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Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

gds.blog.gov.uk

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Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#91

Post by dfadsadsf »

naasking wrote: post #83
whylo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GOV.UK PaaS always ran on top of AWS (though in UK and Ireland regions), so it's always been dependent on a US company anyway

> so it's always been dependent on a US company anyway I'm not sure large multinational corporations belong to any specific country at this point.

One thing that became extremely clear after anti-Russian sanctions were imposed is that multinational corporations absolutely belong to specific country or set of countries.

Putting government websites and services on AWS or Azure pretty much precludes independent foreign or domestic policy. It's ok now (UK and US are pretty tight) but things/alliances change and in 20 or 30 years it could become huge problem.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#93

Post by atwood22 »

ar0 wrote: post #89
atwood22 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's quite a stretch. Ask any engineer about having that a-ha moment in the shower, or when out for a walk. Downtime is incredibly important for mentally intense work. I agree but I think you’ll find that working usually contributes economic value. Not working usually doesn’t. The key word being usually. if you’re in doubt, just try to record the economic value delivered by your downtime. How many hours are idled…

> I’m using productivity as a measurement. Ideally, productivity accounts for inefficient work by comparing inputs (labor) to economic outputs. The U.S. is more productive in this sense, so it’s more than just butts in seats. Actually, the differences are quite small and in 2017 Germany overtook the US in labour productivity: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/labor-productivity-per-ho...

That data is adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). So in real dollars Germany did not overtake the US.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#94

Post by yunohn »

naasking wrote: post #83
whylo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GOV.UK PaaS always ran on top of AWS (though in UK and Ireland regions), so it's always been dependent on a US company anyway

> so it's always been dependent on a US company anyway I'm not sure large multinational corporations belong to any specific country at this point.

If anything, they belong to the governments that offer the best tax rates and least liability. For FAANG, this often means the Ireland + Netherlands.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#95

Post by Brometheus »

wyuenho wrote: post #75
Denvercoder9 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be fair, Europe as a whole is 20-30 years behind on most fronts from the state of the art of information technology. This is a gross, unjustified generalization. Sure, there's a lot of old crap around, but that's no different from other parts of the world; but there's also lots of new, modern stuff, with a huge diversity across the continent. Just to give a common counterexample, the SEPA system allows me to tri…

Where do you think those digital infrastructure are hosted?

Well, where do you think those digial infrasture are hosted?

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#96

Post by mattkrause »

atwood22 wrote: post #39
maccard wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Namely, when people work less, less innovation happens, which means less productivity growth happens, which means less innovation happens, and so on. That's quite a stretch. Ask any engineer about having that a-ha moment in the shower, or when out for a walk. Downtime is incredibly important for mentally intense work. Work smarter, not harder and all that. Productivity isn't tied to time spent in office - my experi…

> That's quite a stretch. Ask any engineer about having that a-ha moment in the shower, or when out for a walk. Downtime is incredibly important for mentally intense work. I agree but I think you’ll find that working usually contributes economic value. Not working usually doesn’t. The key word being usually. if you’re in doubt, just try to record the economic value delivered by your downtime. How many hours are idled…

This is only true to an extent.

During WW1, the British "Health of Munition Workers' Committee" collected some fascinating data on production and working hours from armament factories. These were fairly motivated workers, doing semi-skilled manual tasks where you'd expect productivity to scale linearly with time on the job.

Moving from 25 hours/week to 30, 40, or 45 hours did lead to a proportional increase in output, but it then begins to plateau. Teams working 7x 10 hour shifts produced about as much as those working 8x6.

Check out the first few figures of Pencavel, J. (2014). The Productivity of Working Hours. The Economic Journal, 125(589), 2052–2076. Portico. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12166

Data collected from American workers during WW2 showed a similar pattern. I'd expect that "creative" work has an even smaller linear range, but I'm not aware of any studies.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#97

Post by vertis »

tallanvor wrote: post #85
vertis wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, there are so many areas where the US trails the rest of the world as far as technology is concerned. The Australian taxation system tech would probably be enough to make most US citizens cry for what they have to endure, and I'm not even sure it's the best one out there. Paying on credit card in the US was painful compared to the experience in Australia a few years ago. Australia had tap-to-pay everywhere and…

Technology isn't the reason the US appears to lag in some cases - business and governmental policy decisions are behind everything you list, and plenty of people don't like it. The truth is that 20-30 years ago Europe was lagging behind the US in some respects - credit card acceptance, computer usage in some businesses, etc. But obviously they're on par with the US today, and where they're ahead or behind the US the…

It's quite nuanced, which of course the GP comment wasn't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Government policy and societal attitude are two parts of the reason. It's not really fair to compare US and Estonia really, One is managing 350(?) million people and the other 1.3 million. Even comparing Australia to Estonia though, the differences in behaviour from the government entities are remarkable.

Australia has a real "we're going to catch you" vibe to it's taxation and social services, where as, Estonia seems to really have an attitude of trying to build awesome things to make their citizens better off and to streamline things.

Governments and their relationship to technology, both as a provider and also as a regulator is a complex beast. As you say, so many of the problems are manifestations in the imperfections of our democracies. Regardless of which AU, EU, GB, US all have flaws that we have to live with and work to improve.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#98

Post by naasking »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #91
naasking wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so it's always been dependent on a US company anyway I'm not sure large multinational corporations belong to any specific country at this point.

One thing that became extremely clear after anti-Russian sanctions were imposed is that multinational corporations absolutely belong to specific country or set of countries. Putting government websites and services on AWS or Azure pretty much precludes independent foreign or domestic policy. It's ok now (UK and US are pretty tight) but things/alliances change and in 20 or 30 years it could become huge problem.

> One thing that became extremely clear after anti-Russian sanctions were imposed is that multinational corporations absolutely belong to specific country or set of countries.

"Set of countries", aka economy yes, "single country" no. If every nation except the US allied with Russia over Ukraine, I'm not so sure McDonald's would have pulled out of Russia.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#99

Post by mellavora »

naasking wrote: post #83
whylo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GOV.UK PaaS always ran on top of AWS (though in UK and Ireland regions), so it's always been dependent on a US company anyway

> so it's always been dependent on a US company anyway I'm not sure large multinational corporations belong to any specific country at this point.

should be:

I'm sure specific country belongs to large multinational corporation at this point.

There, fixed it for you :)

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