Office of Enterprise Technology Services

HONOLULU – To fully realize the efficiencies associated with consolidation and cloud computing, the State of Hawaii has established a “cloud first” policy across state departments to begin leveraging the Hawaii Government Private Cloud (GPC) for all new information technology (IT) projects as well as migrate existing applications, wherever feasible.

“Hawaii is among the first states in the nation to implement a ‘cloud first’ policy for IT projects,” said Gov. David Ige. “Governments around the world are becoming more efficient and cutting costs by reducing duplication and pursuing consolidation of resources and processes through shared-service capability. This is core to Hawaii’s cloud computing and IT consolidation initiatives and will help our state conduct business in a more modern and efficient, business-like way.”

The policy sets a clear preference for departments’ use of the Hawaii GPC over existing and often outdated legacy systems for which further investment of taxpayer dollars cannot be justified.

Departments have also been asked to develop a formal plan by March 2015 to leverage Hawaii GPC services for their existing and future applications, while engaging the Office of Information Management and Technology (OIMT) Hawaii GPC Project Team to support planning efforts and begin documentation requirements.

The Hawaii GPC Project Team developed and launched the secure state government-wide private cloud as part of Hawaii’s technology transformation plan. Having reached initial operating functionality, the Hawaii GPC offers infrastructure as a service to all state entities and will address relevant statutory and policy requirements associated with state IT systems, including information security and privacy along with federal compliance mandates.

For example, the Hawaii GPC will improve the state’s risk assessment in relation to disaster recovering, since applications and data on the cloud are less susceptible to site-specific incidents, whether natural or man-made.

The Hawaii GPC will continue to expand and improve functionality through fiscal year 2015.