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ICT Cloud and the Public Service

A Pen Sketch

of COG’s Cloud

Journey

In 2018, the Department of Cooperative Governance The need for cloud
(DCOG) experienced challenges with the accessi- DCOG’s inadequate IT capacity against the demand
bility of its core systems. These include commonly for increased system availability and accessibility was
used applications such as email and document re- a significant motivator when the department officially
positories, both internally and externally. At the time, embarked on the public cloud journey in 2019. The
only two employees were responsible for the back move meant that DCOG joined several other govern-
office support for the entire department. Apart from ment departments as it migrated its “cloud workload”
“fire-fighting” emergencies, the responsibilities of the by using a hybrid cloud approach. To technology
two Information Technology (IT) personnel involved outsiders, “Cloud Workload” is defined as an “appli-
managing everything from the internal security fire- cation, service, capability or specific amount of work”
walls to setting up business continuity contingencies on a cloud resource, according to the Circular and
in case of disasters, such as the recent COVID-19 Determination Directive that the DPSA issued early
pandemic. 2022.

Digital transformation ICT strategy Cloud benefits
As part of DCOGs digital transformation ICT strate- There have been some benefits to “going cloud”,
gy, a cloud-first approach (aligned to the Circular and such as refocusing the department’s limited resourc-
Determination Directive that the Department of Public es on hosting and managing data and services. How-
Service and Administration (DPSA) issued early 2022) ever, since the adoption of the cloud infrastructure
has been adopted as one of the building blocks to service, there has been high availability and access
achieving the strategy. This includes investigating to IT services that had previously presented signifi-
Software-As-A-Service applications and digital tools cant problems.
to deliver agile solutions and implementation of hy-
brid cloud environments to achieve scalability, flexi-
bility, and improved security.

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