How Is China’s Government Cloud Being Evaluated? Inside the New Assessment Framework

Introduction

Government cloud, as a core component of smart cities and e‑government, is often called the city’s “most powerful brain.” As its construction begins, stricter and more complete evaluation standards are needed for government departments to enter a data‑sharing, refined‑governance "cloud era."

Main Text

In 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s "Three‑Year Action Plan for Cloud Computing Development" explicitly used industrial and government clouds as entry points, highlighting the low level of informatization in China’s government sector and its inability to meet current social governance and production needs.

Following numerous national policies and guiding documents, domestic government cloud applications have started, with many departments actively exploring cloud computing to meet e‑government and public service demands.

Frequent 0.01‑yuan winning bids raise questions about government cloud evaluation.

Data shows that in 2017 the Chinese government cloud market was about CNY 170.8 billion, expected to maintain a 20% annual compound growth rate. The China Government Procurement Network reports that in 2016‑2017 there were 131 government‑cloud tender projects nationwide.

These low‑price wins illustrate how government cloud has become a coveted market for major cloud vendors.

Examples include Tencent Cloud winning an external network cloud service tender for Xiamen Information Center at 0.01 yuan in February 2017, China Telecom winning Liaoyang Information Center’s public information resource sharing platform hardware project at the same price in March, and another 0.01 yuan win for Hainan government cloud in June.

Although the 0.01‑yuan bids seem trivial, they expose the true value of the government‑cloud market and reveal a series of problems arising from its rapid development.

Xu Enqing, deputy director of the Cloud Computing Department, Institute of Cloud Computing and Big Data, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, identified four major issues in government informatization:

Fragmented infrastructure construction leading to low‑level duplication.

Heavy focus on construction while neglecting application, resulting in unsatisfactory user experience.

Low level of information resource sharing; most departmental systems lack data exchange capabilities.

Poor operation and maintenance level with overall weak security, making government sites vulnerable to attacks.

Leaders of government‑cloud projects across provinces face the challenge of evaluating technical level, service capability, application effectiveness, and compliance with national policies.

The first domestic government‑cloud assessment mechanism, based on four dimensions, evaluates comprehensive level.

In 2017, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, together with industry experts and major cloud vendors, drafted the "Government Cloud Comprehensive Level Assessment Method" (the "Assessment Method"). This mechanism assesses policy implementation, application effectiveness, platform capability, and security assurance across 20 indicators.

First, it evaluates whether the cloud actively responds to national policies through indicators such as policy response rate, departmental cloud adoption rate, and core‑business cloud adoption rate.

Second, it measures application effectiveness by assessing data‑sharing and exchange ability, citizen service efficiency improvements, cost‑saving ratios, and ecosystem development.

The method uses simulations of government work, citizen services, random inspections, and interviews to gauge outcomes.

To objectively measure cost savings, the method considers data‑center, hardware, software, and operation‑maintenance costs, designing a "cost‑saving ratio" formula.

It also evaluates ecosystem impact by counting the number of cloud service providers, software vendors, and big‑data enterprises involved.

Third, it assesses platform functionality, focusing on basic functions, service availability, network access capability, and migration ability through on‑site inspections and technical testing.

Finally, it evaluates security assurance via five indicators: data persistence, data destructibility, data confidentiality, operation‑system functions, and fault‑recovery capability.

The "Government Cloud Comprehensive Level Assessment Method" will be officially released at the 2nd Cloud Computing Open Source Industry Conference on March 21‑22, 2018, where detailed standards and case studies will also be presented.

Conclusion

The "Three‑Year Action Plan for Cloud Computing Development" emphasizes support for cloud technology R&D, standard formulation, and the improvement of third‑party evaluation agencies. As the assessment standards, testing, and certification mature, they will provide a reliable basis for government‑cloud construction, promote steady improvement of public service quality, and help build a harmonious, stable government‑cloud ecosystem.

This article was reprinted from the public account "Technology Cloud Report".