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ICT Cloud and the Public Service

Charting the WCG Cloud Computing Journey

Key considerations for cloud computing? deeper exploration of customising cloud solutions to
The Cloud strategy sets the direction for cloud com- fit departments’ specific mandates.
puting, while the architecture design and specifics
for implementation are developed for each solution. Objective feedback
However, the WCG operates and manages a hybrid Being too close to the strategy development process
cloud ecosystem. There is continued investment in can cloud judgement and the WCG resolved to ob-
technology and infrastructure where appropriate, but tain independent third party feedback from Gartner
with an increasingly aggressive move to cloud solu- to ensure objectivity. This provided assurance that
tions for identified workloads. The transition to the the strategy was both comprehensive and complete,
cloud is expected to be done on a case-by-case ba- while also providing specific feedback on key as-
sis, driven by business cases. All decisions in this re- pects including:
gard are considered on whether they make business § Most large clients are now adopting a “cloud
sense and demonstrate value while strictly following first” strategy, meaning they first evaluate
IT Architecture governance processes. existing cloud-based platforms before de-
veloping applications or deploying infra-
As part of the strategic consideration, the WCG has structure and software in-house.
taken a position not to be restricted to a single cloud
provider. A given cloud service is managed via a Ser- § When storing sensitive information in the
vice Level Agreement (SLA), which makes for tighter cloud, encryption is recommended rath-
management of identified benefits and value. er than a hybrid-cloud infrastructure (using
end-to-end encryption with the WCG per-
Moreover, data location, compliance and privacy is- haps managing its own encryption).
sues remain top of the mind, meaning that the neces- § Large-scale cloud-providers (such as Mi-
sary legal prescripts have to be understood regarding crosoft, Google, and Amazon) have better
where data/information is hosted and the implication security and liability provisions than smaller
of privacy laws for each cloud service. The WCG players.
Cloud Computing strategy is being implemented
through a phased approach. The first phase focus- § Clients typically see a 14% cost saving, pri-
es on eight areas, from email and messaging calen- marily as a result from the benefits of scal-
daring to productivity and application testing tools. ability, agility, manageability and speed of
Subsequent and more complex user needs require deployment.

24 SERVICE DELIVERY REVIEW | Volume 15 • No. 1 of 2022