Viability of Cloud Computing Adoption by Government of Lesotho at Thaba-Tseka Town

Abstract

Cloud computing is one of latest computing paradigms where computing resources like processors, hard-drives, data warehouses, servers, operating system and applications are rented to the users in pay-per-use manner and are accessed through the Internet. Cloud computing is one of Information Technology solutions that reduces infrastructure costs for governments and small to medium businesses, and enable them to access latest software versions and hardware resources. Government of Lesotho like other developing countries governments can leverage on these and other cloud computing benefits, should it decide to adopt cloud computing. This study investigates the preparedness of Government of Lesotho for adoption of cloud computing at one of its remote cap town called Thaba-Tseka. The areas of preparedness investigated are civil servants level of computer literacy, Information, Communication Technology infrastructure and Information Technology personnel cloud skillset. This paper consists of six chapters, namely the Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Results and Analysis, Discussion and, Conclusion and Recommendation. The literature reviewed the cloud service models, cloud deployments models, background and history of cloud computing, technologies underlying cloud, benefits and drawbacks of cloud and lastly related publications. Survey was chosen as most suitable method of data collections, and the tools used to collect data from various ministries in Thaba-Tseka are questionnaires. The data was analysed using various quantitative and qualitative data methods. The results were discussed and finally the conclusion that Government of Lesotho at Thaba-Tseka is not fully ready for adoption of cloud computing, but just needs improvement in few areas was reached. One of the limitations of this study was failure to successfully acquire data from Government of Lesotho Information Technology department, using digital questionnaire send through email, despite several phone calls as reminder to respondents.