Scotland's Digital Future: Scottish Public Sector Cloud Computing Guidance

Scotland's Digital Future set out an objective of developing a national strategy for the public sector's data storage focusing on consolidation and re-use. This reflected a recommendation of the Review of ICT Infrastructure in the Public Sector in Scotland report which suggested that significant efficiency and energy savings could be achieved through consolidation. The strategy Scotland's Digital Future: Data Hosting and Data Centre Strategy for the Scottish Public Sector sets out how we will deliver on that overall objective and in particular how the public sector will adopt the following approaches for achieving significant efficiency and energy savings: cloud computing, virtualisation and co-location. This document delivers on the priority action within the strategy to set out the cloud policy for the public sector, and provide the guidance and principles for how Scotland's Public Sector will use the cloud. The decision roadmap in the data hosting and data centre strategy sets out what organisations should consider in terms of new investment or change to the delivery or hosting of services. Cloud computing is a priority option in the overall strategy and organisations must consider how they can adopt the policy and deliver the efficiency and flexibility that this can offer. Our overall policy position is that cloud computing is part of the strategic future of digital public services. It has potential to fundamentally change the nature of digital public service delivery and, when appropriately utilised, can provide benefits in cost effectiveness, energy efficiency and speed of deployment.