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Use of Public Cloud

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Dear Department for Education,

With Government Digital Service’s (GDS) guidance on ‘Public sector use of the Public Cloud’ we are looking to create an industry report on how this new guidance may have changed the Cloud landscape for public sector organisations. In particular, we’re keen to ascertain if the guidance has helped ease concerns around moving to Public Cloud and what Public Cloud is being used for within your IT environments.
Please could we have responses by either paper or electronic copies.
1. Have you got a Cloud adoption strategy?
a. Yes
b. No

2. If yes does that strategy cover On-Premises, Private Cloud, Public Cloud or a Hybrid mix?
a. Yes
b. No

3. What are the issues you are concerned about with regards to Public Cloud:
a. Skills and Staffing
b. Service Level Agreements
c. Fear of Lock-in
d. Security / Audit
e. Data Sovereignty
f. Service Availability
g. Integration
h. Migration
i. Governance (e.g. spend control)

4. Are you currently using any Public Cloud resources at the moment?
a. Yes
b. No

5. If ‘No’ are you looking to add Public Cloud into your Cloud adoption strategy over the next 12 months?
a. Yes
b. No

6. Which Public Cloud resources are you using or planning on using?
a. Amazon AWS
b. Microsoft Azure
c. VMware
d. Google Cloud
e. IBM
f. Oracle
g. Other

7. What are your drivers for moving to Public Cloud? (multiple answers)
a. Reducing costs
b. Scalability
c. Innovation & Experimenting
d. Efficiency
e. Improving business IT agility
f. Improve data resiliency
g. Improve productivity

8. What workloads would you look to move into Public Cloud? (multiple answers)
a. Backup
b. DR
c. Test & Dev / DevOps
d. Data Analytics and BI (Business Intelligence)
e. Non clinical applications
f. Clinical applications

9. Which business functions would you move to the Cloud? (multiple answers)
a. CRM
b. HR / Payroll
c. ERP / SCM
d. Finance
e. Field Service Management
f. Website hosting

10. Do you have the skills in-house to transition to the Cloud?
a. Yes
b. No

11. If you have adopted Public Cloud how have you classified the outcome?
a. Failure
b. Partial or qualified success
c. Success

Yours faithfully,

Georgina Evans

ACCOUNT, Unmonitored, Department for Education

Dear Georgina Evans,

 

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 9 August
2017, in which you asked for the following information:

 

“Dear Department for Education,

 

With Government Digital Service’s (GDS) guidance on ‘Public sector use of
the Public Cloud’ we are looking to create an industry report on how this
new guidance may have changed the Cloud landscape for public sector
organisations. In particular, we’re keen to ascertain if the guidance has
helped ease concerns around moving to Public Cloud and what Public Cloud
is being used for within your IT environments.

Please could we have responses by either paper or electronic copies.

1.         Have you got a Cloud adoption strategy?

a.         Yes

b.         No

 

2.         If yes does that strategy cover On-Premises, Private Cloud,
Public Cloud or a Hybrid mix?

a.         Yes

b.         No

 

3.         What are the issues you are concerned about with regards to
Public Cloud:

a.         Skills and Staffing

b.         Service Level Agreements

c.         Fear of Lock-in

d.         Security / Audit

e.         Data Sovereignty

f.          Service Availability

g.         Integration

h.         Migration

i.          Governance (e.g. spend control)

 

4.         Are you currently using any Public Cloud resources at the
moment?

a.         Yes

b.         No

 

5.         If ‘No’ are you looking to add Public Cloud into your Cloud
adoption strategy over the next 12 months?

a.         Yes

b.         No

 

6.         Which Public Cloud resources are you using or planning on
using?

a.         Amazon AWS

b.         Microsoft Azure

c.         VMware

d.         Google Cloud

e.         IBM

f.          Oracle

g.         Other

 

7.         What are your drivers for moving to Public Cloud? (multiple
answers)

a.         Reducing costs

b.         Scalability

c.         Innovation & Experimenting

d.         Efficiency

e.         Improving business IT agility

f.          Improve data resiliency 

g.         Improve productivity

 

8.         What workloads would you look to move into Public Cloud?
(multiple answers)

a.         Backup

b.         DR

c.         Test & Dev / DevOps

d.         Data Analytics and BI (Business Intelligence)

e.         Non clinical applications

f.          Clinical applications

 

9.         Which business functions would you move to the Cloud? (multiple
answers)

a.         CRM

b.         HR / Payroll

c.         ERP / SCM

d.         Finance 

e.         Field Service Management

f.          Website hosting 

 

10.       Do you have the skills in-house to transition to the Cloud?

a.         Yes

b.         No

 

11.       If you have adopted Public Cloud how have you classified the
outcome?

a.         Failure

b.         Partial or qualified success

c.         Success

 

Yours faithfully,

 

Georgina Evans”

 

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(“the Act”). We are also aware that you submitted an identical request to
the Government Equalities Office (GEO). The GEO sits with the Department
for Education (DfE) and shares its IT, therefore please take the below as
the response to your questions for both the DfE and GEO.

1.         Have you got a Cloud adoption strategy?

a.         Yes

 

2.         If yes does that strategy cover On-Premises, Private Cloud,
Public Cloud or a Hybrid mix?

a.         Yes

 

3.         What are the issues you are concerned about with regards to
Public Cloud:

a.         Skills and Staffing

b.         Service Level Agreements

c.         Fear of Lock-in

d.         Security / Audit

f.          Service Availability

g.         Integration

h.         Migration

i.          Governance (e.g. spend control)

 

The Department for Education has already moved to Public Cloud, however
the primary concerns were as above.

 

4.         Are you currently using any Public Cloud resources at the
moment?

a.         Yes

 

5.         If ‘No’ are you looking to add Public Cloud into your Cloud
adoption strategy over the next 12 months?

N/A

6.         Which Public Cloud resources are you using or planning on
using?

 

This information is being withheld, please see further explanation
provided below.

 

7.         What are your drivers for moving to Public Cloud? (multiple
answers)

a.         Reducing costs

d.         Efficiency

e.         Improving business IT agility

f.          Improve data resiliency 

 

The Department for Education has already moved to Public Cloud, however
the key drivers were as above.

 

8.         What workloads would you look to move into Public Cloud?
(multiple answers)

 

This information is being withheld, please see further explanation
provided below.

 

9.         Which business functions would you move to the Cloud? (multiple
answers)

 

This information is being withheld, please see further explanation
provided below.

 

10.       Do you have the skills in-house to transition to the Cloud?

a.         Yes

 

11.       If you have adopted Public Cloud how have you classified the
outcome?

c.         Success

 

Regarding questions 6, 8 and 9:

The Department holds the information you requested regarding Public Cloud
resources, however this is being withheld because the following exemption
applies to this information:

Section 31(1)(a) of the Act - the prevention or detection of crime.

Section 31 is a qualified exemption which means that the Department must
consider the balance of public interest and in doing so, the following
factors have been considered:

o It is acknowledged that there is a general public interest in
disclosing this information in order to maintain an open and
transparent government.
o This is outweighed by the risk that disclosing information about our
public cloud resources or workloads within it could potentially be
useful to malicious parties aiming to circumvent our systems.
o If the requested information was disclosed it would provide valuable
information to those wishing to circumvent our systems, meaning that
we would fail in our duty to help prevent criminal activity and in
turn fail in our duty to assist those services providing us with law
enforcement.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by copyright.
You are free to use it for your own purposes, including for private study
and non-commercial research, and for any other purpose authorised by an
exception in current copyright law. Documents (except photographs) can be
also used in the UK without requiring permission for the purposes of news
reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would
require the permission of the copyright holder.

Most documents produced by a government department or agency will be
protected by Crown Copyright. Most Crown copyright information can be
re-used under the Open Government Licence
([1]http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/o...). For
information about the OGL and about re-using Crown Copyright information
please see The National Archives website
-[2]http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/infor...
.

Copyright in other documents may rest with a third party. For information
about obtaining permission from a third party see the Intellectual
Property Office’s website at [3]www.ipo.gov.uk.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to
quote the reference number (2017-0040711) in any future communications.

If you are unhappy with the way your request has been handled, you should
make a complaint to the Department by writing to me within two calendar
months of the date of this letter.  Your complaint will be considered by
an independent review panel, who were not involved in the original
consideration of your request. 

 

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint to the
Department, you may then contact the Information Commissioner’s Office.

 

Yours sincerely,

FOI Officer

Digital, Data and Technology Office

Department for Education

 

Web: [4]https://www.education.gov.uk
Twitter: [5]https://www.twitter.com/educationgovuk
Facebook: [6]https://www.facebook.com/educationgovuk

 

References

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We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Georgina Evans please sign in and let everyone know.