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Government agency case studies in Australia confirm that cloud services can actually be a better, faster, less expensive and less risky way to source ICT, said Ovum in a new report Practical Steps to the Cloud for Government Agencies that provides detailed insights into the experiences of early adopters of cloud services in the Australian public sector.

The Telstra-sponsored research examines the experiences of five organizations that have found success with infrastructure-as-service (IaaS), software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS). They are Employment Plus (Telstra dedicated hosting IaaS), Monash University (Google Apps Education Edition SaaS), the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management (Microsoft Dynamics CRM SaaS), the Torres Strait Island Regional Council (Telstra utility hosting IaaS), and the Victorian Department of Business and Innovation (Salesforce PaaS).

"Mature, enterprise-grade cloud services provide a cloud innovation edge to agencies - enabled by world-class ICT capabilities at a lower cost than would otherwise be possible," said Dr Steve Hodgkinson, research director of Ovum's IT research and advisory services for the Asia-Pacific region.

"The five case studies reinforce this message. Each of the agencies used cloud services to overcome constraints in their ICT capabilities, and the results were compelling. Their experiences were that benefits were greater than expected while risks and difficulties were lower than typically experienced by traditional ICT projects. These proof points reveal that cloud services do actually live up to the promise of better, faster, less expensive and less risky ICT."

The report also includes an innovative new framework to assist agencies to understand the organizational factors that are associated with early adoption of cloud services. "The case studies of early adopters reveal more about leadership and decision-making than they do about the abstract benefits of the cloud delivery model," explained Hodgkinson. "Why is it that some agencies embrace cloud services while others remain sceptical - and even fearful - of the cloud services model?"

"The Ovum Cloud Services Catalysts Framework defines the key leadership decisions, business needs and Internet-age-thinking catalysts that explain why early adopters were able to embrace cloud services," he added. "The catalysts framework provides a tool for thinking about the degree to which a cloud service is a good fit for the characteristics of an agency. It also provides a diagnostic tool for thinking about the catalysts that may need to be created or nurtured to enable agencies to understand and embrace the cloud-innovation edge. This framework is a major step forward for understanding the enablers, and sticking points, of cloud services adoption in the public sector."

In an earlier report Why Government Agencies Need the Cloud published in February 2012, Ovum analysts observed that many government agencies "are stuck in a game of ICT snakes and ladders, unable to sustainably develop strong ICT capabilities because of funding, resource and skill constraints."