When things
are in the cloud, the ground is clear.
An IT infrastructure is the backbone of IT applications and IT
services. Managers who are responsible for departmental IT
matters would know all the issues associated with setting up and
maintaining IT infrastructure in the department. Work would start
from the basic requirement of accommodating the infrastructure,
that is, special accommodation requirements. Usually, a secure
room with uninterrupted power supply and temperature control is
needed for the central servers and hubs. Then a series of servers
is required for various functions. The servers are connected to
individual terminals through a messy network of wire which could
turn the office upside down. This beast requires constant feeding
and care-taking. The manpower, attention and energy required for
its up-keeping is enormous and continuous, not to mention the
worry
of interruption of service and its safety.
To get the infrastructure off the ground, managers first need to
perform much work on procurement and installation. IT hardware
needs to be constantly maintained and upgraded. The cycle of
maintenance, system update, replacement and addition is
never-ending.
What if someone else could do all these for the managers? Cloud
computing offers such an opportunity. All those mentioned above
could be put in the cloud. Then all that the managers need to do
is to dream about it. IaaS Infrastructure as a service comes into
play.
IaaS could be provided in private cloud, outsourced private cloud
and public cloud. Managers could expect the Government private
cloud to be almighty. OCGIO has tried her utmost to bring the
capability of her data centres to a high level which should be
capable of meeting all the needs of departmental applications. A
public cloud run by major IT service providers is even mightier.
They do that for a living. For outsourced private cloud, the
contractor would be happy to make the data centre for the
department as versatile as possible. When the infrastructure is
in the cloud, all the associated daily chore of operation, backup,
maintenance are taken care of as a package. Managers only need to
choose how to use the infrastructure. They could safely assume
all that is required are already in the cloud. Procurement and
installation of equipment for the cloud will be the task of the
cloud keeper. Managers could just pick what function they want
from the cloud. The rest is taken care of by the service charge,
or by OCGIO data centres.
Besides saving a lot of effort for the departmental users, IaaS
offers much benefits in cost saving through economy of scale and
resource sharing. With centralized procurement and system
implementation, the infrastructure could be share-used by many
different applications. A strong and ready cloud support is
scalable and could meet service change on demand.
Nevertheless, managers making use of IaaS should first know how to
ask the right questions. Up-to-date common knowledge of the IT
infrastructure is still required, just like a government human
resource manager who would need to know the Civil Service Regulations
well. Most importantly, managers
need to know and understand what the cloud could do. The
technical details could be left to the technicians.
In a perfect scenario, which may not be
feasible for all offices at present a least, we could foresee all
back-office IT services to be carried out in the cloud. The
office could be linked to the cloud through one or a few leased
broadband connections. Users are then connected through wireless
routers. Officers are each assigned a notebook computer or tablet
computers so that they could be mobile in the office when using IT
services. No network wiring is then required.
All that the managers need to do is to stock a few spare computers
for replacement.
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