New models for digital government: the role of service brokers in driving innovation

Executive summary Digital Government strategies are being rolled out in many Australian and international jurisdictions, ushering in a fundamentally different approach to the design and delivery of public sector services. Digital Government makes digital services (usually delivered through internet and mobile channels) the default delivery channels for the majority of services, and places them at the centre of innovating, designing and operating government services. Public sector or independent service brokers are increasingly important to delivering and designing these services. Service brokers are organisations or businesses that enable customers to interact with other organisations through easy-to-use and seamless interfaces. In the digital realm, a public sector service brokers example is one that provides a customer-focussed portal, such as the Federal Department of Human Services’ MyGov website. Independent service brokers from the private or community sectors can also provide greater service choice and innovation in how people interact with governments. Models for independent service brokers include Digital Mailboxes and Personal Safeboxes (eg Australia Post); public transport information service brokers (eg TripView, Tripgo and Google Transit), taxation service brokers (eg Xero and MYOB Online), community service brokers (eg HubCare) and access brokers for government services (eg public libraries, online access centres, etc) to assist those unable to access digital services. It is likely that the ambitious goals for large-scale adoption of digital government will only be achieved if governments encourage the involvement of independent service brokers to complement the role of public sector service brokers. However, there is currently little guidance on best practice models for agencies seeking to collaborate with independent service brokers or the other way around. This report addresses this critical knowledge gap by providing a practical guide to the service broker model. It explains the different roles of public sector and independent service brokers and provides case studies of service broker models. This will help to inform digital government strategies and policies to encourage the development of public sector and independent service brokers. It also considers how the emergence of a marketplace of service brokers will raise important issues such as how customer data is managed and protected, identity assured and how research and analysis of the data generated by these digital services can help inform better public policies and service improvement

A coordination protocol for user-customisable cloud policy monitoring

Cloud computing will see a increasing demand for end-user customisation and personalisation of multi-tenant cloud service offerings. Combined with an identified need to address QoS and governance aspects in cloud computing, a need to provide user-customised QoS and governance policy management and monitoring as part of an SLA management infrastructure for clouds arises. We propose a user-customisable policy definition solution that can be enforced in multi-tenant cloud offerings through an automated instrumentation and monitoring technique. We in particular allow service processes that are run by cloud and SaaS providers to be made policy-aware in a transparent way

A Reference Model to Support Risk Identification in Cloud Networks

The rising adoption of cloud computing and increasing interconnections among its actors lead to the emergence of network-like structures and new associated risks. A major obstacle for addressing these risks is the lack of transparency concerning the underlying network structure and the dissemination of risks therein. Existing research does not consider the risk perspective in a cloud network’s context. We address this research gap with the construction of a reference model that can display such networks and therefore supports risk identification. We evaluate the reference model through real-world examples and interviews with industry experts and demonstrate its applicability. The model provides a better understanding of cloud networks and causalities between related risks. These insights can be used to develop appropriate risk management strategies in cloud networks. The reference model sets a basis for future risk quantification approaches as well as for the design of (IT) tools for risk analysis