Challenges of Cloud Computing in Jordanian Govt.: Insights from Telcos

Cloud computing offers many benefits to governments, including increased efficiency, flexibility, and cost savings. However, there are also significant challenges to adopting cloud computing services. In the case of the Jordanian government, some of these challenges include concerns about data security and privacy, lack of technical expertise, limited funding and resources, and cultural resistance to change. This paper examines the challenges faced by the Jordanian government in adopting cloud computing services and evaluates their impact on government institutions. The study collected data from three local telecommunications companies in Jordan to identify potential challenges and assess their significance through a questionnaire. The results indicated challenges that negatively affected cloud adoption, including performance, usability, and cost, as well as challenges that positively impacted adoption. Maintenance and information security challenges were rated as the most significant challenges. The study recommends promoting awareness, offering training programs, and conducting feasibility studies to overcome these challenges and improve cloud adoption. Future research should expand the study sample and investigate additional challenges impacting government organizations’ adoption of cloud computing services

Cloud computing adoption in regional councils

Cloud computing is becoming increasingly important in information technology as an enabler for improved productivity, efficiency and cost reduction; and is expected to offer benefits for public sector organisations. Cloud computing has the potential to improve the reliability and scalability of information technology systems, which allows organisations such as regional municipal governments to focus more on their core business and strategy. Research about the use of cloud computing in the public sector in general is limited. There is a lack of exploratory studies that provide an in-depth and holistic investigation of the factors perceived to influence the adoption of cloud computing. There are no empirical studies about the factors that are perceived to influence the adoption of cloud computing in reference to Australia. This research aimed at exploring perceptions of the potential for value creation from cloud computing in regional councils, to identify factors that are likely to influence adoption of cloud computing including factors that need to be considered when planning to adopt cloud, anticipated benefits of cloud adoption, and challenges and issues that faced cloud adoption. This research aimed to improve understandings related to the factors that influence cloud computing adoption decision making in regional municipal governments. The research employed a mixed method approach (qualitative and quantitative). In-depth interviews of Australian councils’ IT managers were conducted with the aim of providing insights into the factors that are perceived likely to influence adoption of cloud computing including factors that need to be considered when planning to adopt cloud, anticipated benefits of cloud adoption, and challenges and issues that faced cloud adoption. Survey data from 480 IT staff across 47 local government councils were collected to confirm the findings of the exploratory stage. The factors that were examined included: compatibility, complexity, cost, security concern, top management support, organisation size, government regulation, and information intensity. The findings of this research are expected to assist in making investment decisions on cloud computing adoption

The perceived benefits of cloud computing technology for regional municipal governments and barriers to adoption

Cloud computing is becoming increasingly important in Information Technology (IT) as an enabler for improved productivity, efficiency and cost reduction. It is expected to offer benefits for public sector organisations and government agencies. Cloud computing has the potential to improve the reliability and scalability of IT systems, which in turn allows organisations such as regional municipal governments to focus on their core business and strategy development and implementation. Research about the use of cloud computing in the public sector in general is limited. There is a lack of exploratory studies that provide an in-depth and holistic investigation of the factors that influence the adoption of cloud computing. To date there is a lack of empirical studies about the factors that influence the adoption of cloud computing in Australia. This research explores the potential for value creation that can be derived from cloud computing through its use by Australian regional municipal governments; to identify factors that are likely to influence its adoption including factors that need to be considered when planning to adopt cloud computing, current policy settings for cloud computing adoption, the anticipated benefits of cloud computing adoption, and the challenges and issues that the adoption of cloud creates. The research model was based on a combination of two theories derived from the literature: the Technology-Organisation-Environment (TOE) framework and the Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory. This research aims to improve understanding of the factors that influence cloud computing adoption decision making by regional municipal governments. This research has employed a mixed method approach (qualitative and quantitative). In-depth interviews with Australian local government councils’ IT managers were conducted with the aim of providing insights into the factors that were perceived to be those likely to influence their adoption of cloud computing; including factors that need to be considered when planning to adopt cloud computing, current policy settings that affect cloud computing adoption, the anticipated benefits of cloud computing adoption, and the challenges and issues that are faced by those seeking to adopt cloud computing. Survey data from 480 IT staff across 47 local government councils were collected to confirm the findings of the exploratory stage. The factors that were examined included: compatibility, complexity, cost, security concern, organisation size, and anticipated benefit which were found to have a positive and significant influence on intention to adopt cloud computing in Australian regional municipal governments. The findings of this research can be used to assist decision-making about investment in adopting cloud computing

Issues and challenges: cloud computing e-Government in developing countries

Cloud computing has become essential for IT resources that can be delivered as a service over the Internet. Many e-government services that are used worldwide provide communities with relatively complex applications and services. Governments are still facing many challenges in their implementation of e-government services in general, including Saudi Arabia, such as poor IT infrastructure, lack of finance, and insufficient data security. This research paper investigates the challenges of e-government cloud service models in developing countries. This paper finds that governments in developing countries are influenced by how the top management deals with the attention to the adoption of cloud computing. Further, organisational readiness levels of technologies, such as IT infrastructure, internet availability and social trust of the adoption of new technology as cloud computing, still present limitations for e-government cloud services adoption. Based on the findings of the critical review, this paper identifies the issues and challenges affecting the adoption of cloud computing in e- government such as IT infrastructure, internet availability, and trust adopted new technologies thereby highlighting benefits of cloud computing-based e-government services. Furthermore, we propose recommendations for developing IT systems focused on trust when adopting cloud computing in e-government services (CCEGov)

Government cloud computing and the policies of data sovereignty

Government cloud services are a new development at the intersection of electronic government and cloud computing which holds the promise of rendering government service delivery more effective and efficient. Cloud services are virtual, dynamic and potentially stateless which has triggered governments' concern about data sovereignty. This paper explores data sovereignty in relation to government cloud services and how national strategies and international policy evolve. It concludes that for countries data sovereignty presents a legal risk which can not be adequately addressed with technology or through contractual arrangements alone. Governments therefore adopt strategies to retain exclusive jurisdiction over government information. --cloud computing,electronic government,data sovereignty,data ownership,information assurance,international data transfers

Always in control? Sovereign states in cyberspace

For well over twenty years, we have witnessed an intriguing debate about the nature of cyberspace. Used for everything from communication to commerce, it has transformed the way individuals and societies live. But how has it impacted the sovereignty of states? An initial wave of scholars argued that it had dramatically diminished centralised control by states, helped by a tidal wave of globalisation and freedom. These libertarian claims were considerable. More recently, a new wave of writing has argued that states have begun to recover control in cyberspace, focusing on either the police work of authoritarian regimes or the revelations of Edward Snowden. Both claims were wide of the mark. By contrast, this article argues that we have often misunderstood the materiality of cyberspace and its consequences for control. It not only challenges the libertarian narrative of freedom, it suggests that the anarchic imaginary of the Internet as a ‘Wild West’ was deliberately promoted by states in order to distract from the reality. The Internet, like previous forms of electronic connectivity, consists mostly of a physical infrastructure located in specific geographies and jurisdictions. Rather than circumscribing sovereignty, it has offered centralised authority new ways of conducting statecraft. Indeed, the Internet, high-speed computing, and voice recognition were all the result of security research by a single information hegemon and therefore it has always been in control

Distributed Feature Extraction Using Cloud Computing Resources

The need to expand the computational resources in a massive surveillance network is clear but traditional means of purchasing new equipment for short-term tasks every year is wasteful. In this work I will provide evidence in support of utilizing a cloud computing infrastructure to perform computationally intensive feature extraction tasks on data streams. Efficient off-loading of computational tasks to cloud resources will require a minimization of the time needed to expand the cloud resources, an efficient model of communication and a study of the interplay between the in-network computational resources and remote resources in the cloud. This report provides strong evidence that the use of cloud computing resources in a near real-time distributed sensor network surveillance system, ASAP, is feasible. A face detection web service operating on an Amazon EC2 instance is shown to provide processing of 10-15 frames per second.Umakishore Ramachandran - Faculty Mentor ; Rajnish Kumar - Committee Member/Second Reade