.
In order for the G-Cloud to deliver its benefits it must become a trusted brand. This will be
enabled by the risk managed approach to delivery of the G-Cloud but could also be
supported by the publicising of G-Cloud successes for example an annual G-Cloud Award
could be initiated.
Potential milestones in year 1 include:
Setup of management function for G-Cloud including regulator
Procurement of Government Applications Store
Initiate a consolidation programme for Public Sector owned Data Centres
Initiate a consolidation programme for Private Sector owned or operated Data
Centres
Procurement of new infrastructure and Data Centre facility services for ICT services
Implementation of some G-Cloud services by at least two central government
departments
Implementation of private G-Cloud services for a local authority
Key achievements in year 2- 3
Front line innovation culture established
First G-Cloud Awards ceremony held
Launch of public cloud services
Early adopters will now have 40% of relevant ICT services from G-Cloud
Consolidation and closure of more data centres across Public Sector and suppliers
G-Cloud becomes self funding
Early adopters have 70% of relevant ICT services from G-Cloud
During succeeding years, the G-Cloud could continue to expand by:
Completion of data centre consolidation
Adoption of G-Cloud across remaining public bodies
Public Sector retained ICT departments complete transition to new model
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During this period the G-Cloud becomes a trusted and reliable brand for Public Sector ICT
services. Suppliers will use the G-Cloud as the primary route to market for providing ICT
services to Public Sector. Digital services of high criticality to citizens and Public Sector will
become established on the G-Cloud, re-use of digital assets will be the predominant model
in Public Sector ICT. The approach to delivery of ICT services in Public Sector will be based
on an established culture of sharing assets.
4.6. Transition
The approach to transition to the Vision of the G-Cloud must meet a number of
requirements:
Transition must take place in a manner which ensures that public sector services
are not disrupted;
Individual G-Cloud services are made available as soon as suitably available and
certified rather than when all planned services are ready so that the resulting
savings can begin quickly;
Public bodies moving to the G-Cloud must not incur unnecessary costs by
terminating existing contracts early; and
The public sector must have the skills and governance in place to purchase and
manage services provided by the G-Cloud.
These requirements mean that the transition to the Vision will take place in a phased
manner. Phasing of the transition will affect both the implementation of the G-Cloud itself
and its adoption by individual public bodies.
Services will be introduced to the G-Cloud by suppliers over time. The initial Service
Catalogue for the G-Cloud will reflect those services which are technologically feasible to
provide over the G-Cloud today, as suppliers and public sector understanding of the
potential of G-Cloud develops both parties will make new services available. In addition the
types of services available will evolve with technology, as new technologies appear the
potential services and their economic feasibility for provision through the G-Cloud will
change leading to new services continually being added to G-Cloud. This approach to
implementation of the G-Cloud will ensure that its initial use is not delayed while large
numbers of services are developed for deployment in a big bang launch.
An individual public body will adopt the G-Cloud in a phased manner also. This will allow the
public body to purchase services from the G-Cloud as existing ICT contracts for those types
of ICT services terminate. This means that the public body will not need to terminate
contracts early and incur termination charges unnecessarily.
Another advantage of this phased approach is that it avoids the risk of a big bang
implementation of G-Cloud at a public body where potentially all its services are at risk of
failure at go live. It also allows the public sector to develop the skills required for managing
G-Cloud services over time.
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5. Principles
The Vision has been developed based on a number of principles which cover Commercial,
Technical, Operational and Transition aspects of the G-Cloud. The principles govern the
extent, outcomes and structure of the Vision.
Comparable Pricing: Pricing should reflect total cost of service and be priced on
a utility model by a measurable unit (transaction, user, month, capacity). Pricing
should incorporate and make visible all additional service charges, or costs of
change. The ultimate aim is for no term contracts. Different business models may
exist for different parts of the stack (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and for different IL levels
Ease of Transaction: To minimise the transaction cost for purchase of service
through the cloud. Transacting should be standardised, simple, and low cost for
both parties by:
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Market Access: Ensure a competitive open market and that suppliers can deliver
and scale what is being sold. Limit the barriers to entry. Achieve this by:
Technical validation
Business probity
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Developing a single method for contracting with the public sector for an
agreed basket of services
A standard set of terms and conditions which apply across all customers
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6. Scenarios
In order to refine the Vision described in this document a series of scenarios were reviewed
and walked through by the Cabinet Office Datacentre Consolidation, G-Cloud and
Application Store Phase 2 programme leadership team on 22nd October 2009.
The results of these reviews are documented in the appendix 3.
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7. Conclusion
The Vision will provide a significant number of tactical and strategic benefits to UK
Government and its provision of services.
The Vision is a platform upon which the next steps for implementation of data centre
consolidation, G-Cloud and Government Applications Store can be based.
The Vision will be used as a platform for the development of a specification of the services
on the G-Cloud and a Transition Strategy for consolidation of data centres and
implementation of G-Cloud and Government Applications Store.
These specifications and the strategy will be used to inform a business case to government
for implementation of the Vision.
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8. Appendices
A1. Appendix 1 - Glossary of terms
Term
Definition
Application Store
Cloud Computing
COTS
ESB (Enterprise
Service Bus)
G-Cloud
Government
Applications Store
IaaS
Infrastructure as a Service
Infrastructure
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ITIL
List X Status
PaaS
Platform as a Service
PSN
SaaS (Software as
a Service)
Service Catalogue
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Organisation
Andy Nelson
MoJ CIO
John Suffolk
Bill McCluggage
Martin Bellamy
John Fotheringham
Deloitte
Annette Vernon
Tim Wright
DCSF CIO
Phil Pavitt
HMRC CIO
Nick Hopkinson
GCHQ CIO
Dean James
John Taylor
MOD CIO
Roy Marshall
Communities CIO
Christine Connelly
Health CIO
Julian David
Intellect
Derek Kay
Toby Spanier
Joe Penman
Nicky Stewart
Barry Matthews
Darron Stronge
Stuart Aston
Wendy Wright
Alex Rees
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Dilip Parmar
Andy Bates
Mike Truran
David Greenway
Eileen Logie
Gerry Gallagher
Andy MacLeod
Miles Gray
Kate Craig-Wood
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A3.1.1. Role:
ICT Service Director in Central Government department
Current ICT services range from PC support to running of bespoke applications on a
mainframe
A3.1.2. Challenge:
10 year outsource deal for departments ICT services coming to an end in 12 months
A3.1.3. Outcome:
How will the G-Cloud help?
- Providing efficient procurement process
- Reduced time in definition of requirements
- Provide choice and competition
- Time savings (procurement)
- Agreed framework for SLA
- Enable budget planning
- Provide risk reduction
What features would G-Cloud need to have?
- G-cloud would need to have the following features: transparency in its
processes, security, provide scalability and resilience.
- The G-cloud would also need to contain agility
- In order to view the different services on offer, the G-cloud would require a
shop window
- Provide environment where we dont need to pay for what we dont need or
use
Will G-Cloud be able to provide all requirements?
- Short term, yes, but only in terms of core products
- In terms of more specific products in 2012 it will not be in a mature state
How will the role and skills in the ICT group of the Department change with the
use of G-Cloud?
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A3.2.4. Outcome B:
How will the G-Cloud help?
- Provide a brokerage service
What features would G-Cloud need to have?
- Aggregated demand
- Application sharing/re-use of applications
Will G-Cloud be able to provide all requirements?
- Yes
How will the role and skills in the ICT group of the Department change with the use
of G-Cloud?
- The role would require someone who is more focussed on strategy
- There would be a certain amount of headcount reduction
- The remaining staff would be required to perform a different type of support
and maintenance
- Less bespoke applications and a reduction in the number of legacy systems
would mean more standardised skill sets with less specialist knowledge
required
What assumptions have you made?
- Existing ICT systems DO NOT provide the appropriate functionality
- All required applications have already been purchased by the Crown
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CSR010 VFM Programme: OEP annual ICT saving targets of 3.2Bn achievable in
three years including 1.6Bn from the ICT Collaborative Procurement Strategy.
G-Cloud will deliver a fundamental contribution to the OEP and will facilitate
and accelerate the OEP targets.
Climate change: Greening Government ICT white paper (July 2008) energy efficiency
and ICT equipment disposal recommendations. Government is Britains largest
purchaser of ICT.
G-Cloud will facilitate smarter ways of working through ubiquitous and secure
access to data, further reducing governments environmental impact and
carbon footprint.
Digital Britain: strategic vision for ensuring that the UK is at the leading edge of the
global digital economy. This requires a step change in the efficiency of the delivery of
purchases and ICT procurement.
G-Cloud will deliver greater agility and speed in the delivery of policy and
services, underpinned the adoption of shared infrastructure at lower cost.
G-Cloud
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G-Cloud
Enhanced business agility through easier and less lengthy procurements due
to framework contracts
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architecture
security
web platforms
Enhanced agility
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Category
G-Cloud, Data
Centre
Consolidation
All
10 G-Cloud
Likelihood
Impact
Mitigation Approach
MT
High
High
MB
High
High
GG
High
Data Centre Strategy, G-Cloud & Government Applications Store Programme Phase 2
12 G-Cloud
Category
All
All
DS
Owner
MB
TS
Risk Description
High
High
Likelihood
Impact
Mitigation Approach
High
Medium
Medium
High
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High
High
NS
DS
Data Centre
18
Consolidation
DS
Medium
Medium
Owner
Risk Description
Likelihood
Impact
Mitigation Approach
DS
There is a risk that any one data centre (if there are
12) may not be secure enough to cater for the total
data held
Medium
13 Apps Store
14 Quick Wins
Category
Data Centre
19
Consolidation
Medium
Medium
Medium
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MB
TS
11 All
EL
Owner
Risk Description
17 All
All
Category
Medium
Low
High
Low
High
Likelihood
Impact
Mitigation Approach
Low
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15
All
All
MG
TS
Low
Low
High
Medium
Medium
All
MB
Low
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20
21
22
Category
All
All
G-Cloud,
Apps Store
Apps Store
Owner
Risk Description
Likelihood
Impact
Mitigation Approach
MB
Low
Medium
MB
Medium
Low
MB
Low
Medium
NS
TBD
High
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16
All
MB
TBD
Medium
Category Owner
Risk Description
Likelihood
Impact
Mitigation Approach
[high]
Input is being actively sought from CIOs in both local and central
government sectors, in order to build a high level of buy-in to the
programmes direction of travel, deliverables, and governance
model.
23 All
TBC
TBD
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TBC
TBD
[high]
All
TBC
TBD
[high]
Amber
75
Data Centre Strategy, G-Cloud & Government Applications Store Programme Phase 2
[high]
[high]
Political Sponsorship
26 All
TBC
TBD
Transition Plan
27 All
TBC
TBD
APPENDIX
Amber
76
Data Centre Strategy, G-Cloud & Government Applications Store Programme Phase 2
Abbreviation
Name
MB
TS
NS
MG
GG
EL
DS
HMT
HM Treasury
Amber
77
Data Centre Strategy, G-Cloud & Government Applications Store Programme Phase 2
Data Centre Strategy, G-Cloud & Government Applications Store Programme Phase 2
Amber
79
Data Centre Strategy, G-Cloud & Government Applications Store Programme Phase 2
Assured Technologies
19. RECOMMENDATION: Phase 3 should begin with urgent research work in to the
assurance available in current technologies to assist in creating the initial G-Cloud
environment. E.g. Resource sharing technology such as virtualisation, Gateway
Services, Identity Management (including authentication and authorisation) and
Encryption.
Amber
80
Data Centre Strategy, G-Cloud & Government Applications Store Programme Phase 2
20. CONCLUSION: Without assured virtualisation technology and an effective federated and
brokered Identity, Authentication and Authorisation model for the Public Sector, many of
the IA and business benefits will not be realised. Where resource sharing technology
with strong containment is desirable, it is likely that tools to manage deployment will also
be required.
Compliance
21. CONCLUSION: A common issue with cloud computing concerns the demonstration of
legal and statutory obligations. This subject will be taken forward with Treasury
Solicitors (TSoL) and the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), as well as the SIRO
community in the next phase of the Datacentre and G-Cloud programme. One of the
single biggest risks to the successful creation of a community cloud for the public sector
will be an inability to demonstrate legal and statutory compliance.
22. CONCLUSION: The areas of responsibility for Codes of Connections and authorisation
for applications and services are still to be resolved. The expectation is that the G-Cloud
SIRO will be responsible for the authorisation of utility services. The responsibility for
authorising agility services, including those hosted on utility services, may well rest with
the organisational SIRO. We will need a method of understanding whether any
consumer is attempting to breach the use of the IA conditions related to the use of a
service.
23. CONCLUSION: There will need to be a set of assured services and components that
build to a point that allows the risk owners and risk managers of consuming
organisations to make a minimum amount of evaluation before reaching a decision on
the use any particular service available from the applications store.
Roadmap
24. RECOMMENDATION: The proposal for an IA roadmap is in section 5. The G-Cloud
Commercial Strategy gives an indicative timeline. In Phase 3 of the programme, the IA
roadmap and roadmaps from other strands will need to be aligned and a common
timeline agreed.
25. To achieve the vision of a single physical community cloud there is a requirement to
create assured multiple logical instances of a resource on a single physical platform.
There is also a requirement for tools to manage deployment of logical instances of those
resources.
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Data Centre Strategy, G-Cloud & Government Applications Store Programme Phase 2
There has only been enough time and detailed information gathering during Phase 2 of this
programme to create a set of IA proposals and suggested principles to the many IA
questions and challenges posed by the use of Public and Private Clouds. The IA
Workstream recommends that paper based scenarios and pilots (including quick wins) are
used to test the proposals made in the paper and create more detailed policies and
procedures.
Amber
82