DWP Digital's approach to cloud transformation for the UK’s largest government department

[RussellM]

We sat down with Bryan Nelson, Lead Transformation Manager for Hybrid Cloud Services at Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Digital to understand the approach his team is taking to cloud transformation. DWP Digital is the organisation responsible for the digital transformation of the Department for Work and Pensions - the UK's largest government department.

Of course, DWP Digital’s services are critical contributing to the welfare of UK citizens. There is a huge responsibility to innovate, transform and ultimately keep critical services running. As with so many public sector organisations Bryan shared how DWP Digital was keen and enthusiastic to align its digital transformation strategy with the cloud-first policy. However, the reality of doing so with the ever-increasing needs of service users, on such a large scale, is no mean feat.

Bryan shared that a ‘lift-and-shift’ approach wasn’t the right avenue for DWP Digital. System-critical services and a wealth of confidential datasets were bound to on-premises legacy technology – moving it to the cloud simply wasn’t feasible or logical.

We’ve been exploring the public sector’s relationship with the public cloud. Mandated by the UK Government, public bodies have been attempting to implement the cloud-first policy for almost a decade. We travelled the UK, discussing cloud technologies with the technologists driving digital change. Choosing to host workloads and data in the right place for the right reasons, these technologists are taking a conscious, hybrid approach to cloud to accommodate legacy technology, utilise digital skills and fulfil the need for reliable and secure infrastructure.   

Legacy but critical infrastructure

Bryan shared “The challenge for us is the legacy estate, and the complexity of these systems – many of which have been operating since the DWP was founded over 20 years ago. They cannot be easily moved into a cloud environment. We were also cognisant of the long-range cost implications of investing in cloud – especially when storing such enormous quantities of data.”

When services need to be live and available instantly, such as revenue and benefits systems, data latency and data gravity comes into play. It often doesn’t make sense to move data further from the source or end user. The public cloud simply adds additional nodes and unnecessary traffic.

Bryan echoed this, “for the best user experience, services need to be close to where the data is. However, the scale of data we store makes it challenging to move and process. There is also an inherent risk with moving it. The portability of data is becoming more achievable – we have the ability to move services between different vendors and systems – but it isn’t fast or simple.”

Taking a Consciously Hybrid approach

To move to a more modern operating model, Bryan took, what we call, a consciously hybrid approach to DWP Digital’s digital transformation strategy.

“We chose the hybrid approach which allows us to operate a public cloud and a private cloud experience from our on-premise servers. By actively subscribing to this methodology and incorporating it into our strategy, we benefit from increased data portability and efficiency where our on-premise and cloud systems can work together in unison providing the best solutions for both our internal and external customers. Using the hybrid approach, we believe that with seamless orchestration across multiple cloud vendors and on-premises infrastructure, we are much better prepared in the event a hyperscaler goes down. We have built-in this resilience and control to our strategy.”

The accelerating data sovereignty movement

A hybrid approach to cloud also supports a growing trend in the acknowledgement and consideration of data sovereignty. Cloud data sovereignty is a growing concern for the public sector. As I am sure you know, the movement is based upon the concept that data stored in the cloud is subject to the laws and regulations of the country or other jurisdiction that has authority over relevant cloud infrastructure. Whereas traditional on-premises infrastructure is within your control, with workloads, data and the business operating, often, out of the same location.

Bryan shared, “On-shore data residency is incredibly important to us – especially when it comes to production workloads. It is one of the reasons we have built our own data centres in the UK, and why our support centres are based here too.”

The future is hybrid

Bryan cites the benefits of a hybrid approach as the key facilitator for transformation and a strategy that will underpin the government department moving forward.

“For me, hybrid isn’t a hosting decision, it’s much deeper than that. It’s the whole ecosystem that sits around it because it’s how you build applications and services, how you make them resilient. It changes the way of working dramatically by adopting a consistent way of delivering services. That’s what hybrid means to me. It’s about aligning on a set of engineering principles, architectural principles and digital transformation objectives.”

“Our view is that for our organisation to function we must achieve an equilibrium between people, processes and technology. We are working to outline a series of engineering and architectural principles, and business transformation goals to transform the mindset of the organisation. We want to enable the DWP to have a continuous operation to meet our customer needs.”

To find out more about DWP Digital’s consciously hybrid journey, watch the full interview.

It’s time to consider a more conscious path to cloud transformation. Our research suggests that a cloud-first approach does not always prove to be the most effective model for public sector organisations. The public cloud is one of many options, it’s time to make conscious cloud decisions, putting the right workloads, in the right place, for the right reasons.

Join the conversation with #ConsciouslyHybrid and share your views.

Russell Macdonald
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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