Vol. 4, No. 4 April 2013 ISSN 2079-8407

Journal of Emerging Trends in Computing and Information Sciences ©2009-2013 CIS Journal. All rights reserved.

http://www.cisjournal.org

377

E-Government Based on Cloud Computing 1 Kostandina Veljanovska,

2 Violeta Zdravevska

1 Associate Professor in Information Systems and Networks, Artificial Intelligence and Systems and Data Processing at the Faculty of

Administration and Information Systems Management, University “St. Kliment Ohridski” - Bitola, R. Macedonia. 2 Master student, Faculty of Administration and Information System Management,

University “St. Kliment Ohridski” -Bitola, Republic of Macedonia

ABSTRACT The concept of cloud computing becomes important for each government, facilitating its way of work, increasing its

productivity and all that leading to cost savings. Different country chooses different strategy for adoption of cloud

computing with a possibility to become better and more effective e-government. In this paper, the scope of our work is

oriented toward description of cloud computing, e-government and description of the way in which Australia implemented

cloud computing and where is Republic of Macedonia in these field. The analysis of the Australian cloud computing

adoption strategy for e-government helps to understand the process of implementation of cloud computing that both

Macedonian government and citizens will adopt it as soon as possible. Results show progress in Macedonian information

society and a good start in cloud computing pilot projects.

Keywords: cloud computing, e-government. Information and Communication Technology, pilot projects

1. INTRODUCTION Information and Communication Technologies

are the key factor for global society development.

Innovations in information and communication technology

are always there in order to increase productivity, to

change the way we work, to grow business economy, to

share global knowledge and to have automated business

processes and communications. One important innovation

in information and communication technology is cloud

computing. Over the past few years cloud computing made

revolution in the way of working in many areas.

In this paper we will see what is cloud computing,

the types of clouds, architecture of cloud computing and

how e-government is realized over the cloud computing

architecture. Also there is a description of the Australian

government strategy of adoption of cloud computing

concept and where is Republic of Macedonia in adoption

of cloud computing. At the end we analyze the possibility

of using the cloud computing for the e-government in

Republic of Macedonia.

2. CLOUD COMPUTING Cloud computing is a revolutionary concept for

many businesses, governments and citizens. Definition for

Cloud computing is that “Cloud computing is a new way

of delivering computing resources (network, services,

servers, data storing), not a new technology” [ENISA,

European Network and Information Security Agency] [1].

The users, like businesses, customers, governments or

others, can use an application without installation at any

computers and can access to the required data via Internet

access. Another definition is that “Cloud computing is a

style of Computing where scalable and elastic IT

capabilities are provided as a service to a multiple

customers using Internet technologies, on a pay per use

basis [Melbourne IT, Australia’s largest domain name

registrar] [2]. According to Gather, by 2012, 20% of

businesses will adopt cloud services and own no IT assets

[3].

Cloud computing can be classified into 4 types

based on the location where the cloud is hosted. These four

types have common traits, but they also have different key

features.

The four types of clouds on the basis of their host

location are listed below [4] [5].

Public Cloud: Cloud provider dynamically

allocates resources on a per-user basis through

web application. This type, public cloud, allows

unlimited access and unlimited data capacity for

the consumers.

Private Cloud: The private cloud is known as an

internal cloud. The private cloud computing is the

next generation of virtualization. This type allows

increased data security and customized IT

network control.

Hybrid Cloud: Usage of both public and private

cloud together.

Community Cloud: Organizations of the same

community share computing infrastructure. This

cloud may be managed by the organization or by

a third-party.

Cloud computing offers significant advantages,

some of them are [3] [5]:

Users pay according to the model “pay-as-you-

use”, avoiding capital investment

Scalability –access to the additional resources

when they are needed

Availability – high available application, CPU,

file system, network, storage space

Cost reducing – lower IT cost, energy cost and

carbon emission. By 2020, U.S. companies that

Vol. 4, No. 4 April 2013 ISSN 2079-8407

Journal of Emerging Trends in Computing and Information Sciences ©2009-2013 CIS Journal. All rights reserved.

http://www.cisjournal.org

378

use cloud computing will be able to achieve

annual energy savings of $12.3 billion and annual

carbon reduction equivalent to 200 million barrels

of oil – enough to power 5.7 million cars for one

year (Based on Bureau of Transportation

Statistics average miles per gallon, Federal

Highway Administration average annual mileage

and the Energy Information Agency gallons of

gasoline per barrel of oil. Survey was made on

2,653 U.S. global companies with annual

revenues of more than $1 billion in the U.S.) [6].

Cloud computing software facilitates the

manipulation of large databases

Multi-tenancy

Virtualization

Service oriented software

Advances security technology

Businesses, governments and individuals benefit

from using the services offered by cloud computing.

3. ARCHITECTURE OF CLOUD

COMPUTING The concept of cloud computing would be clear

by describing the cloud computing architecture. Cloud

computing provides a set of services and can be

represented as layered architecture. There are three

architectural layers according to its provided services:

SaaS, PaaS and IaaS.

Software as a Service (SaaS): The capability

provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s

application running on a cloud infrastructure. The

applications are accessible from various client

devices, such as a web browser. The consumer

does not manage or control the underlying cloud

infrastructure including network, servers,

operating systems, storage, or even individual

application capabilities, with the possible

exception of limited user-specific application

configuration settings [7]. According to a Gather

Group estimate [8], SaaS sales in 2010 reached $

$10 billion and were projected to increase to

$12.2 in 2011. In the fourth quarter of 2011, only

17 percent of organizations have replaced or plan

to replace parts of their core business intelligence

functions with clouds/SaaS offerings. Almost a

third (27%) already uses or plans to use

cloud/SaaS option to augment their business

intelligence capabilities for specific lines of

business or subject areas in the next 12 months

[9].

Platform as a Service (PaaS): The capability

provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the

cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired

applications, created using programming

languages and tools supported by the provider.

The consumer does not manage or control the

underlying cloud infrastructure including

network, servers, operating systems, or storage,

but has control over the deployed applications and

possibly application hosting environment

configurations [7].

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): The

capability provided to the consumer is to provide

processing, storage, networks, and other

fundamental computing resources where the

consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary

software, which can include operating systems

and applications. The consumer does not manage

or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but

has control over: operating systems, storage,

deployed applications, and possibly limited

control of selected networking components (e.g.

host firewalls) [7].

The technologies behind the Cloud are:

virtualization, distributed computing, grid technology, free

and open source platform, service oriented architecture,

browser as a platform. Other technologies are: Service

Level Agreement (SLA), autonomic system, web 2.0, web

application framework and others [3].

4. E-GOVERNANCE OVER THE

CONCEPT OF CLOUD COMPUTING Cloud computing can be a choice of interest for a

government with a view to become e-government and to

be effective and proactive regarding to the change that

happens in the area of Information technology. E-

government is a process of reform in the way how

governments work, share information, engage citizens and

deliver services to external and internal clients while the

government and clients that they serve benefit from this

way of working.

Many governments worked on projects to adopt

the concept of cloud computing, for example: Australia,

USA where administration started a project related to

cloud computing for identifying services that can use cloud

computing, United Kingdom where a project for adopting

cloud computing was started with the objective to reduce

its administrative costs, Canada, New Zealand, Japan

which that work on project for various ministries to share

platforms and infrastructure. In Europe, countries that are

among the leaders in adopting cloud computing for e-

governance working are France, Sweden and Spain [4].

E-government realized through the concept of

cloud computing offers an effective way of sharing

information to the citizens and businesses, helps budget

management and decision makers, reduces its efforts of

providing services and effectively utilizes resources

provided by its services. The government’s ministries,

interested in the environmental pollution and involved in

the “Go green” projects, collaborate with each other

through cloud computing, using a common infrastructure,

platform and applications and delivering cost-effective

Vol. 4, No. 4 April 2013 ISSN 2079-8407

Journal of Emerging Trends in Computing and Information Sciences ©2009-2013 CIS Journal. All rights reserved.

http://www.cisjournal.org

379

services to the public. All of these efforts can drive the

growth of the economy and government productivity.

E-government’s services provided over the

concept of cloud computing need to be automated. E-

government’s services fall into the following categories

[5]:

Government to Government (G2G): Interaction

between government organizations, departments

and ministries with the intention to exchange

information, to collaborate, to deliver services and

so on. Typically, when some services from this

category are provided, the level of message

passing across government organizations,

departments and ministries is really high.

Government to Enterprise (G2E): Services that

belong to this category are delivered to the

enterprises. Enterprises need to react according to

the policies implemented in those services and

those services are controlled by the government.

The high level of law enforcement is one of the

main characteristics for the G2E services.

Government to Business (G2B): Government

provides services for the businesses over creating

and managing contracts for business working.

Government to Citizens (G2C): Government

provides innumerable services from this category

for the citizens. In this category, different

government’s departments offer various services

for the citizens.

With the e-government adoption of cloud

computing, all government’s services are virtualized.

Because e-Government requires 24/7 hours infrastructure

availability, with cloud computing this can be achieved.

Also cloud computing application offers unlimited supply

of data storage, CPU, memory and bandwidth.

5. AUSTRALIA: COUNTRY THAT

DEVELOPED CLOUD COMPUTING

STRATEGY FOR E- GOVERNMENT The Australian Government has the US

Government’s National Institute of Standards and

Technology (NIST) definition for cloud computing, and

that is: Cloud computing is an ICT sourcing and delivery

model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access

to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g.

networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that

can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal

management effort or service provider interaction [10]

[11].

The Australian government’s businesses activities

are dependent upon the Information and Communication

technologies. With cloud computing, services are delivered

to the end user’s devices on demand, but, when cloud

computing concept is adopted for e-government working,

there are different requirements concerning security and

privacy required for the government transactions and

services for the citizens [10].

Since 2011, Australian government’s agencies

investigated opportunities for cloud solutions and

implemented cloud solutions through a risk-managed

approach taking into consideration cloud computing

services for money, benefits, security requirements and

service level requirements. Australian government had a

vision to become government’s ICT ecosystem and to

satisfy the needs of businesses, citizens and enterprises by

using cloud computing. Using the strategy for cloud

computing, Australia tends to satisfy those needs in an

optimal way related to cost, flexibility and security. This

strategy is both, tactical and strategic and it’s based on a

risk-based approach [10].

6. PILOT PROJECTS FOR CLOUD

COMPUTING BY AUSTRALIAN

GOVERNMENT’S AGENCIES According to the Australian Government Cloud

Computing Strategy, Australian government’s agencies

seek innovative ways to deliver government services and

want to rationalize their ICT asset.

Some agencies have already commenced small

pilots and proofs of concepts to evaluate the potential of

application, platforms and infrastructure cloud computing.

The agencies are [10]:

Agency Pilots / proof of concepts /

implementation of cloud computing

West Australian

Department of

Treasury and

Finance (DTF)

DTF implemented private cloud.

This was announced in August

2010.

West Australian

Health (WA

Health)

WA Health implemented private

cloud. This was announced in

August 2010 and anticipated

competition for WA Health data

centers were in April 2011 and June

2011.

Department of

Immigration and

Citizenship

(DIAC)

DIAC implemented hybrid cloud

and important issue was centrality

versus distributed centers.

Department of

Human Services

(DHS)

DHC implemented public cloud and

this department is only in the stage

of the proof of concept.

Australian

Maritime Safety

Authority (AMSA)

AMSA implemented public cloud.

This department adopted cloud

computing of pilot-cloud based

application on a vendor platform

(Force.com).

Australian

Government

Information

Management

Office (AMIGO)

AMIGO adopted IaaS and PaaS

cloud computing delivered models.

The data sets on the data.gov.au

were migrated onto the public

Amazon cloud. The data.gov.au and

Vol. 4, No. 4 April 2013 ISSN 2079-8407

Journal of Emerging Trends in Computing and Information Sciences ©2009-2013 CIS Journal. All rights reserved.

http://www.cisjournal.org

380

govspace.gov.au websites were

migrated onto a private cloud.

The Australian Government Cloud Computing

Strategy is consisted of three streams [10]:

Stream 1: Started in 2011 with preparation to

adopt cloud computing (policies, principles,

contract guidance and knowledge sharing) for

agencies. Example: sharing information.

Stream 2: It’s parallel with Stream1 and started

in 2011 until onwards. Includes tactical adoption

of government’s cloud computing where public

and hybrid clouds are commercially available.

Using public clouds means low-risk

information/services dissemination. Example:

open government data, government websites and

portals.

Stream 3: Started in mid 2011 until onwards.

Includes strategic adoption of government’s cloud

computing integrated with Data center strategy

for public and community clouds. There is

advanced virtualization and/or community/private

cloud. Using public clouds mean low risk

services, outsourced private clouds mean medium

risk services and using community clouds for

government mean low, medium and high risk

services. Example: agency-specific applications,

shared business processes, citizen-driven service

delivery.

7. REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA AND

CLOUD COMPUTING The Republic of Macedonia has been making a

continual progress in the field of information society.

Projects have been realized for simulation and encouraging

development of innovative products and services.

Macedonian industry and society in general are actively

moving toward new achievements in all fields. The

Government of the Republic of Macedonia, through the

Ministry of Information Society and Administration,

already works on the realization of a pilot project for

evaluating the cloud computing potentials [Speech of

Marta Arsovska Tomovska – Deputy Minister of

Information society and administration at the 2012 Skopje

BizTech, the International business technology fair, 6th

February, 2012].

The Government and the Ministry of Information

Society and Administration (MIOA) are thinking about a

central provider of hardware and software for

government’s systems and applications. They are in the

stage to decide whether the cloud computing would be

adopted by the concept where the government will be the

provider or the project would be realized by the private

sector. A study about the cloud computing service cost-

effectiveness in the public sector will start soon, in order to

find appropriate model for the MIOA and governmental

institutions.

Cloud computing will change the manner of work

in all sectors, including public sector connecting it to the

“global IT migration” process. The process has enormous

influences on companies providing IT equipment,

software, IT support and services. This influences the

global savings in industry and initiates new wave of

technological revolution [Speech of Ivo Ivanovski -

Minister of Information society and administration at the

Conference 9th

SEEITA and 8th

MASIT Open Days,

Skopje, 18th October, 2011].

The adoption of cloud computing in Republic of

Macedonia would be facilitated after the acceptance of the

new law on public partnership. In 2011 the Government

and the Ministry of Information Society and

Administration (MIOA) started “open e-services” project

which was based on the public partnership including 138

services and 60 documents. According to this project, IT

companies get the opportunities to develop electronic

services that are offered by the public institutions to the

citizens and to provide fast access to them via Internet. IT

companies will make profit from this way of working and

citizens and the private sector will have new possibility for

getting electronic services without waiting at counter

desks. By realization of this project, Republic of

Macedonia would be the leader in the Europe by e-services

that are offered by the state. [12]

8. CONCLUSION The concept of cloud computing is widespread

popular because it offers all-in-one solution and can satisfy

the IT needs that grow all the time. We can conclude that

Republic of Macedonia noticed the importance of this

concept and declares that it will start realizing projects to

adopt it. Although Australia already started pilot projects

based on a risk-based approach, when we compare these

two countries we will see that Republic of Macedonia with

it potential in the field of information and communication

technologies and Macedonian government’s intervention,

is on the right scent at adoption of cloud computing.

REFERENCES

[1] ENISA, Cloud computing: benefits, risks and

recommendations for information security, 2009

[2] http://vcloudexpress.melbourneit.com.au/

[3] Andy Malone, The cloud Chronicles: Security over

the rainbow, page 4-9, 2011

[4] Australian Academy of Technological Science and

Engineering (ATSE), Cloud Computing:

Opportunities and Challenges for Australia, page 1-

3, 13-15, 2010

Vol. 4, No. 4 April 2013 ISSN 2079-8407

Journal of Emerging Trends in Computing and Information Sciences ©2009-2013 CIS Journal. All rights reserved.

http://www.cisjournal.org

381

[5] International Institute of Information Technology

(IIIT), Cloud Computing for E-government,

Hyderabad, India, page 3-7, 2010

[6] Carbon Disclosure Project, Carbon Disclosure

Project Study 2011, Cloud Computing – The IT

solutions for 21st Century

[7] David C. Wyld, The cloud future of government IT:

Cloud computing and the public sector around the

world, Vol 1, Num 1, page 2-3, January 2010

[8] McHall, Tom. “Gather Says Worldwide Software as

a Service Revenue is Forecast to Crow 21 Percent in

2011” ,7 July 2011

(http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1739214)

[9] Petey Christy. “Gartner Says Nearly One Third of

Organizations Use or Plan to Use Cloud Offerings

to Augment Business Intelligence Capabilities”, 25

January 2012

(http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1903814

[10] Australian Government, Department of Finance and

Deregulation, Cloud Computing Strategic Direction

Paper, Opportunities and applicability for use by the

Australian Government, Version 1.0, page 5-10, 22,

31, April 2011

[11] Peter Mell and Thomoty Grance, The NIST

Definition of Cloud Computing, Recommendations

of the National Institute of Standards and

Technology, Special Publication 800-145, page 2-3,

September 2011

[12] http://www.mioa.gov.mk

AUTHOR PROFILE

1. Prof. Kostandina Veljanovska: Dr Kostandina

Veljanovska completed her education at the

University "Sts. Kiril i Metodi", Skopje (BSc in

Computer Science), at the University of Toronto,

Toronto (MASc in Applied Engineering) and got her

MSc and also her PhD in Technical Sciences at the

University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Bitola, R.

Macedonia. She worked as a Research assistant at the

ITS Centre and Testbed at the Faculty of Applied

Science, University of Toronto, Canada. Currently,

she works as an Associate Professor in Information

Systems and Networks, Artificial Intelligence and

Systems and Data Processing at the Faculty of

Administration and Information Systems

Management, University “St. Kliment Ohridski” -

Bitola, R. Macedonia

2. Violeta Zdravevska: Violeta Zdravevska received her

Bachelor’s degree in Information systems

management from the Faculty of administration and

information system Management, Bitola, University

“Sv.Kliment Ohridski”, Republic of Macedonia. After

graduation, the rector of the “Sv. Kliment Ohridski”

University awarded her an honorable mention and an

award for the best achieved success (10,00) on the

Faculty of administration and information system

management. Since 2011, Violeta Zdravevska has

been master student in the Faculty of administration

and information system management, Bitola,

department: Engineering and management of software

application, module: Computer engineering.