Malaysia’s Public Sector Data Center (PDSA) services will be upgraded to specific Cloud Computing services for use by all Government agencies. The Government is looking to integrate its services into what will be known as the government hybrid cloud or the MyGovCloud which combines services from MyGovCloud@PDSA and the Public Cloud and has chosen four Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) to make this happen.
The MyGovCloud Initiative is in line with the Fifth Initiative under Malaysia’s Digital Economy Blueprint (MyDigital) which targets 80% storage usage of Cloud Computing across the public sector this year. It aims to drive the digital transformation of the public sector holistically which can stimulate the growth of the digital economy and agenda digitization throughout the country.
The CSP selection was done following an evaluation of the proposals sent by both domestic and foreign cloud service providers. As a result of this assessment, the Government agreed to appoint a panel of four companies as CSPs to provide the best and most secure cloud services for the government portals.
To empower MyGovCloud, Centralized Contract Agreement Cloud Computing also known as a Cloud Framework Agreement (CFA) was signed between the Government, the CSPs and locally appointed CSPs known as Managed Service Providers (MSPs). The CFA contract with the Government, CSP and MSP involves four CSP companies and four MSP companies.
The involvement of the CSPs and MSPs is expected to open investment potential in the country worth between RM12 billion and RM15 billion by 2025. This investment will serve as the ‘backbone’ of the formation of a sustainable digital ecosystem to achieve sustainable economic growth, thus will make Malaysia the main digital hub in the ASEAN region.
The MyGovCloud initiative is believed to produce more experts in cloud computing through ongoing training and program certification provided by CSP and MSP. This is also possible to improve the competence and ability of civil servants in tandem with current needs and technology.
Through the implementation of CFA, public sector agencies will be able to enjoy a better, faster, and more efficient cloud service and will avail of competitive prices offered at discounted rates in bulk by the CSPs and MSPs. Overall, this CFA agreement is aimed at innovation in the procurement of cloud services across all public sector agencies and will help in strengthening the function and role of MAMPU in the future.
With this deal sealed, it is hoped that more benefits will be enjoyed by the citizens of Malaysia as well as public sector agencies, promoting developmental digital technology among all Malaysians.
The government cloud market is expected to grow from US$15.4 billion in 2017 to US$ 28.8 billion by 2022, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 13.4%.
Government departments across the world are realising the importance of maintaining and controlling cloud data for continuity and compliance purposes. The government cloud enables these agencies to manage and store data securely and efficiently, resulting in enhanced and unified teams that can handle bigger projects at an effective cost.
Cloud hosting services provide a slew of advantages for government agencies and other small departments. These services may be taken on rent to fulfil computing power and data storage requirements, as often as needed, instead of a one-time investment being incurred for the procurement of servers and the handling of ongoing expenses towards maintaining expensive data centres.
In addition, the government cloud provides greater computing capability particularly in the implementation of disaster recovery and relief situations, as it enables government agencies to develop customised solutions for backup, with regards to the data and application types, sequence, and backup location. It involves the replication of application and data on a virtual machine, and the data can be recovered automatically when a disruption occurs.