COVID-19 has caused significant disruptions in the domestic economy, as community restrictions have limited people’s movement and business operations. The silver lining in the global catastrophe is that the pandemic drastically accelerated digital transformation across sectors. Digital technology has become critical for nations around the particular world in dealing with the crisis, moving toward economic recovery, and resuming long-term goals.
The application of digital technology to economic activities resulted in the emergence of the “digital economy, ” which is defined as an economic system that will achieves rapid optimisation associated with resource allocation and high-quality economic development by identifying, selecting, screening, storing plus utilising large amounts of data.
As a result of the outbreak, many new electronic businesses were established, and others abandoned traditional approaches in favour of tech-enabled strategies. Digitalisation provides the competitive edge for a country when used in conjunction with complementary policies plus initiatives. The value of digitalisation is best harnessed when complementary technologies, resources, and capabilities are properly utilised along with appropriate legislative frameworks.
Malaysia, too, has had a forceful plus robust response to the pandemic. Proactive and calibrated policies are assisting in the protection associated with vulnerable people and the revitalisation from the Malaysian economy. This country unveiled the MyDIGITAL strategy, which is a combination of re-evaluated efforts and new initiatives designed to develop Malaysia’s Digital Economy.
Discussing the latest research plus case studies on the particular current use and possibilities for cloud computing was the focus of the OpenGovLive! Virtual Breakfast Insight on 27 July 2022 for senior digital executives of the Malaysian public sector.
Cloud Computing: An Enabler for Digital Government
Kicking off the particular session, Mohit Sagar, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, acknowledged that the COVID-19 crisis forced nations to move quickly to provide unprecedented emergency assistance in order to keep citizens safe, households and businesses afloat, protect jobs plus incomes and keep the economy from collapsing.
Due to the unprecedented restrictive movement measures, people almost completely shifted to remote functioning – whether with regard to work, education, entertainment, banking or commerce. This caused a massive uptick in the number of transactions online.
Businesses plus agencies using cloud-based technologies were able to continue their procedures without interruption. Others who were unprepared quickly realised the need for the deployment of digital solutions and platforms, infrastructure, data storage and processing capacities to adapt in order to the new normal.
What was formerly seen as either non-essential or difficult is now the preferred method of functioning regarding many. People have tasted, appreciated and gotten used to the particular ease plus effectiveness associated with utilising information and communications technologies. While many people have had to return to conventional offices there is the continued preference for a hybrid model.
The particular entire shift demonstrated how critical it is to have stronger platforms for both the public and private industries. Digitalisation offers proven in order to be too effective to pass up given the promise of higher and safer living standards and greater social inclusion irrespective of the environment.
One of the primary enablers of this move to digital is impair computing technology. It has enabled the delivery of government services inside a more agile, fast and cost-effective manner than with traditional information technology facilities. Public service can be future-proofed by migrating government systems to the fog up and incorporating its full capabilities into new electronic solutions.
Be that as it may, many governments still struggle effectively make use of cutting-edge technologies to deliver better services to citizens.
Some more technologically advanced countries have demonstrated how the particular cloud strategy made it possible for ever-innovative ways in order to improve the shipping of public services. Yet, the application of cloud computing within many other nations’ general public sectors still faces obstacles. This requires revisions or even creations of government-wide policy enabling regulatory conditions more suitable for a robust cloud strategy.
To make Malaysia a nation that is growing sustainably with fair economic distribution as well as equitable and inclusive growth, the digital economy was selected as the key economic growth area (KEGA) in realising WKB 2030.
In Malaysia, MyDIGITAL was set up as a national initiative to show how the authorities wants to transform the country in to a digitally driven, high-income country within the digital age. It is intended to support national advancement initiatives including the Wawasan Kemakmuran Bersama 2030 (WKB 2030) and the particular Twelfth Malaysia Plan (RMKe-12).
With the help of MyDIGITAL, Malaysia will be capable to successfully convert into a highly prosperous, digitally driven country that leads the region in the digital economy.
Responding to Urgent Necessity along with Innovation
Seng Heng Chuah, Malaysia Country Manager, Public Sector, Amazon Web Services emphasised that while COVID-19 offers disrupted conventional teaching methods, it provides also prompted a rethinking of how schooling could be delivered.
As forward-thinking educational institutions reimagine their delivery models, they are paving the way for new ways to equip students with the skills necessary to succeed in the electronic economy.
With this, the particular AWS Educate Programme provides resources intended for students plus educators to build impair skills. It really is used within Malaysian educational institutions such as the Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation (APU).
At APU, they utilized serverless tools like AWS Lambda to run a secure multi-platform mobile application to enhance the user experience to get both their staff plus students.
“This not only helped the university to reduce user complaints by 65%, but it also empowered the college to achieve 116 times faster delivery associated with educational resources, ” says Chuah.
He is excited to note that will the most advanced fog up customers in Malaysia come from the Education sector. They don’t just use the cloud pertaining to R& D but also for day-to-day operations. These people get students to develop solutions on the cloud because that’s the future of IT – it’s all about software and providers.
More public field agencies are usually utilising the particular cloud, and this development is widespread across all nations. Therefore , citizens demand more intelligent applications in addition to e-government portals. They want to communicate with the federal government more effectively, perhaps through chatbots and other such platforms.
The cloud is a vital facilitator from the digital economic climate, which will be seen as a growth driver by many nations, whereas high-performance computing (HPC) is used most efficiently within the science and research sectors. Similarly, the government can also use the cloud in order to implement options for the Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain (BC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which would be expensive plus time-consuming to implement on-prem.
“At the end associated with the day, it’s about creating a better environment meant for everyone in order to thrive. And that includes carving out a space for local innovation – something we’re passionate about, ” Chuah firmly believes.
Many govt organisations use the cloud to enhance the shipping of their services. For instance, the particular Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) moved to the AWS Impair and made its census data accessible to 9 million consumers.
When DOSM switched through maintaining expensive on-site system to making use of resources from the cloud, the federal government could save 25%–50% on resource expenses. This improvement enabled DOSM to manage all traffic around the census portal, even at its high of 200, 000 users.
AWS and the government are working together to set up a hybrid cloud information centre using AWS Outposts. They anticipated that the hybrid cloud data centre, which usually is only intended designed for use simply by the federal government, would be available by the end of the year.
Also, while most apps may be easily moved to the particular cloud, others must first be re-architected or “modernised, ” plus some must stay on-premises for the foreseeable future due to low latency and local information processing requirements, or data residency. These programmes must be installed within on-site datacentres, branch offices, manufacturing facilities, dining establishments, edge nodes in major metro areas, 5G networks, along with other distant places.
Chuah shared three trends that underpin the particular need in order to support applications that may need to reside outside associated with traditional fog up regions plus availability zones, along with existing legacy on-premises and advantage workloads.
The particular first trend is the emergence of a new class associated with ultra-low latency applications, such as real-time gaming, video streaming, AR/VR, autonomous vehicles, content creation, engineering simulations and ML inference at the edge. These types of applications are used in on-premises datacentres, branch offices, hospitals, factory floors, retail locations, on the particular outskirts of cell tower sites and near groups of artists, scientists plus engineers. End users frequently access these ultra-low latency programs via mobile devices, so they should be deployed in the 5G network edge to benefit from 5G’s speed and bandwidth benefits.
The processing of local data is a second trend. Customers’ digital transformation initiatives and increased use associated with IoT devices are producing massive amounts of information. Due to cost, size, bandwidth or scheduling limitations, some of these data sets must be processed locally because they can’t be transferred in order to the fog up.
Data residency is the third trend. Due to security and tax laws, information sovereignty plus shifting geopolitical factors, customers may become required to keep their data in a certain nation, state, or municipality. When a customer’s data residency requirements cannot be met by a cloud area, they must maintain and/or install additional THIS infrastructure to support those workloads.
Sustainability, according in order to Chuah, is usually still AWS’ top concentrate; but as they step upward their fight against COVID-19, they haven’t forgotten regarding another pressing global issue: climate change. “We are dedicated to developing the sustainable business for both our clients as well as the environment. ”
This particular commitment to sustainability is definitely seen inside AWS’s co-founding of The Climate Pledge in 2019. Its goal is to possess all the operations powered by renewable energy by 2025 and in order to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
As a significant technology firm, AWS is aware of its environmental impact and the attempts it might take to lessen it. Organisations can conserve their energy use simply by up to 76 per cent by migrating to the cloud. “Ensuring we have the right components in order to thrive in this electronic economy is necessary by building a plan, assessing the readiness for the cloud, and migrating and modernising the workloads. ”
All innovations plus initiatives shared by Chuah demonstrate not really only the revolutionary power associated with digitisation and modernisation, but also the resilience of the human spirit in the face of hardship.
The particular Cloud Imperative – A Leadership Question
Andre Mendes, Chief Information Officer from the US Department of Commerce, discussed some examples associated with his experiences over the last decade where impair hosting became a de facto standard.
In 2009, the particular Special Olympics became nearly 100% Cloud-based globally plus they had a testing ground for many vendors with a minimal budget. This resulted in the Special Olympics experiencing no disruption and improved its athlete base from 1 . 4 million to 4. 5 million over the next ten years.
“This can be a sample of massive progress despite resistance, ” says Andre. “Even though many donations came within from large IT players and lower-risk non-profits, there were sceptics and risk avoiders. ”
As an example, the US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA), that is already 100% cloud-based in 2018. ITA had a minimal budget, but they could maintain the fully integrated environment with IT, communications and telephony.
From the start of the pandemic, ITA maintained seamless operations plus led the particular way along with ZTA and Borderless Networks as these people reinvested within custom Agency software functionality.
“Leadership should be adaptable as the environment evolves, ” Andre reiterates. “Leaders identify a fundamental change in the particular competitive atmosphere and act to mitigate a potential interruption or, much better yet, gain an advantage by seizing new opportunities before competitors do. For most companies, digital change begins from the outside in. ”
Even the most forward-thinking transformation strategies are doomed to fail if they do not place equal emphasis on the inside and outside of the particular organisation.
According to Andre, an organisation needs in order to support the shift plus the brand new working strategies that are available with it; therefore, leaders must spearhead the modification. Any digital transformation programme, including fog up migration, is more likely to be successful when the particular leadership is certainly on board.
As more businesses migrate towards the cloud, a growing number of internal fog up migrations happen as companies switch between multiple impair providers. It’s crucial in order to evaluate the organisation’s requirements and identify the variables that will control the transfer, including historical data, crucial application information and software interoperability.
Next, it is necessary to classify data to identify which needs migrating, plus what needs scrubbing. Determining these needs will help the organisations create a sound plan for the particular tools they’ll need during migration. They’ll also be able in order to choose the right destination volumes and decide whether the information needs to be encrypted at rest and inside transit.
“Always look for innovation; the biggest risk is not moving forward, ” Andre will be convinced. “Innovation represents the enhancement associated with something that has already been, plus the most innovative people may eventually experience long-term entrepreneurial success. Consumers and peers recognise businesses as true innovators and leaders when they take the particular biggest risks, close the widest gaps, and seize the newest chances. ”
Interactive Discussion
Following the informative talks, the particular delegates took part in discussions encouraged by polling questions. The goal of OpenGovLive! Digital Breakfast Insight is in order to provide live audience engagement, inspire participation, and allow individuals to learn from and grow professionally through real-life encounters.
On being asked what the delegates’ cloud strategy was, most responded with the hybrid cloud. Delegates said that they could use cloud services where they are most effective while keeping certain operations on-premises or within a private cloud. This allows for higher flexibility.
On how organisations assess the success of the cloud adoption, the majority opted for high availability/downtime administration, while others were resource productivity, efficiency, and cost saving.
Most organisations lack a system for evaluating the success of fog up adoption. Furthermore, there isn’t much info available on evaluating the achievements of cloud adoption inside an enterprise.
Delegates said that the number one criterion for choosing a cloud service provider is nevertheless price. This is followed by security, and by performance.
The delegate felt that before a business can effectively choose a good provider, this needs to know what its business needs are. When organisations know precisely what they will need in terms of technical, support, security, data governance, plus service management, they can ask their small group of potential providers better questions.
On being asked what they thought were barriers to going digital and using the cloud, administration support plus budget had been seen while the greatest ones.
With velocity and agility being a clear advantage of fog up adoption, the particular cost rapidly becomes a barrier to success. Adopting the impair makes deploying more environments and leveraging more sources easier and quicker, but it also comes with increased prices plus significant protection issues just for careless teams.
In the last poll, the delegates were requested how they planned to update their legacy and program systems. The majority answered application assessment to move to the cloud, while others worked with the cloud service provider and outsourced to a system integrator.
For many companies, legacy systems are seen as stifling company initiatives and processes; however, they have begun to recognise the importance associated with modernisation in order to help their own business develop.
Closing Remarks
Mohit agrees that scaling a firm and preserving profitability calls for developing partnerships that simplify electronic transformation for customers. “Partnerships are the way forward for companies who want to make use of the cloud. ”
To market, sell, create, integrate, customise, deploy, plus support new applications on-premises, in the open public cloud, or even in cross cloud architectures, partnerships can offer the necessary knowledge.
“Public service must be genuinely available for the residents and Cloud is the particular future, ” says Mohit. “Partnerships enable providers to diversify their particular offerings simply by adding things like managed safety, IoT solutions, and analytics. ”
In the complicated, developing world of cloud processing, IT businesses frequently collaborate for financial gain, but they also do so more frequently because clients expect things to function.
Andre was delighted to end up being invited like a speaker and has been encouraged by the fact that will many young people, particularly women, are usually representing the IT arena and that brand new skills will be developed.
Chuah stated that the particular pandemic has taught the world that “changing is the only constant”. People may be confident that these people can bend, respond and adapt without breaking whenever life throws them the curveball if digital innovation is in the core of a long-term economic plan.
AWS is usually steadfast within its stance. They are interested in driving the public sector’s digital alteration as they are committed to the growth of fog up computing companies, catalysing the development of sustainable digital government. With the appointment of the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) panel, they will continue to deliver their commitment to continue supporting the Government’s strategic effort.
A cloud migration requirements a set of plans plus vision seeing that the first step and the “only way to go to the particular cloud is definitely to try and be assured to make use of it. ”
Chuah spoke about the AWS Migration Acceleration Programme (MAP), a comprehensive and tried-and-true impair migration program. Enterprises’ migrations could be complex and time-consuming, but with a good outcome-driven methodology, MAP can help them accelerate their cloud migration and modernisation journey.
“We remain focused on supporting Malaysia to lead in today’s digital economy as we leverage our global experiences with more than 7, 500 community sector agencies to enable our own customers through Cost Savings, Staff productivity, Operational Resilience plus Business Agility. ”
