By Tim Ferguson, 23 February 2009 16:09
NEWS
The advent of cloud computing could have a greater impact on public sector IT than the PC revolution did in the 1980s, according to the Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm).
The association for public sector IT professionals said the adoption of the technology is unstoppable, in much the same way as the adoption of PCs was decades ago once organisations realised their business benefits.
While the PC may have given managers their first taste of business computing through spreadsheets and word processing, cloud computing's combination of broad information sources with easy to use processing power - without the need for significant up-front costs or technical skills - could prove more revolutionary, Socitm believes.
The flexibility and potential cost savings of using applications accessed via the web will fuel adoption in the public sector, according to the organisation.
Socitm Insight principal associate Chris Head told silicon.com the "fortress" approach of keeping all IT within the confines of the corporate network can't be maintained.
With the average user already starting to use web-based applications independently of the corporate IT department, Head said there will be growing pressure on management to look at the technologies.
"Unless the IT managers get on board pretty quickly and start to embrace the technology, they're going to be isolated," he said.
"We don't want to stumble into another schism between IT and the business - we actually want to use this opportunity to integrate the approach together and jointly work out how you can get something really worthwhile out of it, rather than it being another source of alienation," he added.
"I would imagine you're going to see the seeds of [adoption] within about 18 months, purely because of the financial situation that public sector organisations are going to be encountering."
According to Head, there remains security and business continuity risks of having data outside the organisation but these will merely slow adoption rather than hinder it as they will be overcome fairly quickly.
Socitm says public sector organisations should therefore prepare a strategy for adopting cloud computing services by carrying out research and discussing the business benefits with users.
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. Phil Thane
Cloud, thin client, SaS, is only as good as the network. In much of the UK BT's ancient copper wires aren't up to it. Without massive investment Cloud computing is a city centre only activity.
2. Charles Smith
SaaS is nothing new. In the 80's it was called timesharing. The only real difference is cheaper and faster telecommunications.
An uncontrolled dash into SaaS will bring the similar problems to the PC. Uncontrolled Data and uncontrolled software and no security. These will create many Instant Legacy systems where the original creator doesn't really understand the consequences what they are doing long term to the overheads of a business. A bit like the current Banking Crisis really.
It is the job of IT Professionals to make sure that SaaS is used sensibly.
3. James Button
Who owns the drives containing your data. probably not the organisation you contracted with to use the cloud software.
And when the server owner goes into administration, or just replaces the drives there goes your data into the public domain.
Yep accessible by everyone, (probably excepting yourselves).
Cloud conputing is not, and will never be a secure manner of holding data until the laws on liquidation are changed, and sufficiently harsh penalties are actually applied to the management of organisations who do not setup,maintain, and enforce sufficient care and security on data.
4. Henry
And for the other point of view:
Cloud computing is a great concept but it is a house of cards unless we can figure out a better way to secure data and transactions. Having my identity stolen again just recently makes this a sensitive topic. There have been a plethora of infamous data security breaches from banks to retailers. I am thinking it is time to go back to heterogenious offline systems for my critical data and cash is king again.
How many companies are truly SAS Type 2 certified? Even if companies have controls in place, conduct audits and perform penetration testing on a regular basis, this is no guarantee of security (think inside breach).
After spending two and a half decades in the Technology field I am now in strategic supply chain management and it is still amazing how many companies, large and small, are not very strategic or disciplined.
This starts with the leadership and unless one has been sleeping at the wheel, no one desires to give these people their money at the moment. However here we are discussing giving these people are sensitive data. I dont think so. Now we have the professional criminal involved in online fraud which makes this even more risky with each passing day.
Maybe I will stick my personal data under the mattress with my money.
5. Karen Challinor
excited because they haven't considered small details like where the app and data servers are physically located, who can see their data, which countries laws apply, what happens when (not if) someone redirects you to a site serving malicious applications that appear to be identical to the ones you normally use, the unreliable infrastructure, what happens if the cloud company goes out of business, line speed, contention ratios and so on and so forth
of course these are all just technical problems and should not be allowed to stand in the way of the grand vision from the high table, after all technical people are ten a penny and they can be blamed when it all goes wrong leaving fat cat bonuses intact
unstoppable, absolutely!