In this age of austerity and cyber threat the fundamental nature of public services must change. Technology is at the centre of this change and cloud will be one of the predominant features – but overriding all is the need to ensure appropriate security levels to keep sensitive data safe at all times.
Forty cloud experts and public sector professionals involved in decision making and deployment of cloud in their organisations met for a workshop in December 2015 to discuss the challenge of selecting / procuring and then implementing the storage and management of files with the security classification of OFFICIAL in the cloud.
Of those participating more than four in 10 (42%) were already using cloud, and the remainder were either in the process of buying cloud services (31%) or considering whether to do so (27%) in 2016. 92% of attendees were using, planning to use or had used G-Cloud to procure their cloud solutions.
This paper outlines factors in the move to cloud, the thinking around these challenges and the real concerns – and advice – of those that have followed this path.