Benefits of public cloud allow more choice

The benefits of public cloud allow government organisations to use more services than in the past.

Benefits of using public cloud services

Identify your organisation’s common ground

See which public cloud services are needed to make sure you can work smoothly within your organisation. There need to be services that everyone uses so people can quickly work together — sharing information through compatible services.

Set up and make common services known

In your organisation, make sure the public cloud services that make up your common ground are:

• set up — completing their risk assessments, security configurations and installations
• clearly communicated to your people.

Let your people access popular services

With your organisation’s common ground in place, make sure your people have access to other public cloud services that are commonly used by:

• other government organisations
• organisations in the private sector.

You may need to:

• install new applications on work devices
• move browser settings to more permissive levels.

Ideally, you can grow part of a catalogue of approved services. You can mark them as services your people can use with other organisations, but not part of your organisation’s common ground.

Make these types of services a priority

Access is especially important for popular services that handle:

• video conferencing
• document management
• secure file-sharing software.

Ways to buy public cloud services

Set up a catalogue of approved services

There are different ways to set up catalogues of approved public cloud services. Setting up and actively maintaining a catalogue helps your organisation to:

• carry out its cloud plan
• manage shadow cloud.

Catalogue approved services

Be open to adding and subtracting services

Catalogues of approved public cloud services should be open to adding and subtracting services. This helps your organisation to keep up with changing:

• business needs
• technology
• user needs
• costs.

Get the balance right

Having your organisation’s common ground defined, set up and made known frees up your people to strike a balance between:

• structure — enough, but not so much that it limits your people’s ability to be creative and meet needs specific to their business units
• choice — enough, but not so much that it’s inefficient for your people’s work and your organisation’s costs.

Actively manage a catalogue of approved services in a way that makes sense for your organisation’s context.

Be active in your approach — not passive

The major takeaway for getting the balance right between choice and common ground is to be active instead of passive. If you offer too little or too much of either, you run the risk of pushing your people to use shadow cloud.

In the shadow cloud section, you can see how important balance is in the:

• benefits of managing shadow cloud
• risks of shadow cloud
• problems with extreme approaches to shadow cloud.