Cloud first

Last January, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) issued a circular  addressed to both the national and local government prescribing the Philippine government’s Cloud First Policy.

The policy is aimed at reducing the cost of government information and communications technology (ICT), increasing employee productivity, and developing better citizen online services through the use of cloud computing technology.

Various governments such as the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom have done similar Cloud First Policies. 

So what is cloud computing?

The DICT defines cloud computing as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

Its characteristics include on-demand self service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity and measured service, the department explained.

What are the benefits that can be derived from using cloud computing technology? DICT says these are inter-agency collaboration, operational continuity and business recovery, faster deployment of services, greater budget control and decreased spending on legacy infrastructure.

The initial DICT GovCloud infrastructure was set up in 2013 by DOST-ICT Office as part of the Integrated Government Philippines (iGovPhil) Project which aims to provide cloud infrastructure access to government agencies. 

And then, to pursue its cloud-first policy, government relaunched the Government Cloud or GovCloud initiative last March. 

The DICT awarded the P373-million build, operate and transfer a complete cloud solution project to the Vibal Group, a cloud and education technology company which used to be known as a book publisher.

Vibal said GovCloud would use a hybrid cloud strategy that would use both private and public cloud, adding that creation of private in-country data center would ensure data security, while the off-premise public cloud would make online information and services readily available to government agencies.

The company then partnered with a number of technology firms, including Microsoft for the cloud undertaking. Vibal and Microsoft have been official partners since 2012, when Vibal made available its interactive e-books compatible to Windows OS.

Microsoft managing director Karrie Ilagan said their strength and commitment to security, privacy and transparency would empower the government to achieve the best for its citizens. 

While cloud computing produces efficiency, productivity and would provide better citizen services, security is paramount to efficiency, especially with the advent of state-sponsored cyberattacks and cyber-espionage.

DICT launched the National CyberSecurity Plan of 2022 just last month in a bid to protect every single user of the internet in the country. This, of course, is timely especially since the Philippines is among the top 10 countries with malware threats.

With the increasing incidence of cyber espionage and cyberattacks initiated by nation-states, there is now a call for a “Digital Geneva Convention,” whereby governments should commit to avoiding attacking citizens, critical infrastructure and the private sector; reporting vulnerabilities rather than stockpiling, selling or exploiting them; pledging to aid in the containment and recovery from cyberattacks; and creating a trusted national and global IT infrastructure.

Microsoft offers what it calls a secure, trusted cloud which it emphasized is the most important value that it provides compared to other vendors. 

Describing its trusted cloud, Microsoft assured that it helps protect data and has the most comprehensive compliance cover all over the world, including solutions for compliance with the Data Privacy Act of the Philippines, protects major IT systems reliably with Microsoft Disaster Recovery, and offers the most IT flexibility with a truly consistent hybrid cloud.

 To show its commitment to a secure, trusted cloud, Microsoft has signed the ICT for Shared Prosperity Technology Manifesto with the DICT. It identifies national challenges and issues that need to be addressed, and key technology pillars that can help in championing and driving economic progress in the country.

Microsoft earlier announced that it would continue to invest $1 billion yearly on cybersecurity research and development in the coming years. The amount excludes acquisitions which the company may make in the sector. 

The cloud has allowed companies like Microsoft to create much more sophisticated tools to guard against increasingly cunning attackers. Instead of having to manage their own security, companies also now tap cloud service providers like Microsoft to keep their data secure.

Microsoft has what it calls the Enterprise Mobility + Security that allows its clients to get identity-driven protection against today’s attacks.

Its product named Azure is said to have the most comprehensive compliance coverage. It is the most trusted cloud for US government institutions.

With the Data Privacy Act of 2012, Microsoft says it has already designed Azure with industry-leading security measures and privacy policies to safeguard data in the cloud, including categories of personal data identified by the Data Privacy Act.

There is also Microsoft Dynamics 365 which are intelligent cloud applications that connect data across sources.

Microsoft explains that its cloud product combines the company’s current customer relationship management  and enterprise resource planning  cloud services into a single service, and includes new, purpose-built applications to help manage specific business functions.

At the end of the day, it is the citizenry who will decide whether or not government’s new policies and programs on ICT have improved the delivery of public services. 

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