Ever since its introduction in 2013, the government’s so-called cloud-first policy has been at the heart of the public sector’s digital transformation efforts. Put simply, the policy means that bodies seeking to update their technology should evaluate cloud-based systems before considering any other option. But there is a strong argument that applying such an approach across the board, regardless of context, is unwise.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), a technology vendor that promotes a hybrid approach to IT adoption, mounted a publicity campaign in September that described Westminster’s cloud-first directive as “inappropriate” for the public sector. HPE argued that the friction between the policy and the realities of following it had “left cloud strategies disjointed and incomplete or, at worst, completely stalled” in some cases.
This is because a public cloud is not always the most efficient or appropriate repository for workloads and data. More than three-quarters (78%) of public bodies provide services that are unsuitable for migration to a public cloud, according to government figures requested by HPE under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Moreover, 63% of public-sector organisations have yet to adopt a dedicated cloud strategy. More than 70% of their infrastructure and 73% of their data remains on the premises.