G-Cloud flying high as public sector embraces cloud
The total amount of money spent on cloud services through the G-Cloud has now surpassed £640 million, following another strong performance in May.
The G-Cloud is a procurement framework developed by the government - it provides public sector organisations with an online marketplace to buy and compare different cloud computer services, from software-as-a-service (SaaS) through infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).
The rise in spending is according to the latest official figures from the government, which state that spending through the G-Cloud closed at £639.3 million at the end of last month. May itself saw a jump in spending by £50 million, thanks to some particularly large investments.
While uptake of the G-Cloud framework was slow in the first 12 months after its launch in early 2012, with the public sector hesitant about adopting the cloud model, its use has grown substantially over recent months.
According to the government's data, 80 per cent of all purchases through the framework on a value basis were made by central government organisations. Furthermore, the latest update stated that exactly half (50 per cent) of spending on the cloud procurement framework has been done by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), although when based on volume of sales the figure is actually slightly higher (59 per cent).
Not only is it smaller organisations that are buying the services, but SME providers are also gaining a greater foothold in the market. Indeed, one of the main aims of the G-Cloud was to provide a more level playing ground for smaller cloud vendors to compete with their larger counterparts that have such a dominant hold over the market.
In terms of the type of cloud services public sector organisations are acquiring, it would seem that SaaS is still proving far more popular than either IaaS or platform-as-a-service (PaaS). According to website V3: "This indicates that the public sector is still hesitant to fully adopt the cloud for IT infrastructure and operations."
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