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.