Hybrid Multicloud for Government: Designed for Success
Government under pressure to accelerate digital transformation
As governments grapple with disruption brought on by the pandemic, inflation, workforce challenges and growing constituent expectations, Canadian public sector leaders are seeking more efficient ways to deliver citizen services, fulfill regulatory and policy mandates and fuel economic growth.
Traditional business models are no longer sustainable in the current market environment. Faced with aging infrastructure and legacy applications, maintaining the status quo is no longer a viable solution.
The time has come for a different approach. In light of the government of Canada’s updated digital strategy and cloud-first strategy to deliver digital services and innovation, it is no longer in question whether government organizations should adopt hybrid multicloud platforms, but how.
As governments face ever-evolving demands for improved services and experiences in the digital world, advanced technologies on hybrid multicloud are delivering efficiency, inspiring innovation, and embedding resilience to navigate the challenges of the future.
Why hybrid multicloud, why now?
Hybrid cloud computing models allow new and existing private and public cloud systems to link seamlessly with on prem IT infrastructure. Open hybrid multicloud offers government organizations flexibility and efficiency, while incorporating their very real security and cost concerns.
Research shows that combining hybrid cloud with other levers of business transformation can generate up to 13 times greater benefits than cloud alone. A hybrid multicloud environment helps organizations:
- Maximize asset utilization by balancing the use of internal assets and external services while enabling better scalability
- Ensure high availability, resiliency, and disaster recovery by using multiple providers
- Improve cost-efficiency by reducing capital expenditure and improving asset utilization
- Introduce new functionality quickly and flexibly
- Improve data protection and experience fewer breaches through private cloud providers like IBM who ensure that regulated security and controls safeguard data
4 critical planning success factors
I believe that addressing four critical factors will help public sector IT leaders chart a successful path to application modernization in the new world of hybrid multicloud:
- Workload requirements: How can you ensure that your workload requirements are engineered for successful outcomes? Whether your goal is to ensure high availability, stringent security requirements, what steps are needed to precisely engineer those requirements so that people and processes and technology deliver the right design?
- Skills: When it comes to managing cloud applications, many leaders say their team doesn’t have the skills needed to succeed, with a lack of technical skills preventing them from integrating ecosystem partners into cloud environments. Specific hybrid cloud skills are needed to assess requirements, build the solution, and operate the environment. How will you find the talent or train existing staff to ensure these skills are in place?
- Operational considerations: Once the solution is deployed into production and the environment is being utilized from an operational perspective, how do you ensure it will be highly available? This may require an assessment of staff and their ability to operate in the new environment.
- Technology: identifying the right technology for the right workload is critical to ensuring that government can meet the needs of its mission-critical business applications. A hybrid cloud approach provides the ability to move the workload to the right technology platform to meet mission-critical characteristics such as security, scalability, response time, and more.
When considering transformation requirements, the technology elements are important, but it doesn’t end there. The right skills, technology, culture and processes must be in place to operate in the new world of hybrid multicloud. Without proper planning upfront, delivering a successful business outcome becomes less likely.
The right approach ensures reliability and flexibility
The stakes are high when it comes to modernizing mission-critical government systems. Payment delivery to Canadian citizens or defence communications between the command centre and soldiers on the ground simply cannot fail. A hybrid cloud approach provides the flexibility needed to start in one platform and move to another one seamlessly, as Government’s needs change.
As governments start their digital transformation journey, non-critical applications that don’t disrupt business operations during an outage are well suited to a public cloud-based transformation. In either case, a protected environment with the right controls is essential. Regulated industries like telecommunications, air travel and financial institutions are already unlocking the transformational value of hybrid multicloud by modernizing platforms and moving client-facing applications to cloud.
Government can experience the same benefits. IBM has worked with public sector organizations around the world to create hybrid multicloud solutions that ensure all systems are working together at maximum efficiency to support business goals and IT objectives, such as:
- A police force in Belgrade is using digital technology to enhance public safety
- A U.S. state is transforming its overburdened administrative processes and bringing critical efficiencies to its public defense system
Partner to mission-critical application environment
Most government departments are just beginning their hybrid multicloud transformation. As governments undertake the application modernization process, some have experienced unsettling challenges such as security gaps, unexpected complexity, and a loss of control.
To create and manage a number of highly available, highly mission-critical systems, the right partner with experience across the entire spectrum of success factors is essential – whether it is requirements engineering, skills, operational transformation or technology implementation.
At IBM, we start with the business problem, then partner with our clients to co-create their hybrid multicloud transformation – strategic planning, deployment and implemention as well as future enhancements and refinements – one successful iteration at a time. Then, by layering on our Red Hat open shift environment we help ensure organizations are not locked into a single cloud or technology provider; rather, it provides a hybrid cloud platform upon which applications can be deployed on prem or on the cloud, depending on their specific requirements.
As technologies continue to mature, every government process will be re-examined and re-architected. Going forward, governments can accelerate application modernization with a hybrid multiloud approach that marries innovation with control and governance.
Next up: Collaboration on next-generation architectures
Whether it is a proof of concept (POC) or minimum viable product (MVP), a step-by-step approach can drive fast results and address important considerations for long-term success. An architecture discipline ensures proper risk mitigation approaches in technology.
I’ll be talking about collaboration on next-generation architectures in my next blog. Stay tuned!
Raj Cherchattil, Chief Technology Officer, IBM Technology Canada
Visit The IBM Center for the Business of Government
Get government insights at the IBM Institute for Business Value
Explore the benefits of Mastering Hybrid Cloud
Read the IBM IBV Report: Government on open hybrid multicloud
