Last year, Holyrood magazine held the hugely successful  inaugural 'Cloud Computing in the Public Sector' event, exploring how this new way of delivering ICT services - whereby an organisations information, software and hardware can be stored in and accessed from external data centres - can be used for more flexible and efficient working.

With new research carried out by the Cloud Industry Forum identifying a significant uptake of Cloud Solutions (48% of  all UK businesses surveyed in Jan/Feb 2011 indicated using some form of cloud services), the increasing interest in this new model of delivery by the public sector and the peaked interest by the private sector highlights that ICT departments and whole organisations are seeking new and multiple delivery models, the ability to meet new demands and challenges as they arise, and a means to integrate existing infrastructure and workstream.

One of Cloud's key promises for the public sector is reducing costs, duplication and waste and many of those in favour of migration to the Cloud seem to be so as a result of the flexibility it can provide. But it is not a catch all solution or silver bullet to the financial and resource constraints facing all organisations and the reduced budgetary spend on ICT. Challenges certainly do still remain across understanding, practice development and culture change, as well as around logistics such adata security and access.

Holyrood's follow up 2011 Cloud event will showcase and discuss the practical application of Cloud and related technology. The day will be an opportunity to recap on Cloud itself and the last years developments before identifying how  you can make it work for you and your organisations needs.

During the day you will: