Cloud Computing Battle in Japanese Government : It is not a Joke [ #scloud #openmeti ]

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) began to invite a public comment last week using Twitter( #scloud ).  As everyone knows, MIC has much administration functions including local government offices. Therefore, the study group for realizing the design named Smart Cloud is already launched in their inside.  The member consists of several scholars, the Tokushima governor, FUJITSU, NTT, IBM Japan, Nihon Unisys, NTT DATA, KDDI, Internet Initiative Japan, Hitachi, NEC, Intel, and Nomura Research Institute.

The propriety to the open source was mainly discussed by the above-mentioned Twitter. That is, it is contrast of the idea which asks for protection of a domestic vendor, and the idea which searches for the productivity for a user. Of course, although the conclusion has not come out, I think that there was a significant argument.

And the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry (METI) began to invite a public comment on several using Twitter ( #openmeti ). Several persons including me sent the question why two government offices could not cooperate.  METI has answered "Since we prepare a platform, MIC should approve" to the question. Furthermore, it was said proudly that a 100 million yen budget was added up for this purpose.

Wait just for a moment!  I want to say that it is national cash. Whether MIC will agree or dissent, it is uncertain. Does METI need to appropriate a large amount of budget for such a plan so much?  Although many people have emitted the same question, METI has not answered.

There were two announcements today also. One is a thing from MIC, and the verification for cloud computing for 400 local government offices is referred to as beginning from April. Another is a thing from METI who announced their Online Policy Council of Citizens in English.  http://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/data/20100216_01.html

However, signs of talking between METI and METI are not visible.

Although both are conscious of the word of being open, aiming at cloud computing, however, there is only the un-open policy in the government.

Major newspaper publishing companies should know such a situation. However, they are keeping silence. 

It was proved that politics and journalism do not exist in Japan.

It is not a joke.

Local government cloud in Japan is coming to the serious aspect of affairs

Local government cloud in Japan is coming to the serious aspect of affairs. It entered by the end of this month, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and each prefecture announced the plan about local government cloud deployment. They show the very useful system on condition of sharing of resources, and are what should be welcomed. However, there is no perfect policy etc. anywhere. Therefore, media need to point out a problem and need to make people think.

I was surprised for me to read the report of Nikkei. It is because the question from media or problem institution do not exist there at all. Japanese people call their country Galapagos masochistically about the market of a cellular phone. Although it is wrong to criticize only media, it cannot be denied that they are also responsible.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications will perform the hearing about cloud to people. About it, post is due to be carried out to later. The administrative organization is more sensitive to a computing era than media in Japan.

 

———–The following makes an extract ———-

 

Mr. Takachi of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications made reference on February 4 about the development experimentation of local government cloud by 6 prefectures 66 cities in 2009. And it explained "Economy of scale is born by each local government sharing a system, and mitigation of the expense burden of computerization can be expected."

Moreover, it goes into the stage which invites a public comment by the end of this month also about "maintenance of an ASP/SaaS introduction guideline", and standardization of the kind and expressive form of data, a character code, an external character, etc. is also advanced. On the other hand, the decision is also advanced about the standard specification of service so that the shift to cloud may not cause vendor lock in.   And the negative view was shown about public cloud’s use by  local government.

The local government cloud and various kinds of ASP/SaaS are employed by "LGWAN" which is the closed network. It is recognition called what is called private cloud there.

http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20100204/344243/

 

In order to pull out a cost merit, administrative organization and private enterprises need to use cloud together, therefore consciousness reform is important. Mr. Yasuhiro Yamato of Oita Prefecture pointed out the subject at the time of a local government using cloud in "all-prefectures CIO forum 2010 spring meeting" held on February 4. Oita Prefecture and Miyazaki Prefecture install a  local government cloud promotion conference, which the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications advocates is undertaken.

And a cost merit does not come out in IaaS which only a  local government uses. Administrative organization and private enterprises indicated that consciousness reform of using the same data center is important. Furthermore, there is no resistance to this joint use, and the view that it can promote was shown.

http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20100204/344227/

 

February 4 and Hokkaido announced the outline of local government cloud experimentation via a network. 18 cities, towns and villages in Hokkaido participate in this experiment, and it is provided with data etc. It is due to look for the private entrepreneur for building a system simultaneously, and to contract in April. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications promotes this actual proof experiment. And five prefectures, such as Kyoto and Saga Prefecture, participate besides Hokkaido.  As a budget for that, 370 million yen is added up in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

http://www.nikkei.co.jp/news/retto/20100204c3c0401304.html

Miyazaki and Oita prefectures start the local government cloud sharing

Jan.21 – The joint 1st time of promotion conference task force of "self-governing body cloud" where 10 cities of Miyazaki and Oita prefectures share a computing system. The sectional meeting was held by the Nobeoka Miyazaki local government office, and 120 persons-concerned abbreviation of each self-governing body was present. Eight task forces, such as a "resident information related business system" and a "tax operating system", were prepared, and the schedule which conducts an actual proof experiment from October was checked.

J <http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nnp/item/147687>

Japanese Cabinet Office builds a national opinion interview site with cloud

Jan.19 – Cabinet Office utilized the Cloud type service and built the website "Hatoyama hears.com" which receives an opinion and proposal to administrative services. Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ) which provided service announced on January 19. Hatoyama hears.com established on January 18 means a website which invites the opinion on administrative services, and a proposal. A subject, a proposal of a policy, etc. which should tackle for people are received from an individual, NPO and a civilian enterprise company, a municipal corporation, etc.

J <http://www.itmedia.co.jp/enterprise/articles/1001/19/news079.html >

Oita and Miyazaki prefectures employee two of local IT shops

Jan.14 – Both of prefectures employee two of local IT shops to build the experimental government office systems. Those shops established an union named Public Administration Kyushu OLGO Union will use a data center of Asahi Kasei Networks of Nobeoka, Miyazaki. Including Nagasaki, the local government cloud in Kyushu heats up!

J <http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20100114/343211/ >

Will Nagasaki provide their government cloud to other prefectures?

Jan.13 – Nagasaki prefecture announced to provide their local government cloud system to other prefectures. The prefecture has started to use their original cloud system since from last month, and, for instance, the system has been used by Omura city in Nagasaki. In this project, other prefectures or any cities will be able to use it as a service hosted by Nagasaki.
J < http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20100113/343177/ >

A standard specification for local government clouds

Jan.13 – Local Authorities Systems Development Center (LASDEC) made a standard specification for the local government cloud development on last November. It’s a part of Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) project, and any developers who want to deliver services to local government offices have to implement the spec.

J <http://japan.internet.com/public/technology/20100113/5.html>

Keio University supports Otaki village for their sightseeing biz

Jan.4 – Using the cloud computing, the university supports Otaki village in Nagano prefecture. The small village wants to promote their sightseeing business with small budget, and  pays attention to the cloud computing. It’s a kind of pioneer of use case for cloud computing, in the very small local governments.

J <http://www.shinmai.co.jp/news/20100105/a-6.htm> 

Saga prefecture chooses NTT Data

Dec.28 – The local government office of Saga prefecture chooses NTT Data Kyushu as a contractor of their cloud application development experimentation. There were three candidates in this general competitive bidding, and NTT Data got five millions dollar of budgets. The local government projects has been promoted by MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs), and will be shared by cities and towns in the prefectures.

Other than Saga, Hokkaido, Kyoto, Oita, Miyazaki and Tokushima are going to the experimentation.

J <http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20091228/342741/>

Nagasaki Prefecture announced to introduce electronic application procedures as a cloud

Dec.17 – The local government of Nagasaki Prefecture announced to start a cloud service that will provide electronic application procedures.  In the government, an experimentation of cloud civil services were driven, and some of results have just started. It means the first runner in whole of Japanese governments.

J < http://www.rbbtoday.com/news/20091218/64536.html>

Nihon Unisys joins to the R&D of Saga Prefecture

Dec.15 – The company announced to join into the R&D project for local government cloud  of Saga Prefecture on Jan.2010. In this project, Nihon Unisys will collaborate with HP Japan, Cisco Japan and NetApp. It means the entrance for Japanese local government cloud, the company said.

J <http://release.nikkei.co.jp/detail.cfm?relID=239040&lindID=1>

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) goes forward with clouds

Dec.9 – MIC announced to promote the cloud strategy to whole of local government systems, and will plot out the guidance for security issues next year. In the current those systems with 8 million dollars of management cost per year, the whole of private data are in the LAN of local offices. After the moving to clouds, it will be stored in data center at the out side of government office, so the guidance should be plotted out.

With this project, the government will reduce 30% of costs.

J <http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/net/news/20091210-OYT8T00387.htm>

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications will reduce the cost with cloud

Nov.10 – MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications ) launched a committee for utilizing broadband network infrastructure.  Japan has the great network infrastructure, however, it isn’t utilized any fields including government, education, medical and so on.  Furtherer, the association announced to take place an experimentation of cloud next year.

J <http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20091110/340316/ >

MITI has gotten 220000 page views in a week

Oct.23 – The authority announced to have 220000 page views of their “e-Government Idea Box” in a week. It started on Oct.14 and will close Nov.14. At the noon of Oct.21, in the top hit chart, 1: On-line SNS, 2: Introducing RSS, 3: Utilizing Twitter and so on, there are.

J <http://japan.cnet.com/news/media/story/0,2000056023,20402278,00.htm>

Ministry of Internal Affairs and (MIC) reduces 30% of extra budgets

Oct.16 – The new administration has reviewed whole of extra budget that is offered by the former administration. Regarding the budget of MIC, 1.3 billion dollars – 30% of whole – will be reduced.

There are some changes for also budget of Cloud Computing. 10 million of cloud test bed construction budget is disappeared. However, budgets for local governments and for security will stay without changes.

J <http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20091016/338944/>

MITI of Japanese Government will collect ideas for e-Government

Oct.9 – MITI announced to start proposal collection site named "e-MITI Idea Box" with Salesforce CRM Ideas. The association wants to hear what’s the ideal e-Government based on nation wide.

It’s a kind of experimentation site, will open Oct.14 and will close Nov.14.

J <http://www.itmedia.co.jp/enterprise/articles/0910/09/news076.html>

NTT Data talked about "Kasumigaseki cloud" and "Local Government Cloud"

The company talked about the framework of Japanese government cloud strategies from their standings. The framework consisted three parts: 1 e-Government, e-Local-Government, Medical, Education and Human Resources. 2 Incubation of Industries and Local Economies. 3 Promotion of Digital Infrastructure for whole fields.

Why NTT Data talks about it like of Japanese government, everybody doesn’t know and knows well.

J <http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/Keyword/20090930/338137/>

Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA) developed a SaaS system with NEC

JA is the very large association, and has a business network that over all of Japanese agricultural field. NEC announced that association has started the network system which can be used in any JA shops.

The business of JA groups consisted of bank / insurance / sales/ purchasing, and any subsidiaries issued each of point system so far. The system integrates whole of point systems into same environments.

By the end of 2009, seven prefecture offices of JA will join into this system, and forty prefecture and five million members of JA will join by 2012.

J <http://www.itmedia.co.jp/enterprise/articles/0909/03/news054.html>