Cloud
computing is the order of the day. The market is now flooded with
cloud services. All major IT service providers are competing to
offer the best, fastest, most versatile and most secure cloud
services. They are now in great demand. There are much talks on
the mystery of cloud computing. Simply put, it is just a wider
use of the TCP/IP protocol, or in more layman term, the Internet -
the cloud.
The Internet has been here for more than twenty years. In the
past, it was not extensively used by serious businesses. First,
connection to the Internet was not reliable; and second, security
over leased line was a major concern. These problems have largely
been overcome. Many large corporations, financial institutions
and governments are now comfortable in using the cloud as a
standard platform for IT services.
The HKSAR Government announced that she would
adopt the Cloud Computing model to meet rising public demands and
community expectations on e-government services and reap the
benefits of emerging technologies. Actually, the issue has been
on the agenda for a long time when the OCGIO set up her own data
centres years ago for the storage of data for departments and for
acting as central servers for many departmental applications. The
time is now ripe and a full scale introduction of cloud computing
is being promoted.
EO as government resource and system managers are required to
manage IT projects both for the delivery of departmental services
and support services within the department. Cloud computing
represents a new approach to such services. Thus managers would be impacted first hand with this modern
trend. Lucky to say, the cloud computing model is a way forward
and a much easier way from a management point of view. The major
difference between cloud computing and traditional computing is
that the majority of equipment and applications are not located on
site.
Government announced that she plans to re-provision the central IT
facilities and build the Government Cloud environment comprising three service layers: an in-house private
Cloud owned and operated by the Government, an outsourced private
Cloud with facilities dedicated to the Government in secure data
centres operated by contractors, and public Cloud for generic
services. They are used to host applications and data based on
the level of sensitivity and confidentiality of the data and
information involved.
Managers could
look at the change from the organizational perspective.
They have been tasked with the management of IT
services, which may entail IT
personnel, IT equipment and
applications as well as IT security. OCGIO or the
previous ITSD used
to undertake the technical work in the past. Many
years ago, OCGIO withdrew from the frontline,
leaving departments to handle the
technical work
themselves. Instead, IT
Management Units
were set up in departments. These units, staffed
by OCGIO seconded staff, acted
as consultants on IT projects.
Actual work was carried out in
the departments by contractors.
Departments were
required to manage both the IT
Management Units and the
contractors.
The
government consultants,
rather than hired consultants who took requests
from clients, could
dictate
projects from the
technical
rather than the
management
angle.
The
Cloud computing
model
may change the
scenario to
our favour. For
private cloud,
it could be
the data
centres
operated by
OCGIO.
Operation
personnel
together with the
daily chore
with the
servers
will then be
the
responsibility
of the
centres. Some
large
departments
may wish to
set up their
own private
cloud in
an out-sourced
private
data centre at
off-site
location.
This would
be a dedicated
technical task
usually
with strong
operational
content and
run by
technicians.
For the public
cloud, an
IT service
provider
offering
general cloud
services to
the public may
be engaged.
This will be
for
non-sensitive
public
information
distribution.
In short, if
handled
well, cloud
computing
could mean lesser
work
but stronger
control for
departmental
managers.
No comments:
Post a Comment