The silver lining

In November 2023, the Government of Canada (GC) released its latest Cloud Adoption Strategy update. It focused on funding, based on the concept of cloud-smart procurement, and governance, with the goal of modernizing the GC’s hosting strategy to enhance scalability, optimize performance and adapt to new technologies.

This update clarified how departments approach decisions on where their workloads and applications reside, including enterprise data centres (EDCs) hosted on-premises by Shared Services Canada, public clouds hosted by hyperscale cloud service providers and hybrid offerings. But EDC migration will only push the technical debt and business value problem down the line if departments do not prepare those services for future transformation. This will exacerbate the challenges of cloud adoption, modernization and total cost of ownership. 

The GC’s evolution to the principle of cloud smart is an acceptance that not every department has the skills, culture, centralized support and guidance to realize the benefits of moving to hyperscale cloud for the provision of services. This may delay the passage of those benefits onto citizens. But there is a silver lining.

By taking a step back and making the move to hyperscale cloud more intentional, estimated and value-driven—albeit, later—the GC has an opportunity to harmonize the cloud journey and produce guidance that lets the federal government act as an enterprise, achieving value for money while delivering against the high expectations of service excellence and innovation.

The GC can realize this silver lining through several critical measures:  

• Shifting to a future-proof mindset 

• Working to procure effectively for what lies ahead 

• Establishing a common value framework 

• Reinforcing citizen-centric cultures

The GC can embrace the rapidly changing digital landscape in Canada by focusing on clarifying mandates, developing a centralized hyperscale cloud strategy and using standardized criteria for adopting technologies. This will also help it prepare to move services to hyperscale cloud in the future and fully realize the benefits each move brings.

In our new report, we explore the bold actions the GC can take now to get ready to successfully embrace hyperscale cloud technologies. We explore the lessons the GC can learn from peer nations, the steps that can accelerate its adoption journey and the opportunities to deliver enhanced citizen services.