The decommissioning of GOV.UK PaaS (Platform as a Service) at the end of this year means UK government agencies will need to find alternative platforms to host their digital services and applications. This could potentially have a significant impact on the agencies, as GOV.UK PaaS has been a central platform for hosting government services and applications for several years.

On the face of it, GOV.UK PaaS appears to be highly successful. Online since 2015, it has been used by public sector teams, central government and arms-length bodies, local authorities and emergency services.

The service has been used by more than 60 departments, agencies and local authorities for a huge range of use cases, including the Cabinet Office and No 10’s Covid dashboards, HMRC, Energy Performance Certificates, the Department for Education’s Teaching Vacancies, the Department for International Trade, and many more besides. It has supported more than 170 digital services while delivering an uptime of 99.95%.

Sunsets and new dawns
But nothing stands still in the tech world and GDS (Government Digital Services) is pulling the plug – and for very sound reasons. The final day for GOV.UK PaaS is 23rd December 2023. All services hosted on GOV.UK PaaS will need to have migrated to an alternate hosting platform by that date.

If your services are still running on GOV.UK PaaS beyond that date, they will stop working. Remember too that all data will be permanently deleted by 28th February 2024 – so any important data you have stored on the service will need to be migrated or archived to a different service or storage media by that date.

Why now, and what will the future look like?
The decision to decommission the service was made following a review of the government's digital infrastructure, which concluded that a centralised platform was no longer the most effective way to support the digital services provided by government agencies.

Instead, the government is encouraging departments, agencies and teams to develop their own digital services using modern, cloud-based technologies. This approach allows agencies to select the tools and services that best meet their specific needs, rather than being constrained by a centralised platform.

Why you need to act
Agencies will need to evaluate alternative platforms, such as cloud providers like Microsoft Azure, or consider building and managing their own in-house platforms (or a hybrid of the two). This may require additional resources and expertise, as well as potential changes to existing processes and systems.

It’s clearly a big shift, and it could be an uncomfortable change for some. But it’s a far bigger opportunity than it is a threat. By embracing cloud-based platforms and other innovative technologies, agencies can create more efficient and effective digital services that better meet the needs of citizens and stakeholders.

The path you set today will shape the next 5 to 10 years of your digital services. It’s an important decision, but it’s easy to get it right by following some fundamental principles.

1. Don’t accept interruptions: Find a provider that can guarantee uninterpreted services throughout the migration process. There’s not long until the December deadline, and the clock is ticking – if you have services running on GOV.UK PaaS, you need to urgently re-platform your workloads.

   
   

   Downtime or major service limitations caused by migration are unacceptable; government agencies and citizens alike depend upon (and expect) seamless, uninterrupted services. You need a partner that can deliver cloud-to-cloud migration seamlessly. Our learnings from working with public sector clients show that it’s about more than just seamless technical experiences; you’ll need a seamless organisational experience, taking in your operations, processes, and working culture – ultimately placing your people at the heart of things. For a detailed example, see the link at the end of this article to find out more about our work with Home Group.

2. Look for public sector credentials: Does your new cloud provider have experience working with government departments and agencies? Our own experience on a wide range of public sector and private sector projects has shown that public sector migrations are very different to private sector migrations.

   
   

   A partner with extensive experience in successful cloud migration projects will leverage the latest technologies, including open-source solutions and accelerator blueprints, to provide secure and well-governed access to cloud services taking into account government-specific standards, governance and security at every step. The outcome is a fast, cost-effective, and secure cloud migration. We’ve recently performed a migration just like this for a major government department, using our dedicated, security-cleared Newcastle Technology Centre, a UK-based on-shore team of experts.

3. Get a migration strategy in place: A strategy is more than just a Gantt chart of dates, timelines and waypoints, it’s a set of fundamental decisions that will shape your department’s future. Besides shaping the critical path and gaining authority to proceed, your migration strategy will shape how you drive value and deliver cost savings once the migration is complete. The right partner will work with you to develop the right migration strategy, one that considers operational needs, business change management, user training, platform capabilities and much more. After all, every department and organisation is unique and has very different needs.

   
   

   The first step is a lightweight discovery process which will help the partner understand your data and how you are using GOV.UK PaaS, enabling them to develop a migration plan that minimises downtime, cost, and complexity. A good migration strategy will not just help with the migration immediately in front of you, it will help you deal with future changes. What you need right now might be different in 2-5 years.

4. Prioritise security: You know just how important security and data privacy regulations are. Make sure you choose a partner that builds security into their migration plan from the ground up, deploying your workloads and data to a secure cloud landing zone, using infrastructure-as-code to strengthen business continuity plans as well as securely configuring and integrating essential services like GOV.UK Notify, delivering access to government integrations. Should you be moving to Microsoft Azure, we would recommend reviewing Azure Sentinel and other Azure native tools to add to your security roadmap. Our experience with other public sector clients suggests security and its associated approvals could be the one area that delays your deployment project.


5. Look for a partner that will stay with you for the long term: The service you receive after the migration is as important as the migration itself. Cloud-native tools provide mature operational support processes, including logging, monitoring, reporting, and alerting, ensuring the secure and seamless running and evolution of your cloud workloads. A good partner will provide experienced individuals who not only engage with the tooling and your team effectively but also implement preventative care so that you benefit from a complete package that’s baked in from the start. Support services begin before the migration, not just tacked on at the end as an afterthought.

There’s work to be done, but Avanade is here to make it simpler and easier. Avanade is committed to delivering a successful GOV.UK PaaS migration solution for your organisation.

Find out more about our public sector approach and experience to know more about how we can help you deliver seamless cloud services.