Uncategorized

Oregon joins AWS government cloud – while UK councils turn down G-Cloud

(c)iStock.com/omersukrugoksu

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced it has signed a criminal justice information services (CJIS) agreement with the State of Oregon, enabling AWS GovCloud services available to the state’s law enforcement officers.

Oregon joins California, Colorado, and Minnesota among others in signing up to AWS’s cloud services. The provider has two availability zones in its US GovCloud data centre.

“We are committed to doing our part as a cloud service provider by giving our customers the means, through our services, to comply with CJIS requirements within their IT environments,” an AWS statement read. “Customers can deploy applications, data, and services, all of which securely comply with CJIS Security Policy requirements.”

“The Oregon State Police is pleased to announce to the Oregon CJIS community that OSP and Amazon have agreed to a security control agreement that meets every requirement of the FBI’s CJIS Security Policy,” said Major Tom M. Worthy, Oregon State Police CSO, in a statement. “This agreement gives Oregon agencies additional hosting options that enhance security, while meeting their business requirements pertaining to criminal justice information.”

Elsewhere, research from IT services provider Eduserv has found a slightly different tone on UK public sector cloud adoption. According to the figures, 12% of all UK council authorities – some 50 councils – account for 90% of G-Cloud local government spend, while eight councils represent 57% of G-Cloud spend to date. More than a quarter (27%) of UK councils say their procurement policy does not allow them to use G-Cloud, while 61% of councils insist they do not have a cloud IT policy in place.

“The big picture behind this research is that only a minority of councils appear to have a deep appreciation of how IT must change to support service redesign and new technologies in the future,” said Jos Creese, Eduserv principal analyst and report author. “Local government is of course already using cloud, often in ‘shadow IT activity’ outside the IT department, and cloud will inevitably form an increasingly important role, given its prevalence and growth.

“Given this, and the data risks to be managed with cloud, it is therefore critical that councils have some sort of policy guidance around how and when it could or should be considered,” added Creese. “It is surprising and somewhat alarming that this is not the case.”