Denis Villorente, DICT Undersecretary
GovCloud was launched in accordance with the adoption of the government’s Cloud First Policy which was issued on January 17 this year to promote cloud computing as the preferred ICT deployment strategy and a means to reduce cost for government. The policy says that for an agency deploying a new system, it should consider cloud deployment as its first option.
“With GovCloud, together with the recently issued Cloud First Policy, we look forward to more agencies offering better services and information online,” said Denis Villorente, DICT Undersecretary. “The GovCloud shall provide a complete cloud solution, allowing the DICT to act as a cloud broker with the ability to rapidly scale the infrastructure for government.”
An initiative of the Integrated Government Philippines (iGovPhil) program, GovCloud allows agencies to take full advantage of virtualization and cloud computing in putting joint systems online. The cloud project was conceptualized as an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering and has been operating on a limited capacity since 2013. Following its launch, it will now go full blast.
Costing P373-million, the project bid to build, operate, and transfer a complete cloud solution for the government was awarded by the DICT to Vibal Group, a group of companies engaged in systems integration, network design and infrastructure, publishing and printing, and technology solutions.
GovCloud will use a hybrid cloud strategy that integrates both private and public cloud. The creation of a private in-country data center will ensure data security, while the off-premise public cloud will make online information and services readily available to government agencies.
Villorente said the GovCloud project will help improve government’s delivery of services to citizens while reducing costs as services are shared by government agencies.
To facilitate the implementation of the GovCloud project, Vibal Group has partnered with Amazon Web Services, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Indra Philippines, Microsoft, and Philcox Philippines.
According to Gaspar “Gus” Vibal, President and CEO of Vibal Group, Inc., the implementation of the project will take nine months which started in February this year and will be fully setup in November.
