HPE flags issues with public sector cloud adoption

The cinematic world is hoping that the latest James Bond film can get audiences back in front of screens munching on the popcorn.

Film is a powerful medium that can be used to entertain and thrill, in the case of 007, but it can also be used to inform and educate around a topic. HPE has chosen to go down that path with its Consciously hybrid offering to get the topic of cloud and public sector into the open.

The vendor’s premise is that when the government embarked on a cloud-first policy back in 2013, it had laudable ambitions but failed to understand the hybrid proposition.

As a result, the success of cloud in the public sector has been mixed and the HPE film concluded that there needs to be an acceptance that hybrid is a legitimate position and some data will never be put into the public cloud.

One of the contributors to the film, Alex Hilton, CEO of the Cloud Industry Forum, said there had to be a recognition that the initial motivation for rushing to cloud had not necessarily been right.

“As far as the government’s approach to the cloud-first policy, to be honest, what I think was driving that initially was cost,” he said. “It was seen as a big cost saving. The reality is, that’s not really the case. The cloud is not about saving money.”

Russell Macdonald, strategic adviser to the public sector, said there were also challenges in the way cloud had been procured by the public sector, which put some off investing more heavily.

“Largely, government IT is still being procured in the same way, which is capital purchases over three-, five-, seven-year terms with depreciation of assets,” he said.

Having outlined the problem, the next question is around the position of HPE’s channel to help ease the problems and push digital transformation efforts forward.

“The HPE channel is ideally placed to serve the public sector with cloud support and for customers navigating this journey,” said Susan Bill, sales director public sector, HPE UK. “Many of our partners have invested heavily in skills and our engagements are typically highly collaborative with them.

“The response to this campaign from our partner base has been very positive in that it is promoting the right debate and conversation. As a result, we have some key partners taking a very active role going forward.”

In terms of technology, HPE is encouraging the channel to pitch GreenLake, which has received a raft of analytics and data protection cloud services updates.

GreenLake will be better protected from ransomware and has more analytics tools, particularly for a hybrid environment, said Bill.

“Many of our partners and systems integrator base are either using or considering the use of HPE GreenLake to provide cloud services to their customers, so that public sector organisations can pay for what they use and deliver IT services more sustainably,” she added.