A Cautionary Government Cloud Story–UK’s G-Cloud. Does The “G” Stand For Gone?
January 27, 2015
Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Ben Kepes.
Respected cloud computing commentator and consultant Ian Apperley has spent significant time studying the UK’s G-Cloud program. G-Cloud is a program introduced by the UK Government back in 2012 that aimed to offer public-sector organizations throughout the UK access to cloud infrastructure. The idea of the initiative was that the G-Cloud organization would negotiate agreements with suppliers, thus avoiding the need for individual organizations to complete a full procurement process. On top of that, G-Cloud created a “CloudStore” where public sector bodies could search for services covered by the G-Cloud supply agreements.
In a recent post, Apperley suggested that the UK Government cloud program is for all intents and purposes dead. Apperley has a professional interest in the G-Cloud story – he has studied the UK program as part of an assessment of opportunities that existed for New Zealand’s Departments of Internal Affairs. Apperley concluded that the G-Cloud model was a good one – it created a level playing field for suppliers, more generally used to favorites being played by departmental IT staff…
It also had the effect of increasing local IT vendor’s share of cloud spend. Apperley reports that “G-Cloud went through several versions, making it easy to access Cloud services, giving great guidance, and saving the U.K. taxpayer a mountain of cash.”…
Read more from the source @ http://www.forbes.com/sites/benkepes/2015/01/27/a-cautionary-government-cloud-story-uks-g-cloud-does-the-g-stand-for-gone/