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Abstract
Many governments today are trying to implement efficient and simple service e-government
services to their stakeholders. Governments are currently struggling to maintain their IT
infrastructure due to the recession and budget cuts. The current infrastructure of e-
governments is not capable of handling the changes due to an increase in the e-services
and it is not cost-effective to purchase additional hardware. This has led to the failure of
many IT projects and there is a need to find a solution. Cloud computing plays a vital role in
providing cost-effective IT services to companies and government organisations.
Characteristics such as on-demand access, virtualisation and sharing of pooled resources
can help governments provide efficient services without needing to make additional
purchases.

In this report, literature reviews of eight papers were conducted to gather information about
the advantages and various issues like security, social and performance of adopting cloud
computing in e-governance. It was found that security is important due to sensitive
government and citizen information. A framework needs to be considered which not only
takes into consideration the issues and advantages but also more study on the which type of
deployment models such as private, public, community and hybrid and service models
needs to be implemented.

1. Introduction
Cloud computing is a new technology that enables on-demand access to the shared pool of
resources that may be storage or computing power with minimum management effort
[ CITATION Has13 \l 1033 ]. There are three delivery models in cloud computing: Software as a
Service (SaaS) where users can consume applications, Platform as a Service (PaaS) where
applications can be developed and executed and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) where
basic services like operating systems and middleware can be accessed [ CITATION Als13 \l
1033 ]. The definition of E-governance is to deliver government information and services to
its three stakeholders; Government to Citizens (G2C), Government to Business (G2B) and
Government to Government (G2G) [ CITATION Als13 \l 1033 ]. The main aim of E-governance
is to bring modern technology to manage services and create a virtual government office
[ CITATION LiY15 \l 1033 ].

The current IT infrastructure of governments is scattered as different government

organisations have their own IT hardware and software infrastructures which are not utilised
as per their capacity and incur high costs in terms of maintenance (Li, Wan, & Hu, 2015;
Kumar, Kumar, & Kumar, 2013). Adopting cloud computing can be beneficial for
governments over their traditional IT infrastructures. Countries like Singapore, Finland, USA
and South Korea etc. are the leading countries in adopting cloud computing to upgrade their
current e-governments infrastructures [ CITATION Has13 \l 1033 ]. However, before adopting
the advantages of cloud the governments need to consider various issues before and after
making a transition to the cloud.

The research questions of this paper are:

1. What are the advantages of adopting the cloud in e-governance?

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 2. What issues need to be considered to migrate the current government infrastructure
to the cloud?

2. Summarising 8 articles
2.1 The application of cloud computing in the E-government data management
[ CITATION LiY15 \l 1033 ]

Li et al., (2015) describe the importance of an e-government system

through the management of data, services and optimising the various functions of
government organisations via the Internet to the public. The authors have pointed out that
traditional e-government systems have issues of improper sharing of resources and data
security. The main reasons highlighted by the authors are the various scattered
systems like data management centres, data backup centres and supercomputers of
different local governments. Each government has built its own closed independent system
which has created scattered data centres. These various data centres are not used as per
their capacity and there is a loss in terms of resources and cost. The other issue highlighted
by the authors in the traditional e-government systems is the inability to handle the rapid
increase in number of users and the evolution of data has become more media-oriented. Li
et al., (2015) highlights the importance of virtualisation in the cloud which helps to share
storage and various resources and can be accessed by various methods. The review
presented by Li et al., (2015) shows how cloud computing concepts such as virtualization of
storage, resources and computing power can help governments to create an efficient and
cost-effective e-governance system which can be used to launch websites and applications. 

The authors have discussed the benefits of cloud computing in e-governance. However, no
research was done on the security issues and which deployment model of cloud is suitable
for government projects. 

Qualitative research methodology was used by the authors after reviewing research articles
based on e-governance.

2.2 Smart City as a Service (ScaaS) [CITATION Clo14 \l 1033 ]

Clohessy et al., (2014) have explored the concept of the implementation of smart cities and
how cloud computing can be used as an instrument towards building them. The government
provides many services to the citizens such as water, public safety, education and
healthcare which are mostly enabled and serviced by ICT. But due to some unforeseen
circumstances and global recession, the governments are forced to cut ICT budgets which
are affecting those services. To overcome these issues Clohessy et al., (2014) agree that
the concept of a smart city can be a feasible solution. The authors suggest that the smart
city concept can be used to collect real-time data from across the city using embedded
devices and sensors. Governments can analyse the data to make informed decisions and
ensure the city resources operate efficiently.

Cloud computing offers advantages like pay as you go model, virtualisation, distributed
computing, storage and more. Cloud can be used as a cost-effective ICT infrastructure
model for governments deploying ICT solutions to serve its citizens and enterprises in real-
time. The technical architecture of the smart city as explained by the authors consists of the
hardware layer of communication links and the application layer of web integration and big
data which can be enabled by the cloud. Clohessy et al., (2014) have suggested the
implementation of pilot G-Cloud which would be a collaborative effort by the government and

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citizens to enable cloud computing to standardise some city services. The aim of
implementing the G-cloud would help understand the capability of the system and based on
the pilot results standardise other critical city services.

The paper discussed the concept of SCaaS which can be easily adopted by any government
with the right set of guidelines for data security and infrastructure. However, no such
framework has been discussed by the authors on how to implement SCaaS and the security
concerns of government organisations haven’t been addressed.

The authors have done Qualitative research for this paper and proposed to do sequential
exploratory research as future work to understand how smart cities can strengthen e-
governments.

2.3 A framework for critical security factors that influence the decision of cloud
adoption by Saudi government agencies [ CITATION Ala17 \l 1033 ]

The authors have investigated the various factors that are critical to Saudi government
agencies to adopt cloud computing. Cloud computing is a cost-effective solution for
governments to take control of their data centres. The authors point out that many European
countries are already adopting cloud computing services to provide e-services. However,
security remains the main concern for governments when adopting cloud computing
services. The Saudi government has realised the potential of cloud computing services but
challenges such as people’s attitude to adopting and implementing new technology and
issues such as security are hinderances.

Alassafi et al., (2017) have identified the risks that need to be considered before the
adopting of cloud by any government. Time risk which includes time to understand the SLA
and comply with them, performance risk which includes confidence in the performance of the
cloud, social risk which is the loss of reputation if the cloud fails, financial risk which relates
to the integrity and performance of the cloud before it is invested in and security risks which
includes the research of security of the cloud before adopting it. Keeping in mind the above
risks the authors proposed the cloud security framework which consists of cloud security risk
factors, social factors and perceived security benefits as shown in Figure 1.

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 Figure 1. The proposed Cloud security framework [ CITATION Ala17 \l 1033 ]

The authors wanted to validate and improve the proposed framework, so they performed
interviews with experts using open and closed-ended questions. The open-ended questions
were used to identify the reasons behind the answers of the closed-ended questions and
identify any factors that can be added to the framework. The result of the previous exercise
was used to build a questionnaire for Saudi government IT experts to confirm the critical
factors.

The authors have done more research on their existing Cloud framework and have validated
it by reviewing it with experts. The framework proposed can be used by any government
which is looking to adopt cloud services in the future. The authors have should have
expanded their demographics for the expert reviews and questionnaire on their framework.

The authors have done Qualitative research for the initial version of the framework and then
have validated it with concurrent triangulation research by conducting interviews and
questionnaire and validating those results with experts with a questionnaire.

2.4 Cloud Based E-Government: Benefits and Challenges [ CITATION Als13 \l 1033 ]

Alshomrani & Qamar, (2013) have highlighted how the idea of e-government emerged from
successful e-business and e-commerce in the 1990s. Looking at the successful
implementation of ICT in the private sector, governments wanted to introduce ICT in the
public sector to provide services to its three stakeholders i.e. citizens, businesses and other
governments. They invested in building their own ICT infrastructure, however the
governments faced challenges and had to make budget cuts in ICT to reduce costs.
However, there was increased demand from their three stakeholders to provide effective
services so governments had to become innovative and find a cost-effective, reliable and
secure solution for their ICT infrastructure like cloud computing.

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The authors have pointed out that efficiency and effectiveness are the two main factors of a
good e-governance system which can be achieved by adopting cloud. According to the
authors various advantages of adopting cloud computing in e-governance are availability
and accessibility, cost-effectiveness, efficiency, flexibility and scalability. Being cost-effective
is a vital advantage for governments and availability and efficiency are important for the
stakeholders. However, privacy of the data stored on the cloud, lack of ownership of the
resources, third party system failure, security and data leakage challenges highlighted by
Alshomrani & Qamar, (2013) can make a government sceptical about adopting the cloud.

The authors have highlighted the importance of cloud computing and which points the
governments should consider before they make the switch to the cloud. However, the
authors should have highlighted data security issues more which are critical for e-
governments.

Qualitative research methodology was used by the authors after reviewing research articles
based on e-governance and cloud computing.

2.5 Using Cloud computing for E-government: Challenges and Benefits [ CITATION
Has13 \l 1033 ]

Hashemi et al., (2013) have pointed out that the cost of data and power has grown rapidly
over the years. Also, the complexity of e-government systems is increasing due to the
increase in computational data and pressure for providing efficient services to its citizens.
The authors agree that cloud computing is the solution, but various challenges and issues
need to be addressed to ensure all the characteristics of the cloud can be adopted. The
main aim of e-government projects is to improve government services and their
transparency, empower citizens through the access of information, and improve electronic
deliverability. The authors have highlighted a survey conducted by Waseda University
Institute that Singapore is at the forefront of adopting cloud services for its e-government
projects. The factors of this survey were network preparedness, management optimization,
national portal, e-government promotion, and e-participation.

Hashemi et al., (2013) have argued that technical issues like data scaling, migration and
data recovery can be resolved with the current infrastructure of the cloud. However, they
have highlighted issues under three groups i.e. social, economic and political barriers which
affect policymaker’s decision to adopt cloud computing in the government. The benefits
discussed by the authors are rapid elasticity, cost efficiency, auditing and logging in terms of
forensics to avoid data corruption, disaster recovery, migrating new technologies and
security as compared to the security in the existing government infrastructure. Singapore’s
adaptation of cloud computing where the government has implemented a combination of
private cloud (G-Cloud) and public cloud to decrease the cost where necessary has been
discussed by the authors.

The authors have discussed several successfully adoptions of cloud computing in various
countries and have supported their research on why countries should adopt cloud in e-
government projects. However, they haven’t discussed the issues and challenges after it has
been adopted. The authors have done qualitative research on based on e-governance
research papers.

2.6 Implementing Cloud Computing in the Current IT Environments of Korean

Government Agencies [ CITATION Lee13 \l 1033 ]

Lee & Kim, (2013) have focussed their research on the implementation of cloud computing in
South Korea governments which would help to improve the services in government sectors

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and also reduce the cost. The authors have pointed out that South Korea was one of the
leading countries to adopt ICT for its public sector projects. But it declined due to
inefficiency, budget issues and absence of Enterprise Application (EA) to cope up with the
overload. Also, it was found that there were system failures every once a month which
denied services to citizens. To address the current issue, the South Korean government
consolidated its infrastructure and data systems into two data centres which was made
available for central and related public institutions. However, the local governments and
public institution still rely on distributed operating method for their data systems. Also, other
issues discussed by the authors are security due to distributed systems, lack of technical
and flexible staff and demand for new information systems which cannot be supported by the
current IT infrastructure.

Lee & Kim, (2013) have proposed a solution to overcome the issues in the current IT
environment of the South Korean government. The implementation of K-Cloud centres with
cloud computing capabilities at the two data centres. The management, operational and
budget responsibilities have to be discussed and established in a proper service level
agreement (SLA). Whenever a public department wants to implement a new system the
centre where it needs to be done is requested and the infrastructure and budget are
allocated to it. Once the budget is cleared the corresponding K-Cloud centre will purchase
the necessary infrastructure and takes responsibility to deploy it. The second part of the
proposed solution is to establish two wide-area cloud-based centres (W-Cloud). The process
of establishing W-Cloud is similar to that of K-Cloud. An interoperating and backup system
has to be established between K-Cloud and W-Cloud. The proposed system is showcased in
Figure 2.

Figure 2. Configuration of the Integrated K- and W-Cloud Centres [ CITATION Lee13 \l

1033 ]

The authors have proposed a viable solution for the South Korean government to adopt
cloud computing into their current IT infrastructure which offers advantages like green
computing that reduces the cost of energy, handle on-demand requests and handling of data
and hardware resources efficiently. But the most important factor highlighted by the authors

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is the reduction of costs when new infrastructure is added. The weakness of the research is
that the authors haven’t given any analysis or issues of implementation of cloud in the
current environment.

The authors have studied various research articles in order to propose their solution for the
South Korean government. Hence, a qualitative research methodology was used.

2.7 A proposed hybrid model for adopting cloud computing in e-government

[ CITATION Ali181 \l 1033 ]

The authors have discussed how the current government IT infrastructure is not coping up
with new services due to budget constraints, software licensing and management of the IT
infrastructure. Due to which many e-government projects are failing. To overcome this
challenge Ali et al., (2018) have pointed out that cloud computing is a viable solution with
characteristics such as on-demand access to a shared pool of storage and devices and less
management. Ali et al., (2018) have discussed various frameworks from various researchers
on how the cloud can be adopted in e-governments.

Based on the literature review the authors have identified some roadblocks in adopting the
cloud in e-governments. They have classified them into technical and non-technical issues.
Technical issues are mostly related to duplication of data, migration issues, scalability of
resources, security and privacy, and poor performance due to an increase in workload. The
nontechnical issues mostly are costs of upgrading traditional infrastructure, physical security,
technical skills and poor management of power and resources.

Ali et al., (2018) have proposed a hybrid solution to overcome the various challenges to
adopt cloud computing in e-governance as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Implementation of LGC, RGC and WGC [ CITATION Ali181 \l 1033 ]

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The Local Government Cloud (LGC) will be established within the local governments without
the restrictions of network bandwidth, security and legal requirements since the users are
within the organisations. The LGC offers all the three service models i.e. SaaS, PaaS and
IaaS to provide higher control to its users. The Regional Government Cloud (RGC) connects
two more LGC of different cities that have a common interest. The users of the RGC are the
external entities. The Wide Government Cloud (WGC) allows public users to utilise its
services and it acts as universal cloud.

The authors have proposed a hybrid model helps the e-governments on which e-services
are ready to be migrated to the cloud and the suitable deployment model. However, the
authors have not addressed the security issues that can arise while adopting the cloud.

The authors have done a qualitative research on journal articles to propose their hybrid
cloud adoption framework.

2.8 Improved service delivery and cost-effective framework for e-Governance in India
[ CITATION Kum13 \l 1033 ]

Kumar et al., (2013) have discussed the current situation of e-governance projects in India.
The authors have highlighted that 35% of projects are total failures, 50% are partial failures
due to not achieving all features whereas only 15% projects are a success. The main
reasons pointed out are due to lack of skills and resource management, cost management,
vendor lock-in and poor project estimation. The Government of India follows two models for
providing e-governance services via National Informatics Centre (NIC) and Public-Private
Partnership (PPP) which has not proven cost-effective for the citizens. The Government
Data Centre (GDC) is the backbone of the IT infrastructure for any government. The GDC is
responsible for consolidating and providing services to its three stakeholders i.e. citizens,
businesses and other governments. Kumar et al., (2013) have highlighted that the GDCs in
India encompasses different servers for different services it provides due to which there are
high operational, maintenance and power costs. Also, they do not provide optimal use of
storage and computing power. The authors suggest that the service delivery needs to be
improved and cloud computing must be introduced considering factors like security over fast
and cheaper services.

Kumar et al., (2013) have proposed a framework with the help of Free and Open Source
Software (FOSS) for the deployment of e-governance projects, virtualisation, consolidation
and management of e-services via cloud computing to increase the accessibility of services
to the citizens of India. The proposed framework helps to reduce the cost of the IT
infrastructure and in turn service availability for the various services provided.

The authors have discussed the various a framework which helps the Government of India
to help save costs in migrating their current IT infrastructure to the cloud. However, the
authors did not discuss and mention about the social and technical factors regarding
adopting new processes and systems. Kumar et al., (2013) have done qualitative research
on other researchers work to provide the various issues and proposed framework.

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3. Discussion
What are the advantages of adopting the cloud in e-governance?

Multiple advantages of adopting cloud computing in e-governance were highlighted in this

research. But authors Alshomrani & Qamar (2013), Clohessy et al., (2014), Kumar et al.,
(2013) have focused more on the cost-effective advantage of cloud which is most important
since IT budgets are reduced. On the other hand, Hashemi et al., (2013), Li et al., (2013)
and Lee et al., (2015) have focussed more on the performance improvement which the cloud
can provide the existing e-services where services are always available and downtime is
low.

What issues need to be considered to migrate the current government infrastructure

to the cloud?

Alassafi et al., (2017), Ali et al., (2018), Alshomrani et al., 2013 and Hashemi et al., (2013)
have discussed issues more pertaining to social i.e. acceptance of new technology, having
the right technical staff and performance risk issues. Authors Kumar et al., (2013), Li et al.,
(2013) and Lee et al., (2015) have given importance to the scattered infrastructure issue
which increases the cost. However, authors like Ali et al., (2018) and Clohessy et al., (2014)
have focused more on the security issues which is important regarding government
information and citizens data and privacy. None of the authors have discussed or clearly
mentioned the issues that may arise if a deployment model is used.

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4. Literature-Map

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 5. Concept Matrix
Articles Concepts Matrix

Issues Advantages

Security Social Performance risk Scattered Cost Saving Service On-demand access
issues issues issues Infrastructure delivery/Performanc
e

Alassafi et al.,
(2017)   
Ali et al., (2018)
  
Alshomrani &
Qamar (2013)    
Clohessy et al.,
(2014)   
Hashemi et al.,
(2013)   
Kumar et al.,
(2013)  
Lee & Kim, (2013)
   
Li et al., (2015)
  
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6. Conclusion
The study in this paper has highlighted that the adoption of cloud computing can help
increase efficiency and decrease cost. Other benefits like virtualisation, utility computing, on-
demand access and performance have made the cloud an appropriate option for
governments to adopt. In this research, the various advantages, issues and frameworks
have been explored which can be used as a set of guidelines for governments to migrate
their existing infrastructure to the cloud.

The limitation of this literature is that not much research has been done on the service and
deployment models of the cloud which can be suitable for governments. As future work, a
framework should be established to understand the deployment and service models suitable
as per the e-services and security.

7. Glossary
Cloud Computing: Outsourcing platform, storage and data processing to a third-party
service provider.

G-Cloud: Government cloud.

K-Cloud: Korean cloud.

ICT: Information and communication technology. Role of integration of unified

communications and telecommunication to enable users to access and store information.

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8. References

Alassafi, M., Alharthi, A., Walters, R. J., & Wills, G. B. (2017). A framework for critical security factors
that influence the decision of cloud adoption by Saudi government agencies. Telematics and
Informatics, 996-1010. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2017.04.010

Ali, K. E., Mazen, S. A., & Hassanien, E. E. (2018). A proposed hybrid model for adopting cloud
computing in e-government. Future Computing and Informatics Journal, 3, 286-295.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcij.2018.09.001

Alshomrani, S., & Qamar, S. (2013). Cloud based E-Government: Benefits and challenges.
International Journal of Multidisciplinary Sciences and Engineering, 4(6), 15-19.

Clohessy, T., Acton, T., & Morgan, L. (2014). Smart City as a Service (SCaaS) -A future roadmap for E-
Government smart city Cloud computing initiatives. IEEE/ACM 7th International Conference
on Utility and Cloud Computing (pp. 836-842). Washington: IEEE/ACM.
doi:10.1109/UCC.2014.136

Hashemi, S., Monfaredi, K., & Masdari, M. (2013). Using Cloud Computing for E-
Government:Challenges and benefits. International Journal of Computer, Electrical,
Automation, Control and Information Engineering, 7(9), 1240-1247.

Kumar, P., Kumar, D., & Kumar, N. (2013, July). Improved service delivery and cost effective
framework for e-Governance in India. International Journal of Computer Applications, 74(2),
20-23.

Lee, H.-O., & Kim, M. (2013). Implementing Cloud Computing in the current IT environments of
Korean government agencies. International Journal of Software Engineering and Its
Applications, 7(1), 149-160.

Li, Y., Wan, F., & Hu, X. (2015). The application of Cloud computing in the E-government data.
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720.907

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