What are the costs of cloud and data centre outages to businesses? Is there scope for government intervention to provide transparency or prevention for any issues in this space?
Background
In order to achieve these missions, DP must build upon the research and evidence that informs its knowledge base and underpins its policies. Below articulates the directorate’s critical policy issues and questions identified in response to the NDS missions. Key focus areas include defining and monitoring the data ecosystem and economy, generating evidence for intervention and understanding the impacts of policies.
DSIT is committed to improving data sharing. The NDS Mission 1 Policy Framework outlines the principles for intervention and priority areas for action for unlocking data value. Addressing the barriers to optimal data use and reuse is an important area of interest.
The government has held a consultation on reforms to the UK’s data protection regime. The approach for data protection change is set out in the documentation for a new data direction. DP is working to ensure that UK GDPR, the ICO and other parts of the data protection regime are fit for purpose. Evidence relating to privacy and trust in data and data use and the impacts of data regulation would help to address some of the directorate’s key questions.
DP wants to broaden its understanding of data infrastructure and strengthen its evidence base on data centres, cyber security and resilience. The environmental impacts of data use is a key area of research interest.
It is important to advance our knowledge of international data flows and how they shape and influence the global data system. Addressing the evidence gap on the value of data flows as well as the volume of data is of key interest.
Next steps
If you are keen to register your interest in working and connecting with DSIT Digital Technology and Telecoms Group and/or submitting evidence, then please complete the DSIT-ARI Evidence survey - https://dsit.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cDfmK2OukVAnirs.
Please view full details: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/department-for-science-innovation-and-technology-areas-of-research-interest/dsit-areas-of-research-interest-2024
Source
This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:
Related UKRI funded projects
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Cloud Stewardship Economics
Our critical national infrastructure is increasingly dependent on information systems and the services they support. Cloud computing ecosystems of service providers and consumers including individuals, public bodies, SME...
Funded by: Innovate UK
Why might this be relevant?
The project focuses on cloud computing ecosystems and managing risks for all stakeholders, which directly relates to the costs of cloud and data centre outages.
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Removing the data security barrier for the cloud
This project aims to widen and accelerate the adoption of cloud services (including business-critical services) by resolving data security issues through the development of a solution for flexible data management. Data s...
Funded by: Innovate UK
Why might this be relevant?
The project addresses data security issues in the cloud, which is related to the question about the costs of outages and potential government intervention.
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Cloud Computing for Large-Scale Complex IT Systems
The notion of cloud computing , where computing infrastructure, platforms, and software application services are offered at low cost from remote very-large-scale data centres accessed over the internet, is one that has r...
Funded by: EPSRC
Why might this be relevant?
Partially addresses cloud computing costs and risks, which are relevant to the question.