Gov.uk Platform as a Service • Hacker News Board

Re: Gov.uk Platform as a Service

#21

Post by dan_pixelflow » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

A bit off-topic, but gov.uk is quickly improving into an actual usable site. The GDS (Government Digital Service [0]) and the GDS (Government Design System [1]) - who run the posted link too - are doing a great job. Want to renew my passport? Easy, same UI/UX for getting a drone license, taxing my car and filing for benefits. Want to renew my driving license? Well, that's yet to move from the old DVLA site, but it's all getting there!

[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digit... [1] https://design-system.service.gov.uk/

Edit: Yes, I know the UK Gov's system for benefits isn't easy to understand. That's on the Gov, not GDS :)

Re: Gov.uk Platform as a Service

#22

Post by chrisseaton » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

hugoromano wrote: post #12

Sounds lovely but limits competition and innovation, promoting oligopolies. I admire the nerve of "10% Procurement fee". Wait until there is a guideline that demands the use of GOV.UK Platform as a Service (PaaS) for the UK Public sector. A sensible approach would have been a list of certified service providers and contact points for contracting.

Do you realise this is the government building software for the government?

That's like complaining that Amazon have a monopoly on hosting Amazon services.

> A sensible approach would have been a list of certified service providers and contact points for contracting.

No let's not for example ask the Forestry Commission to build or contract their own cloud services... that's not what they know about or what they're going to be good at.

Re: Gov.uk Platform as a Service

#23

Post by motohagiography » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

Very cool. Worked adjacent to something similar in public sector. If you are doing this for a govt, may I recommend you include the following services:

- IAM Federation and brokerage service that takes arbitrary IDPs (every application is a simple document management problem at the tip of the iceberg, with a giant authN/AuthZ problem underneath. Consider authZ as a service as well)

- HSM/Vault for standard secrets management across applications

- Encrypted backup to data lake service, with cold storage option.

- vulnerability scanning and patch management (lines of business can't be trusted to do application patching)

- CI/CD pipeline service

- Jira/ADO or other "standard" project collaboration scheme

Managers don't usually know about this stuff, and they're the dealbreakers when you don't have them.

Re: Gov.uk Platform as a Service

#24

Post by mkdirp » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

dan_pixelflow wrote: post #21

A bit off-topic, but gov.uk is quickly improving into an actual usable site. The GDS (Government Digital Service [0]) and the GDS (Government Design System [1]) - who run the posted link too - are doing a great job. Want to renew my passport? Easy, same UI/UX for getting a drone license, taxing my car and filing for benefits. Want to renew my driving license? Well, that's yet to move from the old DVLA site, but it's…

> A bit off-topic, but gov.uk is quickly improving into an actual usable site.

In my experience gov.uk has been vastly superior compared to other websites for a long time. Gov.uk seems to be more consistent with everything than most company websites are.

Re: Gov.uk Platform as a Service

#25

Post by toyg » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 2:19 PM UTC

dan_pixelflow wrote: post #21

A bit off-topic, but gov.uk is quickly improving into an actual usable site. The GDS (Government Digital Service [0]) and the GDS (Government Design System [1]) - who run the posted link too - are doing a great job. Want to renew my passport? Easy, same UI/UX for getting a drone license, taxing my car and filing for benefits. Want to renew my driving license? Well, that's yet to move from the old DVLA site, but it's…

Credit where credit is due, this is the legacy of the Cameron government (although the conversation started under Brown, iirc, it was the first Cameron cabinet that really pushed it, by basically setting up a skunkworks group that answered directly to the PM). The efficacy and power of GDS has since ebbed and flowed, but clearly they managed to entrench some great practices that continue to this day.

Re: Gov.uk Platform as a Service

#26

Post by somnium_sn » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

dan_pixelflow wrote: post #21

A bit off-topic, but gov.uk is quickly improving into an actual usable site. The GDS (Government Digital Service [0]) and the GDS (Government Design System [1]) - who run the posted link too - are doing a great job. Want to renew my passport? Easy, same UI/UX for getting a drone license, taxing my car and filing for benefits. Want to renew my driving license? Well, that's yet to move from the old DVLA site, but it's…

I've moved from Germany to the US and then to the UK. gov.uk is by far the most impressive government website i've encountered. Accessible, consistent and just works. Really a good show of what a government website can offer if done right.

Re: Gov.uk Platform as a Service

#27

Post by chrisseaton » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #25

dan_pixelflow wrote: post #21

A bit off-topic, but gov.uk is quickly improving into an actual usable site. The GDS (Government Digital Service [0]) and the GDS (Government Design System [1]) - who run the posted link too - are doing a great job. Want to renew my passport? Easy, same UI/UX for getting a drone license, taxing my car and filing for benefits. Want to renew my driving license? Well, that's yet to move from the old DVLA site, but it's…

Credit where credit is due, this is the legacy of the Cameron government (although the conversation started under Brown, iirc, it was the first Cameron cabinet that really pushed it, by basically setting up a skunkworks group that answered directly to the PM). The efficacy and power of GDS has since ebbed and flowed, but clearly they managed to entrench some great practices that continue to this day.

> setting up a skunkworks group that answered directly to the PM

Isn't that massively excessive? Why does the Prime Minister need to be spending his time listening to a report direct from a team implementing software services?

Re: Gov.uk Platform as a Service

#28

Post by londons_explore » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

ale42 wrote: post #7

"The platform is hosted on Amazon Web Services in the UK"... (see the beginning at https://www.cloud.service.gov.uk/features/ )

But when it gets big enough, it might be worth the government spinning up their own hardware and competing.

Are there any other cloud providers who have started by reselling another cloud providers products? Even as a reseller they ought to be able to make a decent profit by relying on volume discounts.

Re: Gov.uk Platform as a Service

#29

Post by kinduff » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

I've been following on GitHub all the effort behind these gov.uk sites [1]. It's pretty inspiring, I even wanted a job there.

The developers behind this effort are great, and well, they use Ruby which is my language of choice at the moment.

[1]: https://github.com/alphagov

Re: Gov.uk Platform as a Service

#30

Post by londons_explore » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 2:28 PM UTC

hugoromano wrote: post #12

Sounds lovely but limits competition and innovation, promoting oligopolies. I admire the nerve of "10% Procurement fee". Wait until there is a guideline that demands the use of GOV.UK Platform as a Service (PaaS) for the UK Public sector. A sensible approach would have been a list of certified service providers and contact points for contracting.

I would expect to see a 10% procurement discount, since they presumably have more negotiating power with AWS when buying £££££'s worth of stuff annually, rather than every individual government team setting up a small account for a few ££'s.