Japan
Cloud Computing

The Digital Japan Creation Project (ICT Hatoyama Plan)
The Kasumigaseki Cloud

Tapping the Potential of Government: Creating the Kasumigaseki Cloud

Accelerating the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) nationwide will require the government to take the initiative in implementing measures. To this end, the government is providing the world's most efficient services in a manner that is highly convenient to the public with aim of actively introducing new technologies to create an innovative electronic government




Creating an Innovative Electronic Government

Government information systems are using innovative technologies, such as cloud computing, to develop the Kasumigaseki Cloud (tentative name) in stages by 2015. The Kasumigaseki Cloud will enable various ministries to collaborate to integrate and consolidate hardware and create platforms for shared functions. Efforts will be made to efficiently develop and operate information systems with the aim of greatly reducing electronic government-related development and operating costs while increasing the pace of processing by integrating shared functions, increasing collaboration among systems, and providing secure and advanced governmental services.

In addition, the various ministries are working to use uniform corporate codes to reduce workloads in the private sector (by reducing the number of documents that must be attached to various filings and similar measures).

Efforts are also being made to expand online applications by making public personal certification systems more convenient from the perspective of users and expanding their use, encouraging the use of digital devices that have become common in the day to day activities of the public, such as mobile phones, and establishing and improving support systems for online applications.






Building a National Digital Archive

A National Digital Archive (tentative name) will be constructed to digitize government documents, books and scholarly articles, cultural property information, geographic and time space information, statistical information, and other information for which there is high demand and to standardize formats and metadata to provide the highest degree of access to the public. New information and communication services will also be developed and fostered.




Developing Green Cloud Data Centers

Network use is increasing rapidly, and in response the development of Green Cloud Data Centers will be promoted to reduce data center energy consumption by locating them in cold regions, utilizing wind and solar power, employing low loss direct current, and using tunnels and other underground sites with strong earthquake resistance and stable temperatures. Also, this concept will be employed to support the construction of the Kasumigaseki Cloud Data Center (tentative name) as infrastructure for government information systems, such as the Kasumigaseki Cloud.

The Global Inter-Cloud Technology Forum (GICTF) is a Japanese organization aimed at bringing together the knowledge of industry, academia and government, and supporting R&D and feasibility tests on the technologies related to interworking between cloud systems. Their aim is to promote standardization of network protocols and the interfaces through which cloud systems interwork with each other, and to enable the provision of more reliable cloud services than those available today.

More on the GICTF >>




Contributions

 

Digital Japan Creation Project (ICT Hatoyama Plan): Outline - March 2009

This is the full report released by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) outlining the Digital Japan Creation Project (ICT Hatoyama Plan) which seeks to create new Information and Communications Technology (ICT) markets to help boost Japan’s economy. Within this plan is an outline to create a nation wide Cloud Computing infrastructure tentatively called the Kasumigaseki Cloud.