Cloud infrastructure: FOI release

Information requested

• The duration of time the Scottish Government have been utilising cloud infrastructure.
• The criteria used to choose a cloud provider.
• The percentage of infrastructures in the Scottish Government employing cloud services.
• The supplier of cloud infrastructures used by the Scottish Government. (AWS/Oracle/Azure etc.).
• Case studies highlighting the successful implementation of the 'Cloud-first' strategy.
• The uptime of the Scottish Government cloud infrastructure.
• The annual budget over the last five years for IT-managed services.
• Please provide the percentage spent on cloud-managed services.

Response

The response covers the Scottish Government Cloud Platform Service, based in the Cloud and Digital Services Division of the Digital Directorate, only.

The duration of time the Scottish Government have been utilising cloud infrastructure.

Scottish Government Cloud Platform Service since 2021.

The criteria used to choose a cloud provider.

Based on relevant available skills, use of cloud across public sector and potential customer demand.

The percentage of infrastructures in the Scottish Government employing cloud services.

This would require an Scottish Government-wide trawl for the information, see information below.

The supplier of cloud infrastructures used by the Scottish Government. (AWS/Oracle/Azure etc.).

Scottish Government Cloud Platform Service currently uses AWS and Azure.

Case studies highlighting the successful implementation of the 'Cloud-first' strategy.

None yet, the Scottish Government Cloud Platform Service isn’t due to go live until later this year.

The uptime of the Scottish Government cloud infrastructure.

Scottish Government Cloud Platform Service (AWS & Azure environments) 99.9%.

The annual budget over the last five years for IT-managed services.

This would require an Scottish Government-wide trawl for the information, see information below.

Please provide the percentage spent on cloud-managed services.

This would require an Scottish Government-wide trawl for the information, see information below. SG Cloud Platform Service has spent approximately $934K on cloud managed services between Oct 2021-May 2023.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the full information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that to locate and retrieve that information we would need to conduct a search of all of the records of the Scottish Government. Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. It may prove beneficial to focus on a particular business area of the Scottish Government or you could make your request to each of the Scottish Government Directorate’s using the following link as a correspondence reference as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. The Government is broken down into Directorates and Agencies, the details of which are outlined here: https://www.gov.scot/about/how-government-is-run/. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner’s ‘Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs’ on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.