There’s been plenty of talk about the UK Government’s G-Cloud, some say a little too much talking and not enough doing. But, says Kevin Holland, the concept is finally coming to reality and he predicts it will revolutionise UK public sector IT forever.

Kevin Holland is an avuncular character around IT service management. He’s the voice of experience and wisdom. Quite naturally one might assume he is rather ‘old school’ when it comes to IT services.

But you’d be wrong, and here’s the twist – Kevin is at the vanguard of a rapidly escalating UK Government revolution that sees public sector IT operating in the ‘cloud’. He is convinced this is the future.

Essentially, Cloud computing is all about providing flexible and scalable IT services over the web, and only paying for what you use. You don’t need to know about how the underlying technology works, that’s the supplier’s job. Traditionally, organisations build their own IT services from the ground up. They create an infrastructure with servers to store data and process the applications, usually paying for more storage and power than they actually need at the time, to cope with growth and unexpected peaks in demand.

Cloud computing changes this model, with the supplier using technology to flexibly add and remove capacity and power. A good analogy is the electricity supply – there is no need to call the supplier before you put the kettle on to ask him to provide more power, you just use what you need, and then get the bill!

Now the UK Government has set out its strategy for the G-Cloud and has officially adopted this definition: “Cloud computing is a model for enabling 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 cloud provider interaction.”

Kevin, a Service Management Consultant Specialist in the UK Public Sector who has been advising the cross Government team working on G-Cloud on the service management implications, says: “The G-Cloud programme has been going for some time, but the Election and the change of administration meant that everything went quiet on G-Cloud, even though we continued to work on it in the background. The good news is that it is now taking off with a vengeance.”
He cites Chris Chant, the Cabinet Office’s Director for the G-Cloud: “The vast majority of Government IT in today’s market is outrageously expensive, ridiculously slow, poor quality and most unforgivably rarely user-centric in any meaningful way.”

He goes on to add that it’s now unacceptable to enter into contracts for longer than a year; it’s unacceptable that 80% of Government IT is controlled by five corporations; it is unacceptable to see the cost of changing one word/colour or one line of code as £50,000.

“The biggest change for G-Cloud is really around mindset, not technology, based on a few simple principles,” says Kevin. “Buy what’s already there in the market; Pay only for what you use; Low or zero start-up and exit costs; Be able to exit contracts in a year or less.”

Going back to the electricity analogy, if you don’t get good service from your supplier, or they are no longer the cheapest or best value, it’s easy to change to another one – you don’t have to wait until the end of a 10 year contract! Originally the idea was to commission a private G-Cloud – a collection of IT services available only to Government – but this would have costed a lot and taken a long time to build. The focus has now shifted to encouraging the use of public Cloud services that are already available inside and outside the public sector, and making it as easy as possible to get access to them.

The G-Cloud approach is to create procurement frameworks of suppliers who can provide Cloud services, so that public sector organisations can get access to the services without having to do full and expensive OJEU procurements. Suppliers have already been invited to join the first framework, with an unprecedented response from the supplier community. The services include infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and software as a service which includes email, customer relationship management, and office productivity solutions.

The requirements to be on the framework have been designed to suit all sizes and shapes of suppliers, including large multi-nationals such as Google and Amazon, and smaller niche players who in the past haven’t supplied Government. The suppliers all have to sign up to the principles. “The approach will encourage small and medium enterprises to play in the market and this will drive innovation, flexibility and cheaper IT services,” says Kevin.

“Some analysts commented that suppliers wouldn’t supply under these principles, but early market engagement through organisations such as Intellect gave us the confidence to proceed. We’re testing the waters but we haven’t frightened them off - there are over 300 applicants who have responded to the framework notice,” says Kevin, who is quick to dispel some of the myths that have emerged around the G-Cloud.

“One of the biggest discussion topics on Cloud is about security, but in many ways the issues and solutions are no different to the ones that you face today when you outsource a service to a supplier. The potential G-Cloud suppliers are well aware of the need to give data suitable protection, and G-Cloud services will be able to get accreditation from CESG, the National Technical Authority for Information Assurance, in the same way as for non Cloud services.”

Public sector organisations are already reacting. Warwickshire County Council has been piloting the use of Google public cloud based email as one of the G-Cloud early adopters. They estimate that they can save £250,000 a year. The Home Office are now using a multi-tenanted private cloud infrastructure service provided by Savvis, which has been accredited to the same security level as the Spine. This service has been made available to all UK government departments and its suppliers, and has already been taken up by the Ministry of Justice.

There are still some challenges, admits Kevin. One of the biggest is around designing solutions so that you can easily move between suppliers, using the concept of ‘friction-free data’. Another is defining your requirements based on what is available, not on what you think you might need – but then never use. There is also the issue of integrating a range of different systems together and managing a complex multi-supplier environment.

“Organisations will have to learn how to be service integrators, knitting together and managing services from a range of different suppliers so that users can’t see the join in the end-to-end service. The skills to do this are missing in many organisations, but the good news is that this is what several UK public sector organisations, including ours, have been doing for many years” says Kevin.

He adds, “There are also some challenges to come in terms of efficient supplier management for Cloud services. For example, is it sensible and cost-effective for fifty public sector organisations that all get exactly the same service from the same supplier to try and manage them individually? The definition of what is a National IT system might need to change”.
Kevin adds: “The G-Cloud isn’t a ‘get out of jail free’ card. Services still need to be managed, and there will always be a need for some specialist services that just don’t fit with the Cloud principles. But we should all start to be aware of it and be inquisitive about what it means because it is going to change the face of Government IT forever.”

Read more on the G-Cloud Strategy