Bahrain’s Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA) held on Monday (August 28) a workshop entitled ‘Strategic Direction for Cloud Computing’ for governmental ministries.

 The workshop, headed by iGA acting vice chief executive of Operations & Governance Shaikh Salman bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, was held at the Ministry of Finance Meeting Hall in collaboration with Amazon Web Services.

It brought the attendance and participation of more than 60 specialists representing public and semi-public entities in the IT field.

Shaikh Salman stressed that the workshop was conducted based on the adoption of Cloud First Policy for the Kingdom following its resolution by the HH Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Supreme Committee for Information & Communication Technology (SCICT) during its eighth meeting conducted last June – placing Bahrain to become the first Arab country to adopt this policy.

He directed all investments, related to ICT, towards Cloud Computing with the purpose of reducing operational expenditures of IT systems and services, enhancing the quality of services as well as keeping abreast with the rapid developments in the field of information technology provided to beneficiaries from every society segment.

Shaikh Salman stated that since the SCICT assigned the authority to set the necessary procedures in order to implement the policy along with enlightening government entities with the approved policy and procedures for implementation; the authority has immediately prepared and arranged the organizational structure and the suitable environment to host government systems and IT services more securely and efficiently on the Cloud Computing for the Amazon Services.

He also highlighted that the authority has developed a plan which comprised the smooth and organized transfer of a set of governmental systems while ensuring continuity of work as it succeeded in shifting 10 government websites to the Cloud Computing system – in cooperation with Amazon Web Services.

The workshop was organized following the authority’s responsibility and role in supporting the strategic direction of the Kingdom in the process transformation and gradual transition of the public entities to the cloud by enhancing communication in order to remove any obstacles and challenges together with studying and setting necessary policies to implement this direction which is reflected by the delivered services to citizens and society institutions.

During the workshop, the Cloud Computing Policy was presented while addressing security procedures accompanied by procurement and contracting operations. Transition stages of the Cloud Computing were also showcased with the purpose of facilitating the operations of transferring systems to the Cloud Computing environment – this contributes to delivering high quality services that benefit users. – TradeArabia News Service