Finding a cloud solution: Tim Duggan

Tim Duggan of the Department of Finance updates Meadhbh Monahan on the development of cloud computing within government.

Cloud computing is “very much on the agenda,” according to Tim Duggan, Assistant Secretary in the Department of Finance and Director of its Centre for Management and Organisation Development (CMOD).

Government networks – a countrywide private telecommunications resource used by all public bodies – has been in operation since 2002.

This network is “highly resilient”, Duggan tells eolas. Rather than being provided by one significant carrier, there are 16 telecommunications providers connected to the network at the minute. However, none of these 16 providers has the capacity the Government currently requires.

“There is a lot of hype about cloud computing. The British Government are only getting into it now but we have been doing our own private version since 2002. There are claims made by companies that, if you scrutinise, don’t stack up,” Duggan explains.

There is apprehension about putting information onto the public cloud, on the internet, because “it would mean our data would be stored in their data centres, in their locations.” Duggan outlines four reasons why the Government “can’t do that.”

Security

“We can’t put people’s data on the internet because of data protection laws and the duty of care a government has to protect the data the public and businesses give it.”

Jurisdiction

The Government “couldn’t live with” Ireland’s data being stored outside the jurisdiction of the state.

“Unfortunately the laws of other states aren’t as benign as [Ireland],” Duggan contends. “Some governments have powers to seize data; consequently, we wouldn’t be comfortable in sharing our details in this case.”

Duggan adds that it is difficult to predict which governments will become more invasive in future years: “You might have an idea of which governments are OK now, but you have no idea which will be problematic in the future. Consequently, the general rule is that you don’t store data outside the state.”

Reliability

Duggan states that, to date, “all of the major cloud providers: Microsoft, Amazon, Google etc. have experienced reliability and performance issues – they have gone down or been attacked.”

He argues: “You couldn’t run hospitals on that basis therefore at this juncture we couldn’t trust government operations to something that we won’t have great control over.”

Vendor lock-in

Because most cloud computing platforms are proprietary in format, data is stored in computer storage warehouses or containers. According to Duggan, this presents “a significant danger of vendor lock-in.”

He continues: “If the provider increases their prices, you eventually pay them, or you go down the painful and costly road of transferring data [to another provider].” That process is “prohibitive” and the Government “wants to protect the Irish taxpayer from that jeopardy,” Duggan says.

Ireland is not the only state facing these problems. Most EU governments are in a similar situation, according to the IT expert. The Government has been keeping an eye on cloud developments in the USA and has found that there are calls for more reliability in the arena.

“When you see governments, particularly in America, insisting on a suitable cloud computing model, the markets will soon catch up.”

Until then, the cloud will continue to be run privately on the government network, which is only accessible to public bodies.

“It is hosted in our own data centres, computer rooms and containers,” Duggan explains.

Containers are the latest innovation in storage. Duggan describes them as being similar to freight containers which are fitted with racks, cooling systems, cables and other essential equipment.

“With the type of servers available today, you can pack a lot into a 40 foot container. It’s the future. The big companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are using these containers,” Duggan adds.

The Government would want their cloud platforms placed around the country but, ultimately it doesn’t want to relinquish control.

“We can specify and articulate the standards we require but this is still a very immature market and [to date] no company has cracked how to supply the government market,” Duggan says, adding that “a lot of companies have gone half way.”

Outlining the flaws in the current cloud market, Duggan says that what is on offer is a private network in their data centre. “That doesn’t work because in this country, most companies only have one data centre,” he argues.

If something happened to that data centre, he continues, the company would have to replicate it. “This would require them to do deals with other companies which is an incredibly expensive option, therefore it is not of interest to us.”

Another option is that the software and provisioning tools would be provided but government would have to be the “architect” and would have to source its own hardware. “This means that anytime you want to do anything new, you would have to check what storage, bandwidth etc you would need. That’s not cloud computing,” Duggan states.

Duggan describes what is on offer for private networks as “a managed service.” He stresses that the advent of cloud computing is “ a process, not an event” and that the Government and companies are determined to continue their “high level” discussions to come to a solution.