1 |
UK cloud computing strategy could save up to £3.2bn a year, says |
2 |
Cabinet Office. |
3 |
|
4 |
The government has unveiled a sweeping strategy to create |
5 |
its own internal "cloud computing" system – such as that |
6 |
used by Google, Microsoft and Amazon – as part of a radical |
7 |
plan that it claims could save up to £3.2bn a year from an |
8 |
annual bill of at least £16bn. |
9 |
|
10 |
The key part of the new strategy, outlined by the Cabinet |
11 |
Office minister Angela Smith, will be the concentration of |
12 |
government computing power into a series of about a dozen |
13 |
highly secure data centres, each costing up to £250m to |
14 |
build, which will replace more than 500 presently used by |
15 |
central government, police forces and local authorities. |
16 |
|
17 |
The government will also push for "open source" software to |
18 |
be used more widely among central and local government's 4m |
19 |
desktop computers. That poses an immediate threat to |
20 |
Microsoft, whose Windows operating system and Office |
21 |
applications suite is at present firmly embedded as the |
22 |
standard on PCs in government, such as the NHS, which is one |
23 |
of the largest users in Europe. |
24 |
|
25 |
But John Suffolk, the government's chief information |
26 |
officer, pointed out that cost savings of just £100 per |
27 |
machine would total £400m across government. Unlike Windows, |
28 |
open source operating systems such as Linux have no |
29 |
licensing costs and can be used on as many machines as |
30 |
required. |
31 |
|
32 |
By 2015, the strategy suggests, 80% of central government |
33 |
desktops could be supplied through a "shared utility |
34 |
service" – essentially a cloud service resembling Google |
35 |
Docs, which lets people create documents online for free. |
36 |
|
37 |
|
38 |
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/27/cloud-computing-government-uk |