We have been hearing an unaccustomed volume of ICT hype from our political leaders in recent months, all based on their new-found faith in cloud computing. Whether their grasp of the concept is more than nebulous might be questioned by the sceptical. In fairness, it is one of the more opaque terms puffed out by an industry that that has a casual talent for new terms that soon transmogrify into xLAs. But the notion that this cloud stuff could be the basis of a revitalised economy-or even just generate a few hundred or even thousand jobs-has been enough to make converts and late adopters of the terminology at government level.
The concept of cloud computing and related services and technologies as the basis of a new generation of ICT investment in Ireland has come from the industry itself, however, rather than from the political classes. It must be added that all of the relevant state agencies have actively embraced the ideas that have been generated. Probably the most influential single factor has been the excellent report "Cloud Computing: Ireland’s Competitiveness & Jobs Opportunity," commissioned by Microsoft Ireland from Goodbody Economic Consultants and published in January.
Cloud doors
The potential is clearly summarised by Microsoft Ireland managing director Paul Rellis in his foreword to the report: "While Cloud is considered by some as a technology evolution, the reality is that it is much more than that. … As an enabler and a facilitator of growth the Cloud is an unrivalled opportunity.
"Globally, Cloud Computing is in its infancy. Therefore, Ireland has a wonderful opportunity to be a leader in the Cloud-creating the right environment to attract cloud-based IP, leveraging Cloud to address the challenges in the public sector, creating a cluster of skills and talent that can help to support the growth of the next wave of Cloud based companies from Ireland and spawning a future Facebook, Salesforce.com or Amazon.
"If we are to achieve these goals, it is imperative that we are first in this race to be the leader in Cloud. We have the right building blocks in place but if we don’t capitalise on them our window of opportunity will be lost. NOW is the time to act."
Long term
Government and politicians may not see much beyond the report’s estimate of 8,600 new jobs and EUR*9.5 billion sector value by 2014 or "…taking EUR*0.5 billion per annum of costs out of Irish organisations." But industry leaders we spoke to see much longer term advantages from establishing Ireland as a committed player in this next ICT generation, even to the extent of becoming a global centre of excellence. The foundations are already present and thriving, notably the set of world class data centres (led by Microsoft’s EUR*0.5 billion investment), internet connectivity and fibre in the ground. Both experience and talent are here in commercially proven abundance and especially in global technology players from senior corporates like IBM, Microsoft, HP and Dell to younger enterprises like Amazon, Facebook and Google.
So we are credible. Dr Chris Coughlan certainly thinks so and as Head of Cloud Computing in HP’s Galway development centre his views have more than a little authority. "We should quickly institute special state incentives for investment in cloud computing, including the building of new data centres and capacity and even designating a special area for cloud on the lines of the IFSC. I think the West of Ireland, for example, would offer an almost ideal Western European location with many advantages." Accepting that electricity supply and the current level of fibre connections might be obstacles, he just insists that they are precisely the kinds of infrastructural investment that the state should be looking at.
As for speed of data centre construction, he says the nature of data centres has changed from the previous generation of hardened facility with long construction led times. "Data centres these days come in pods like giant Lego and the location can be more of a secure compound than the traditional fortress. The cloud resides in multiple data centres, multiple locations and is virtual and constantly changing, so the old architectures, physical and technical, have been superseded."
Global position
The key point is that Ireland is well positioned and resourced to establish a significant global position in cloud computing. "The timing is urgent, it has to be now or very soon, and that is why state leadership, incentives and investment are essential. Yes, there are commercial initiatives taking place, mostly FDI but some indigenous, but collectively we need to make as much as possible happen as soon as possible," Coughlan emphasises.
"We are at the crystal radio set era of cloud computing. It will move on to become something we just have an early hazy vision of, like the ‘semantic cloud’ and the Internet of Things, a massive intelligent ecosystem for everything electronic. Looking to become a global centre of excellence at the earliest stages gives Ireland a chance not only to work with or develop main players but to profit from the many downstream opportunities in software, creative content and a potentially vast range of services."
Decent haste
The common theme from our expert interviewees is the need for haste. "If we are not seen to be at the front we are not going to get to the front," says Martin Cullen, director of business and partners in Microsoft Ireland, emphasising his company’s view that cloud is already here-witness its Dublin data centre specifically for cloud services-but we are all at an early stage and Ireland is in as good a position as any other European country to take a decisive national initiative. "There is an opportunity to become a centralised hub for cloud activity based on what we already have. But the market is moving very fast, which is why a degree of pace is essential. That is where the government role comes in, pulling the existing and new strands together and demonstrating a national commitment. All of the vendors present in Ireland are for it, which is a key asset at this stage."
It would be hard to exaggerate the phenomenal speed of change in ICT today, Cullen adds. "For example our own company has developed into something completely different in the past 20 months. The same is even more true of cloud computing whether viewed as a sector or a market or a new set of ICT. So from the national point of view the window of opportunity is now or to be measured in weeks and months. It certainly will not stay open for traditional government decision-making pace. We are up against countries with more flexible decision making and already visible aggressive strategies in this space. The UK and the Nordics, for example, are looking eagerly at the opportunities and can offer a similar set of advantages."
He suggests that in parallel the state should look urgently at its own cloud adoption, both for the economic benefits and to demonstrate its active commitment. It is clearly understood that any cloud solutions in the government sector are likely to be hybrid, he adds, both because of security and legal considerations and because there is such a complex existing investment in legacy systems. "But just like any organisation there are clearly many services and activities that could be pushed out to the cloud with immediate advantage in improving services at lower costs. The model to look at is probably an extension of the shared services concept, already working very well in parts of the public sector, and types of services that are common across the sector. But in fact we are happy that this government really does understand the opportunity and the issues. What we now look for is speed of putting it in practice to some significant degree."
Rhetoric
That point is echoed by Jason Ward, country manager of EMC, "There has been a fair amount of political rhetoric about cloud in the last year or more but it now seems clear that this government is genuinely open to and looking at cloud computing. both for its potential benefits to the public service and for its investment and jobs potential." In many respects, he believes, both political and civil service leaders, like senior management in private industry, have become more aware of the strategic importance of technology and today’s universal ‘best business case’ approach for investment and project decisions.
"The government has done its first 100 days and looked at priorities, we have talked to several ministers and I really believe that it is in some respects now up to the vendor community to prove the value and specific business cases to the state sector. I think CMOD (Centre for Management and Organisational Development, a specialist unit within the Department of Finance) has done a good job in overseeing government ICT expenditure and extracting value. Cloud is such a logical next step that the industry certainly expects to see some type of cloud solutions in the public sector very soon."
EMC shares the vision amongst global ICT vendors in Ireland of something like an ‘International Digital Services Centre’ along IFSC lines. The company has committed itself by setting up a Centre of Cloud Excellence on its Cork campus and in collaboration with UCC in both research and academic programmes. Ward points to a changed ICT world in which unstructured data now accounts for something like 80% and more of all digitally stored information. In a similar way, multiple data centres are federated and synched today rather than the traditional massive and monolithic physical structure of the very recent past. Ireland has a good share of those but today their value lies more in the connectivity and local expertise rather than the highly reinforced structures.
He is emphatic about time scales: "We need to deliver something significant in about the next six months to be seen as an early mover. China and India, for example, are spending billions to catch up on physical data centre capacity. We need something more than a demonstration project, something to deliver real value. In EMC we believe some of the opportunities are going to be in areas like cloud and ‘Big Data’ and especially in expert, high-value soft services such as analytics in dealing with geometrically growing volumes of information."
Not about the tech
Teresa Weipert is Health and Public Service Cloud Computing lead with Accenture
globally and is an experienced consultant in major public sector and health ICT projects. "In this new generation of cloud computing, the principal challenge is, as so often, not the technology but the organisational and business side of things. I would say about 80% of any such project is about change management and just 20% is really about the details of the technology. The start of any cloud conversation will always be about the organisation’s current data and physical assets. Then it can move on to what can or should be put in the cloud and how to achieve that step."
She cites US Federal Government initiatives, which have focussed on certain types of internal and citizen services. E-mail, for example, is moving to the cloud in most government departments while all agencies are actively working with common systems elements such as citizen-centric services like registration, enrolment, forms and online communications. They are also very active in examining and testing the value of cloud in inter-agency collaboration. The federal ICT vision statement is set in place and in motion, led by former Federal CIO Vivek Kundera (replaced last month by Steve VanRoekel).
"Neither the public nor the private sector is ready to shift huge legacy investments tomorrow, nor everyone is having to deal with managing a hybrid environment," says Weipert. "We are not building any more government data centres, the move is towards consolidation in physical assets and in key software areas such as content management systems. Across all agencies managers are looking at where and how they can take advantage of the cloud, to reduce costs and over time to improve their services."
Cloud committment
One indigenous ICT services company which is committed to cloud computing as the future is Hibernia Evros and its specialist subsidiary Digital Planet. But operations director Brian Larkin balances enthusiasm for the possibilities for Ireland as a centre of excellence in cloud with caution about government cloud projects. "I think our aspirations for the sector and for economic development and jobs should be separated from the public sector’s ICT needs. Cloud technology investment and development should be left to the private sector, FDI or native. Pressure on the government to be an early or exemplar adopter of cloud is just not valid. On the other hand, state leadership, incentives and investment to help stimulate rapid growth in this new generation of ICT would certainly be invaluable-maybe even essential."
On the one hand, Larkin believes, cloud is the biggest hype and marketing wave the ICT sector has ever seen. "Looked at coldly, consolidation and centralisation and so on are cyclical trends in the industry. In that sense cloud computing is based on enormous technical advances but conceptually is not all the different from any other form of remote computing-think of the mainframe or the early days of commercial data centres. What is new and unique and revolutionary is the global nature of all forms of ICT today, with cloud as the most visible current example. That means that Irish activity is visible worldwide, services and digital products like software or creative content can be sold worldwide-in minutes!"
Visible action
In that context Larkin is concerned that there has been a lot of talk and media opportunities and ministers and others seem to have been making the right noises. "But nothing has actually happened. There has been no visible action. In many respects the train has already left the station. If we are to clamber on board the time scale is not one of task forces and even a one-year horizon. Right now I believe we need some visible initiative in six to eight weeks, certainly well before the end of the year. The government should be asking itself what it can do to stimulate significant cloud initiatives and enhance their value to the country. The action should come tomorrow."
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