 To roll out cloud services for the cloud service consumers the role of government or aka the state cannot be overlooked because from the customer's perspective the serviceability and the provisioning of cloud services has to be ensured to the satisfaction level of the customer and at the same time the business viability for all the stakeholders and investors has to be Ensured as well. So we are going to look at the business aspects which are from multiple perspectives the cloud service providers cloud service network elements and the Cloud service infrastructure providers then we'd look at the role of government in regulatory aspects and we are going to delve into the Pakistan cloud first policy by the Ministry of IT and telecom it was Published back in February 2022. So let's start with the business aspects the provisioning of the cloud infrastructure and the resources to the People has to be done in the most efficient way That is in terms of the electric electricity utilization in terms of the computing and communication Resources, it has to be efficient. So it means that from the business perspective The minimum investment should return in maximum profitable yield Then it is also important for the businesses To make sure that they have some third-party security certification to develop a level of trust between the government the cloud service infrastructure provider for the eventual end user that is the consumer Then some security infrastructure has to be provided to ensure that the privacy of user data is intact in this case we have the data privacy Act and the regulation That is the European data protection Act which is a reference for the People who are investing in cloud infrastructure then It is also important for the business to make sure that the customer is able to backtrack The usage of a certain cloud service So it means some transparency and accountability if there is a conflict is also there So it means that a service provider has to be accountable before a third party if there is a conflict with the customer then In order to ensure that the business is fruitful the competition or the fair market competition Encourages innovation. So from the business perspective innovation is where one cloud service provider gets an edge over the other This is going to result into the optimal usage of the resources and it will have a spin-off in terms of the Environmental impact for instance the most immediate environmental impact is going to be in terms of the energy utilization or the carbon footprint in addition the Wastage or the disposal of hardware in due course of time is also going to reduce. So these business aspects Are what the business investors would be eyeing at? So where does the government come in? The government has to ensure certain regulations and enforcement of those regulations through some agencies So from a nation-state perspective a nation-state or in our case Pakistan would have to ensure that digital transformation of the society takes place by allowing a green field for all the cloud service providers Each one of these is going to compete over the other in terms of Targeting a certain market segment. So the government will have to make sure that a fair competition exists and encourages them to Resort to the latest use of technologies then These services which are otherwise available in more classical or traditional form have to be enabled online This means that from the business perspective. Yes, there could be some customer services which are not for everybody, but for most of the cases the Cloud services have to be such which enable the services which otherwise are offered for the customers or citizens in a more cloud-oriented manner This all will lead to a good governance because a government would only invest or encourage some infrastructure by the by the third parties or the Investors world over to come and compete in a manner which results in overall positive impact for better governance This would involve guiding at times Encouraging or in certain rare situations Penalizing wherever non-compliance is observed. So this is where the big brother role of the government is best utilized now, let's look at some key takeaways from the Pakistan cloud first policy By the Ministry of IT and telecom which was published in February the last year. So they have certain keys or salient features which Ministry of IT would like to ensure number one purely from a government perspective The procurement and purchase which is a very important process Executed by the government has to be reduced So it means the procurement time has to be reduced by maintaining a list of Pre-accredited cloud service providers. So this is what the policy talks about as first and foremost then The government would also Encourage the investment in cloud services by the local as well as international cloud service providers The government is going to facilitate The cloud service providers to achieve economies of scale or in other words to allow the cloud service providers to remain business viable and Then the government has to play the role of an intermediary to provide transparency To the citizens in the wake of a conflict and otherwise also if there are certain solutions where the Mediation of the government is required or in certain other situations where the government itself is Providing the services using the cloud infrastructure in addition the policy suggests to increase the utilization of cloud services by Migrating from the traditional Data center-based hosting or the in-house hosting on typical servers like web Web server FTP server and certain other content servers to cloud hosting So the migration from distributed to centralized cloud would ensure so many advantages one of them being the Level of consistency which can be maintained by the cloud infrastructure Then if we have the cloud and the cloud has immense potential to Encourage local market competition. So some entrepreneurial ecosystem could also be Encouraged because most of the services for the citizens either in public sector or in private sector are being offered through Web and mobile. So this is where the government role would be involved then In order to develop preferably a Pakistan specific Workforce that is savvy in ensuring the provisioning overseeing designing Implementation of cloud services some indigenous or local workforce has to be present at some steady state Where we are not dependent upon the vendors or the original equipment manufacturers Then the government would also be involved in recommending synchronized approach That is there are so many government departments at the provincial level and the federal level which are continuously involved in purchase for goods or services or repair where the level of lead versus lag or delay results in most of the projects going Towards incompletion or in certain cases failure. So the policy is also aiming at addressing that concern now the organizational hierarchy of something known as the cloud office is being adopted at the government level by Thinking about a cloud board similar to the Other boards that we have in Pakistan at the federal level then it would be overseeing the implementation through a direct director general or a direct rate of cloud This direct rate would have multiple directors for instance infrastructure and operations The procurement cloud adoption and audits So it means that this organizational hierarchy is now being Studied or now being deliberated upon to make sure that The Pakistan cloud first policy is implemented in true letter-in-spirit. There are certain additional requirements or we can say some extended scope Considerations for the parks and cloud service policy which encompasses both the business as well as the regulation aspects the first one is the audit the audit ability is a Fundamental requirement in cloud infrastructure big there are certain security audits financial audits even data breach audits which are required to ensure that The compliance to the privacy act to the financial transactions fair exchange of goods and the resource utilization as per the recommended Guidelines is being followed then the government would also in phase slowly discourage the investment in A local ICT infrastructure, which is not non cloud-based. It means the government would encourage the government sector entities to think about dovetailing or harnessing the cloud infrastructure which Would be available publicly for government as well as for a private sector Then the cloud service providers would have to be registered under various levels of Services that they could possibly offer so that a complete Profile could be available to the customers as well as government entities if they are interested in seeking services of a certain type then the Periodic accreditation of cloud service providers has to be carried out In particular because we are talking about the Pakistan cloud first policy coming from the ministry itself to make sure that there is a specific address of government data Privacy and usage policy which exists. So this accreditation would be a long-term Implementation strategy for the Ministry of IT Let's just have a look at the parks and cloud first policy. You may download it free of charge from the web Have have a good look at it. It's not a very hefty document