UK Govt Office Admits Ability To Negotiate Billions in Cloud Spending Curbed By Vendor Lock-in (theregister.com) 32
The UK government has admitted its negotiating power over billions of pounds of cloud infrastructure spending has been inhibited by vendor lock-in. From a report: A document from the Cabinet Office's Central Digital & Data Office, circulated within Whitehall, seen by The Register, says the "UK government's current approach to cloud adoption and management across its departments faces several challenges" which combined result "in risk concentration and vendor lock-in that inhibit UK government's negotiating power over the cloud vendors."
The paper also says that if the UK government -- which has spent tens of billions on cloud services in the last decade -- does not change its approach, "the existing dominance of AWS and Azure in the UK Government's cloud services is set to continue." Doing nothing would mean "leaving the government with minimal leverage over pricing and product options.
"This path forecasts a future where, within a decade, the public sector could face the end of its ability to negotiate favourable terms, leading to entrenched vendor lock-in and potential regulatory scrutiny from [UK regulator] the Competition and Markets Authority." The document has been circulated under the heading "UK Public Sector Cloud Marketplace." It is authored by Chris Nesbitt-Smith, a CDDO consultant, and sponsored by CDDO principal technical architect Edward McCutcheon and David Knott, CDDO chief technical officer.
The paper also says that if the UK government -- which has spent tens of billions on cloud services in the last decade -- does not change its approach, "the existing dominance of AWS and Azure in the UK Government's cloud services is set to continue." Doing nothing would mean "leaving the government with minimal leverage over pricing and product options.
"This path forecasts a future where, within a decade, the public sector could face the end of its ability to negotiate favourable terms, leading to entrenched vendor lock-in and potential regulatory scrutiny from [UK regulator] the Competition and Markets Authority." The document has been circulated under the heading "UK Public Sector Cloud Marketplace." It is authored by Chris Nesbitt-Smith, a CDDO consultant, and sponsored by CDDO principal technical architect Edward McCutcheon and David Knott, CDDO chief technical officer.
What other options? (Score:5, Informative)
Are we expecting the UK government to run off Google Cloud which costs exponentially more and has non-standard management and setup? Or are we going to see the rise of Linode as a major government hosting farm?
Most alternatives use one of the same AWS or Azure hosts as their backend anyhow. You're not going to get better choice with a system this monstrously large unless you self-host, which costs a ton in other areas.
Re:What other options? (Score:5, Interesting)
"unless you self-host"
Might not be a bad idea when you're dealing with the personal data of 60+ million people. Amazon et al might claim the data is secure but ultimately non government people can still access it and while its no doubt encrypted there's still the risk of man in the middle or even just malicious corruption/deletion.
You don't outsource your military , so why would you outsource your most important government IT services which are even more important for the safe day to day running of a country?
Re:What other options? (Score:4, Informative)
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Self-host/co-located or full ownership is much better in the long run. There's real probability that AWS/GCP/Azure will turn off a service that they don't want to own anymore, could just be that it isn't as profitable as they expected. People will be sorry when they put their core business into that service.
When self-hosted, there's a lot more manoeuvrability to another location/system. Plus you already have your data.
Might be preaching to the choir here.
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Not to mention dodging the risk of getting walloped with a truly eye-watering bill with no way short of a government shutdown to avoid it.
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Re: What other options? (Score:3, Insightful)
But these are conservatives weâ(TM)re talking about. If they can push it out of the public sector, they will; whether it represents better taxpayer value or not.
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Conservative: "I'd rather get screwed by the private sector than screwed by gov't".
Liberal: "I'd rather get screwed by the gov't than screwed by the private sector."
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That's just reductionism.
You can grossly oversimplify almost anything to two diametrically opposed points with equal outcomes, but that doesn't make it right.
How about you know not getting screwed over and this is the UK we are taking about, the Tories have a record of getting screwed over by the private sector gleefully, as long as they personally benefit. You cannot blame the libruhls since they ain't been in power.
Like giving big juicy contacts and peerages to Tory donors like baroness Mone.
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> You can grossly oversimplify almost anything to two diametrically opposed points with equal outcomes, but that doesn't make it right.
That's an oversimplification of my oversimplification!
Often there are tradeoffs such that it's CLOSE TO a zero-sum aggregate tradeoff, but each side prefers different tradeoffs. The "flavor" of how gov't vs. biz screws one is different. Bitter medicine A may be preferable to bitter medicine B by an individual, but swapped for another person.
Conservatives and liberals tole
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> You can grossly oversimplify almost anything
That sounds like a gross oversimplification of oversimplifying.
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Well I left myself open to that one.
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Well, I have a small audit customer (3 IT people) that has no problem self-hosting their own cloud either. Yes, they have some help from a small but competent IT services shop (about 10 people), but that is it. Self-hosting a cloud is really not magic and massively cheaper, more reliable, more flexible and more secure (due to lower complexity) than going into any public cloud. They just reviewed their decision last year and have absolutely no intention to stop self-hosting. They even have geo-redundancy.
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Cloud = vendor lock-in. No exceptions. It could not work any other way.
People get so caught up in the cloud solving all their problems they forget there are downsides.
Cloudix? Lincloud? (Score:1)
Europe has the best opportunity to form/improve an open source "cloud standard". Europe has a better record and habit of cooperating for standardization than the US, which has an anti-gov't tilt.
Re: Cloudix? Lincloud? (Score:2)
I agree. If you are talking about negotiating for billions, setting up an alternative is also a good way to improve your position and the amount you stand to improve .. say at least 10 per cent of billions â" is definitely enough to hire or buy your own cloud infrastructure and consulting and development outfit. You could even then sell or share solutions to other governments.. hmmm.
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I thinking more about forming a consortium with other European gov'ts with similar needs rather than do it all inhouse.
Bad decisions (Score:2)
If your tech org has more than 50 people and you aren't on multiple cloud vendors, fore your CTO immediately.
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Picturing CTO standing in front of the board for a hearing on his failure. A penalty is handed down. Chairman stands in front of him holding a driver. FORE! Whack! FORE! Whack!
Thank you for the accidental giggle :-)
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You gotta play it where it lies.
Re: Bad decisions (Score:2)
My damned new keyboard. I'm glad my failures have brought you joy.
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Nobody ever got fired for buying AWS (or Azure, for that matter).
UK govt. has an abysmal record of IT procurement (Score:2)
So gross negligence or criminal intent? (Score:2)
Yep, no surprise there.
There is no cloud (Score:2)
that is a lie (Score:2)
No, it's because they were too incompetent and/or stupid to plan for migrations ahead of time, so they designed in a way that resulted in lock-in. It's their own fault for not planning for this.
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A window into the future (Score:1)
This is the future that the MS/Amazon/Google cloud oligopoly will build if left to their own devices.