Harnessing the Cloud in the Public Sector’s Digital Revolution

Cloud computing has been a hot topic for public sector organisations for quite some time. Indeed, late last year Open Access Government even published an article warning that ‘the public sector must move to cloud services or risk falling behind the digital revolution.’ 

It is true, of course, there are lots of good reasons for public sector organisations to move to a cloud-first technology strategy – the fast data recovery, the flexibility for remote working, the practically limitless scalability and, of course, potential cost-savings. According to Paul Lincoln, the Second Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, so-called ‘secret clouds’ have also been used in defence strategy, to deal with accessing classified data and to help develop artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities within the MOD.

Still, as more and more public sector organisations follow suit and make the leap to cloud-powered workplaces, it’s doubly important to ensure that this shift makes the most out of their resources and takes the present-day challenges faced by the public sector into consideration.

It is, after all, no secret that the public sector, following years of austerity and still facing budget cuts in the cost-of-living crisis taking place, is under constant pressure to keep spending down and deliver more for less.

In light of this, cloud solutions in the public sector ought to be optimised to the needs of modern users and the objectives of the organisation in question. Remember, it’s always important to consider what benefits you want the cloud to deliver and how these are aligned and connected to the organisation’s wider goals.

Cloud-powered EUC 2.0 and the public sector 

End user computing (or ‘EUC’) is one way the public sector can harness the power of the cloud to continue evolving and succeeding inside the aforementioned ‘digital revolution’.

When we talk about end-user computing, we’re referring to a combination of technologies, policies, and processes that IT professionals use to deploy, manage, and secure the devices, applications, and data that workers require to do their job.

‘EUC 2.0’, then, can be thought of as the post-pandemic next generation of end-user computing that is emerging with the advent of new technologies and trends in the present-day. It brings the original concentrations of EUC (e.g., access to desktops, applications, and data within the workplace, all predominantly performed in physical locations or through secure connections known as VPNs) up to date with the modern objectives and focuses of organisations (think mobility, collaboration, resiliency, and so on).

Together, these new objectives and focuses form part of what we know to be ‘the modern workplace’; itself an evolution of traditional work environments which was accelerated by the changes in technology, demographics, and work styles the social distancing and travel restrictions observed worldwide in 2020/21 called for.

Amongst other things, the modern workplace is characterised by much more flexible and collaborative working environments. Here, work is no longer defined by a physical office or a set schedule. Instead, work is seen as an activity that can be done from anywhere, at any time, using a range of devices and tools – a big one of which is cloud computing.

It’s not too strong to suggest that the cloud can offer the public sector the ability to change and adapt to these new requirements, as well as determine their longevity and success in today’s post-COVID world.

To achieve the required level of desktop flexibility, agility, and mobility expected by workforces today, the public sector would be wise to turn to cloud-optimised infrastructures that can be scaled on-demand with simple, even automated, processes and tools.

Further benefits of a cloud transformation

As well as facilitating EUC 2.0, the public cloud offers the public sector wider benefits that can be leveraged by organisations to survive economic shifts and remain flexible and scalable during uncertain times. These benefits include:

Reduced risk

Most public sector organisations access, process, and share a lot of sensitive or personal data, so it’s vital that systems meet the highest security and compliance standards and that a robust disaster recovery plan is in place, should the worst happen.

Not only can data breaches be very costly, potentially resulting in large fines as well as lost trust and damaged reputation, but onsite disaster recovery (DR) often means a lot of downtime – not to mention the hardware, software, maintenance, and technical staff that need to be on-hand to assist in recovery.

DR in the cloud is frequently associated with lower costs since cloud-based recovery plans are offered by both public and private cloud providers as a managed cloud service, removing the burden of an upfront financial investment and providing extreme flexibility when it comes to the automated backup and restore processes.

Remote work and process balance 

Taking advantage of the public cloud to streamline remote working practices reduces the need for multiple physical office locations, which can reduce costs for most organisations dramatically. After all, providing office space, internet, electricity, water, and more to have employees working on site is a big cost factor.

Furthermore, it’s important to remember the latent costs associated with clunky and outdated legacy applications and the resulting inefficient or sprawling processes which waste both time and resources. Connecting to onsite servers using unreliable VPN technology or running low performance virtual desktops for remote work absolutely isn’t efficient – and is likely to decrease productivity long-term.

Cloud computing can address and streamline these issues using scalable software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) technology. Hosting and centralising your data and virtual machines in the cloud means you get all the additional processing power without the need to invest in new desktops or servers.

In fact, because public cloud hardware is used at significantly higher rates than onsite servers, they’re likely to have a much shorter lifecycle, resulting in a higher hardware refresh speed. In other words, the latest kit is always available to public cloud users and, as a result, the tech tends to be much more powerful and efficient than would be otherwise be affordable.

Staying up to date

Many organisations are looking to increase their use of digital online services right now, introducing new software and features to streamline processes and improve their service offerings.

Of course, more digitisation usually means purchasing more software and installing updates frequently – a practice that can get rather cumbersome and costly using traditional onsite infrastructures (especially if you’re stuck waiting for providers to set-up, upgrade, and configure new systems).

Most public cloud providers such as Azure and AWS, on the other hand, provide pay-as-you go software features (think of it as a subscription service for your business-critical IT needs) and are built to support the increasing velocity of software and security updates using timed deployment slots with none to minimal disruption.

The elasticity of cloud services means they can be increased/decreased alongside the size of your team, so any peaks or dips in demand become less challenging and software can be added or removed to suit. For organisations requiring responsiveness and dealing with budget restrictions, the flexibility of the cloud is a huge advantage.

Owning and managing servers

Having a traditional IT infrastructure with servers onsite may not be the most cost-effective choice for the public sector, especially considering the time and resources involved in purchasing, maintaining, and updating these machines (particularly older machines which perform less efficiently).

Keeping hardware around not only takes up space but requires constant cooling to maintain a safe temperature. Air conditioning burns a lot of energy and – even though the server is only really used during working hours – must be kept on 24/7. Additionally, there are recruitment costs to consider here, since owning machines means employing somebody who knows how to look after them.

Using public cloud removes the burden of constant equipment upkeep, offering better affordability and elastic resources that can be scaled up or down depending on your data processing demands. Furthermore, there is the opportunity for organisations to share public cloud server space, necessitating less equipment, lower cooling needs, and offering significant cost savings. Of course, this also means more efficient and powerful servers come within reach for organisations usually restrained by budget.

Adding yet more flexibility is the option of a hybrid cloud setup; potentially including multiple cloud providers and making your infrastructure both hybrid and multi-cloud. Using one or more public clouds in addition to your on-premises servers can facilitate and simplify management of your application and help companies get so much more from their cloud service.

Interested in implementing an EUC 2.0 strategy or discussing your cloud powered workplace with the experts here at Littlefish? Feel free to contact us using the green ‘get in touch’ button on this page.