Information is one of the most important assets of public sector organisations. Unlocking the value of information and making it available for citizens, regulators and management whilst avoiding any data privacy issues is a constant challenge.
Microsoft and The Register have recently commissioned an independent study conducted by Freeform Dynamics on the challenges relating to Business Intelligence in the Public Sector.
At our webinar, hosted by Jon Collins of the Register, you can find out more about this illuminating research and hear directly from:
Webinar: Unlock the business value of your information
When: Tuesday March 13th 2012, 11:00-12:00
Register: Online here
The webinar will address a number of key issues identified by the research and explore real-world solutions that may help you to make more effective use of your current investment in business intelligence tools:
You can find out more and register online here to take part in the Microsoft and The Register interactive webinar on how to ‘unlock the business value of information’ in your organisation.
All participants at the webinar will also receive a FREE copy of the report on ‘Unlocking the business value of information’ prepared by Freeform Dynamics on behalf of Microsoft and The Register
Posted by IanFollow us on Twitter: @msukingov
Over the coming weeks, we have invited our colleague and cloud expert Nick Umney from Microsoft's UK National Technology Office, to post a series of blogs on all things cloud. These weekly blog posts will also touch upon the following topics as the series continues:
In this first post, Nick answers the simple question 'why cloud?'...
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The adoption of the PC by businesses in the 90s dramatically changed the traditional mainframe/mini-computer environment that dominated the world of enterprise IT. It empowered individuals to apply technology creatively and broadly across organisations to the point where today it’s PC’s touch every element of our working and personal lives.In the middle of the 1990s the Web emerged and a whole generation of Internet-facing Web applications, both Internet and Intranet, were built using HTML and Web servers. Web technologies remain a core model in developing applications today.
In the early 2000s Web services and SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) enabled applications to communicate using standard-based Web protocols, be it Web services, or REST-based protocols. It promotes the ideal of assembling more complex solutions from simpler parts.
There are many advantages to the services model particularly with the immediacy of global reach, the ease of provisioning and, of course, allowing a 3rd party with the greater expertise to run the computers, networks, data-centres and software on my behalf. However, there are many advantages to running software on premises too. Principally, the ability to tailor the software to most effectively address specific business needs and the level of privacy and control that can only be guaranteed when the software and data are within my control.
The cloud platform builds on previous platform generations but it is a fundamentally different approach and it has its own unique advantages.
So is cloud computing just virtualisation or hosting by another name? The answer is of course no, Cloud brings a number of new characteristics to the delivery of IT services. These are best summarised by National Institute of Standards & Technology:
So what could cloud computing bring to Public Sector organisations? At Microsoft we articulate the benefits of cloud in three key areas: Agility, Focus & Economics.
Agility: Public Cloud services enables organisations to move to utility computing (and start to consume IT much like electricity). The ability to switch on/switch off and pay for what you use is incredibly powerful. If an organisation hars a great idea, a pc, and a credit card they can buy compute time on the best datacentres on the planet.
This move to utility based computing gives organisations a unique ability to innovate. In short, to scale or to fail. This is massively useful in public sector supporting citizen services, open data, transparency, mobility etc etc.
In a traditional environment where organisations own their own infrastructure they can deploy a server and clock up a thousand hours of processing over a number of months. Using Public cloud services organisations have the ability to have a thousand cpu’s for an hour. What does this enable them to do differently?
In terms of applications Cloud services deliver the latest software to end users enabling new collaboration scenarios through anywhere access, collaboration over the internet and instant self-provisioning.
Focus: Public Sector organisations exist to serve citizens, they are not technology companies. Consuming IT as a service enables the organisation to focus in on its business functions be that delivering healthcare to patients or housing benefits to citizens.
Economics: Global economic conditions and public sector fiscal constraints require more cost-efficient use of resources, even as demands to better serve citizens continue to grow. Government leaders have a critical need for a clear vision of where the IT industry is heading, and how the transition to cloud computing can contribute to their immediate needs for costs savings as well as their broader interests in economic growth.
Public Cloud services operate with huge economies of scale beyond the reach of all public sector organisations let alone a single department or local authority. It is these economies of scale along with efficient utilisation (Public Cloud Services are available to multiple sectors and industries) that make cloud services economically attractive.
Microsoft has produced a new whitepaper - “The Economics of Cloud Computing for the EU Public Sector” which assesses the economics of the cloud by using in-depth modelling and analysis.
Cloud ServicesTo this point this post has mainly focussed on Public Cloud Services. These are available to multiple organisations, across multiple sectors and are delivered over the Internet. The are provided by a number of organisations, including Microsoft, today. This is not the end of the story though, customers want to take advantage of cloud services within their own environments, to make their own datacentre’s more efficient. In essence to build a Private Cloud. Customers want to share services across multiple organisations to reduce costs and facilitate collaboration. Typically these are delivered by a service provider (or in some instances a ‘lead’ customer), these are termed Hosted Private Clouds. Suffice to say that Microsoft fully supports all of these scenarios and each will be examined in later posts.Posted by Nick UmneyFollow us on Twitter: @msukingov
Microsoft has today been appointed to the Government Procurement Services’ ‘G-Cloud’ Framework following the completion of the formal bid process. The business has been successfully appointed on all four Lots: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS as well as cloud consulting services. In addition, a number of Microsoft’s UK SME partners have also won a place as part of the Framework.
The G-Cloud approach is part of the Government’s commitment to see public cloud services account for 50% of new Government ICT spending by 2015. Microsoft will provide a package of its key public cloud online services including Windows Azure, Office 365, CRM Online and Microsoft Consulting Services to deliver the objectives of the Government’s Strategic Implementation Plan.
Microsoft has been committed to the G-Cloud since its inception over two years ago. The company was directly involved in the original G-Cloud consultation programme facilitated by Intellect, and Microsoft UK’s Chief Security Advisor, Stuart Aston was selected as the Industry Co-Lead on the G-Cloud Information Assurance Workstream.
Commenting on the successful bid, Nicola Hodson, General Manager Public Sector, Microsoft UK said, “Today’s appointment allows the UK public sector to benefit from Microsoft’s long term investment in Cloud technology. We are also delighted to see a number of Microsoft partners, mostly UK SMEs, successfull bid to be part of the framework, all building cloud solutions for the public sector based on Microsoft technologies.
“We believe these technologies will effectively support the UK Government’s objective to deliver 50% of its new IT services from the cloud by 2015 and to continue to drive overall costs down at the same time.”
Microsoft partners involved in the Framework include Basingstoke-based SME Solidsoft which has built the CloudStore App hosted on Microsoft’s Windows Azure, to enable search and procurement of services from the G-Cloud suppliers.
“Our work on this project, built on Microsoft technology, will help advance the uptake of cloud technology and fuel the growth of the UK’s IT SMEs,” commented Garth Pickup, CEO of Solidsoft. “The Cloudstore will help the public sector harness the agility and innovation that SMEs bring to the table. At the same time, it will help those SMEs to conduct effective business with Government, on a level playing field with their larger counterparts.” commented Garth Pickup, CEO of Solidsoft.For further information and enquiries, please contact:
Tel: Media hotline: 0845 602 5628
Email: UKprteam@microsoft.com
Posted by Howard.
Microsoft is perhaps unique, in that it is both consumer and enterprise technology provider, as well as being a major enterprise technology consumer. This unique perspective brings great value to the organisation - not least in its ability to comprehensively test out and use new product developments through its First and Best Programme (also known as ‘eating our own dog food’) which sees the organisation as its own most demanding and most challenging customer.
Annemarie Duffy, IT Director of Microsoft UK (MSIT), who oversees technology for the company’s three thousand UK employees, says that this makes the company unique: “As our own customer we make sure that we find any challenges or problems before our customers do. Internally we partner with parts of Microsoft developing solutions around these devices so that we can understand them and influence development to meet our enterprise needs before it’s rolled out to our customers.”
We have witnessed an explosion of mobile devices over the last few years, but when it comes to reacting to and accommodating the Consumerisation of IT (COIT), says Duffy, “We think in broader terms than just devices: COIT is devices plus the use of social computing by our employees across the organisation.”
“From an internal IT perspective our goal has always been to enable our staff to be as productive and effective as possible. For the last few years we have been focussed on supporting both multiple devices and social media.”
The key challenges for any organisation, regardless of size or sector, says Duffy, are how to manage access to enterprise resources from a diverse range of devices whilst maintaining security, and how to safely enable staff to embrace the benefits of social computing.
“Our approach within Microsoft is to enable different levels of access to enterprise data depending on the device being used. For example, a device running non-Microsoft software will be allowed to access email, contacts and calendar if it supports Exchange Active Sync (EAS).”
Most staff, she adds, use devices running the Windows platform – for example, all UK staff have a Window 7 PC and Windows phones. But if staff chose to use an alternative device then EAS can still enable access to essential email, diary and contacts on the move. One essential and immovable requirement built into EAS however, is the ability to remote wipe corporate information from lost or stolen devices.
Demand over the last few years from staff has been for more consumer-like devices, for objects of desire as oppose to more traditional or industrial enterprise devices. Duffy herself uses a Samsung Series 9 running Windows 7 – it is lighter than a number of tablet competitors yet carries the crucial Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip that Windows uses for Bit Locker encryption of data storage devices, enabling two level authentication by storing an encryption key on the device itself. “More and more consumer devices will have this in them in the future.” Says Duffy, “And this will enable organisations to provide access to critical and sensitive data whilst maintaining appropriate security levels.”
Understanding the security challenge is key, says Duffy, we have developed clear guidelines and policies around which devices which can have full access to corporate systems. Within Microsoft, computers provided, managed and supported by her team have the highest level of security and data access. Those that meet some security and support requirements may have some, but not full, access. While at the other end of the scale, devices that have limited input from her team will have very limited access.
Duffy is clear that the trend towards COIT within Microsoft can only move one way: forwards. And that it is being driven by a number of factors, including: availability of new devices; advances in display technology enabling light/portable mobile solutions; the increasing availability of internet connectivity; and dramatic uptake of social media.
And she sees Cloud as an essential underpinning technology: “Through the cloud people can access information so much more easily than with previous infrastructures. But we have been experimenting with cloud since before it was called ‘the Cloud’ with Hotmail, Messenger and other Microsoft assets!”
It is perhaps this advance preparation that leads Duffy to see COIT as an “enormous opportunity for the organisation in terms of improving collaboration and staff productivity.”
“COIT is being led by staff themselves. People are used to having this level of capability at home and they now expect it in the workplace. They are putting pressure on IT departments, including our own, to be able to use these technologies in the office as well.”
Microsoft has welcomed and embraced COIT and social computing. Far from being restricted in their use of social media, staff are actively encouraged to use it. Internally, social technology plays a key role in collaboration, with OfficeTalk, Sharepoint and Lync enabling staff to communicate and share information instantly and on the go.
However, clear corporate guidelines govern the use of, and expectations of behaviour on, social media. This is essential, says Duffy, “Staff need adequate training to understand the risks and limitations, and that anything they do say online could be attributed to the organisation, not just to them personally.”
Learnings from the First and Best Programme are proactively shared with Microsoft customers: “We are open and transparent about what worked. And what didn’t!” says Duffy.
She adds, “Our vision as IT is to proactively partner with the business to meet the business challenges. We need to be an agile and trusted advisor for the business – to meet customer needs and to help grow the business. And we need to support our customers develop these same roles in their own organisations.”
To read more about how Microsoft is tackling the Consumerisation of IT within its own organisation click here.
To watch a short video on ‘What is the Consumerisation of IT’ click here.
Posted by Howard
Love it or hate it, it's that time of year again when the world goes all lovey-dubby. Valentine's Day is upon us and it's a time for reminding that special someone in your life how much you love them. Some would say a love for tech (or in this case software), can almost rival love for another human being. Especially when it's a particularly useful piece of software! That's why Microsoft have teamed up with Camwood, Citrix Systems and Quest Software to arrive on your doorstep with a big bunch of roses and chocs (OK, well not literally).
Our aim is re-ignite that flame of passion for Internet Explorer (IE) with our new roadshow! Your internet browser can feel a bit unloved from time to time and needs reminding just how much you love it, rely on it and respect it by treating it to an update. With support for Windows XP coming to an end on the 8th April 2014 and IE6 standing in so many people’s way of migration, what better time to start taking the leap to a more modern browser! In return you will be rewarded by a superb new browsing experience! This is what our roadshow hopes to achieve! In fact, if you migrate your system(s) to Windows 7, IE9 will be the new love in your life.
Join us at a date below for a packed agenda discussing the technical challenges faced by IT departments when migrating their users off of IE6. We will establish:
There are a range of dates to choose from, each offering a slightly different spin and all promising to be thoroughly informative! Take your pick and use the links below to register with our partners.
Who, Where & When?Tues 21st FebruaryMicrosoft & Quest Software Manchester United Football Ground (Old Trafford) 09:30 – 14:00 (+Stadium Tour!)More Information & RegistrationThurs 22nd March Microsoft & Citrix Systems (Including newly acquired AppDNA)Chalfont St. Peter (Easy access via the M40 & M25 as well as rail)09:00 – 16:00More Information & RegistrationThurs 19th April Microsoft & Quest Software Reading Football Ground (Madejski Stadium) 09:30 – 14:00 (+Stadium Tour!)More Information & Registration
Tues 26th AprilMicrosoft & Camwood London, Cardinal Place More Information & Registration TBC
So why not sign up to one of our roadshow dates and make this Valentine's Day a momentous one!
On behalf of all the team at Microsoft, we hope to see you there.
During the coming weeks, we will be devoting some space on our UK Gov Blog to information about the Worldwide Government Solutions Forum (GSF), taking place at Microsoft in London this April. Today, our colleague Per Bendix Olsen - Worldwide Public Sector EMEA Partner Lead, introduces this year's GSF...
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Microsoft partners do a great job building innovative solutions to support government organisations and provide them with efficient and affordable ways to make a real impact for the people they serve.
As in previous years Microsoft is hosting the annual Worldwide Government Solutions Forum,which is an opportunity for central, regional and local Government IT leaders to share how they deliver real benefits to their citizens and governments through the innovative use of technologies and cloud services from Microsoft and its partners.
This 6th event is taking place in London on April 24th to 25th at Cardinal Place, and will welcome several hundred of IT decision makers and government officials, mostly from Europe, but also from other parts of the world.
It is an excellent opportunity for Microsoft partners to engage with and present their new solutions directly to Public Sector representatives and to network with peers.
The theme of this year event is “Efficiency and Opportunity: How Cloud and Technology Innovations are Powering Digital Public Services”. It addresses a very central challenge for public sector today and as representatives of the IT industry, both Microsoft and partners have an obligation to highlight the best and most innovative solutions in the market today to local and regional governments to show how to best meet their demands, now and in the future.
During last year’s event in Rome, we welcomed partners like Accenture/Avanade, Capgemini, HCL Ergo, HP, ETT Solutions, Infusion, MediaKi, Siav, Siemens and Software Innovation. We had close to 400 attendees from more than 30 countries, who were present to share their story and learn more about how to make a difference to their citizens through the use of innovative solutions.
I do encourage you to seize this opportunity to attend, and capture the benefits of a conference that is gathering stakeholders from the IT industry and public administrations to share knowledge of the best solutions in the market today.
I am looking very much forward to seeing many of you in London in April.
Please go ahead and contact me if you have questions to the event on per.bendix@microsoft.com.
Posted by Per Bendix Olsen
The forecast for Open Data content is looking extremely bright following a decision by the government to release Met Office UK weather information to the public.
We at Microsoft are supporting the initiative with our Windows Azure platform via Marketplace. This effectively unlocks daily and hourly plus the forward next 5 days Met Office UK forecast near real-time data to well over 30,000 small businesses in our partner ecosystem. Additionally raw observation weather data is available for those that can interpret and create their own forecasts.
The release of the Met Office data forms part of a new push for government transparency – announced in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement.
The weather data is accessible from two websites – the government’s data.gov.uk site where users can download a CSV file. Meanwhile Microsoft’s datamarket.azure.com site is hosting the data and makes it available to users for free as a query dataset.
This is available via your internet browser or as a download to analyze in Excel using the free OData plug-in from the Marketplace. For the app developer community, this effectively puts powerful meteorological data into the palm of their hand. From Windows Azure Marketplace, developers are able to access the data using the Open Data Protocol. Using the data Marketplace provides a consistent and straightforward way to publish the data.
Microsoft worked with a UK SME partner dotnetsolutions, www.dotnetsolutions.co.uk, to develop the real-time Met Office UK weather data feed solution on Windows Azure Marketplace and integration to data.gov.uk in very short time scale.
It’s not the first time we have been involved in innovative projects – public sector initiatives using Open Data content in Azure already include Transport for London’s TrackerNet api for many mobile apps on iPhone/iPad/Windows Phone/Android, FCO Travel Advisory, Lovecleanstreets.org and Spotlightonspend.org.uk.
We look forward to the evolution of data.gov.uk sparking more growth for UK small businesses, and transformation of UK public services through technological innovation.You can read more on this topic in the data.gov.uk blog: http://data.gov.uk/blog/weather-data-in-datagovuk
For more news and views from the Microsoft UK Government Team, please follow us on Twitter: @msukingov
Happy Safe Internet Day! It's a subject we take very seriously and it forms a central element to our business best practises. As well as it being a core responsibility for our company, many of us are parents and care deeply about online safety for our children. The tools Microsoft produce provide excellent security but they also must be used responsibly therefore education is one of the most effective means of helping to protect children online.
With this in mind, we have been working on a few initiatives which have culminted in the following ways for Safer Internet Day 2012...
1) Microsoft and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) have partnered to release a new customised Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) browser for parents and young people. The browser is available for download here and delivers enhanced features which can help children stay safer online. The customised browser provides young people with immediate access to CEOP, the government’s one-stop shop for internet safety, where they can report any concerns they may have and see the most up to date information about staying safer online for the whole family.
2) Our Xbox team has developed a site which gives in-depth advice with regards to safety within online gaming Play Smart, Play Safe.
3) We have a great site which gives up to date advice on keeping safe on all of our products here.
4) This year, CEOP and Microsoft have launched the ‘Parents and Carers’ Guide to the Internet’. This informative 20-minute film is being shared widely by both CEOP and their many partners. You can view this and get up to date advice here.
If you have any comments regarding Safer Internet Day then please do get in touch with us via Twitter: @msukingov or comment on this post.Posted by Howard
Today cities are home to more than half of the world’s population, and will be home to nearly 70 percent by 2050. This shift is putting tremendous pressure on cities across the globe as they prepare to support skyrocketing populations.Making cities more energy smart is a critical step in meeting the future demands of the growing urban population. But it’s also important for building a foundation for better cities overall, ones that are energy-efficient, sustainable, and more livable. Designed to thrive for generations to come, exceptional cities will need a breadth of forward-thinking IT solutions to rise to the challenge. That’s why in 2011 our environmental team published a white paper on Making Cities Energy Smart. The paper looks at how the evolution of energy infrastructures will offer cities important opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, support economic development, and maintain a high quality of life.
Traditionally, an “energy infrastructure” consisted of power plants and the electricity grid – and little else. With the rise of smart grid technologies, however, this definition is broadening. Buildings, vehicles, and other resources are now being viewed not just as energy consumers, but as interconnected components of a smart grid, capable of adding energy back to a city’s grid.
This evolution offers promising solutions for cities that are striving to become more energy smart. However, it also presents challenges. Managing energy in “smart cities” will involve a delicate balancing act, in which a diverse set of energy supplies and demands across the population must be monitored, measured, analyzed, reported on and controlled on a massive scale - and in real-time.
This process will demand and generate huge volumes of data that must be analyzed and acted upon. The good news is that cloud computing, in particular, offers many strategic advantages to help cities tackle this new data analytics workload. Check out our whitepaper to learn how your city can leverage cloud computing to become more energy smart, and address the challenges of managing a smarter grid.
Of course, managing energy effectively is only one aspect of making a city a better place to live and a better place to do business. City leaders have to make sense of the explosion of data across the urban spectrum - including crime, traffic, environment, health, social, economic data and more. To make truly informed policy and budget decisions, local government leaders must turn this data into information, and information into insight. Increasingly, technology is playing an essential role in informed decision making.
Have a comment or opinion on this post? Let me know @msukingov.