Cloud Governance at the Local Communities

Governance As A Cloud Computing Service

In this section we are exploring the concept of community in order to improve Government as a Service.

Community cloud computing and cloud computing have the same philosophy; they distribute software, hardware and application resources among users. According to Manion (2004): «People in a country with a high degree of political freedom can participate in the political process more openly and actively, which in turn helps alleviate corruption by empowering people to monitor the exercise of the official power». At community level, it means that if people participate in the electronic governance of the community, then they can help in the minimization of the corruption. This is an important reason in order to explore the actual participation of the autonomous community in the electronic governance. There are two types of community cloud computing that depend on the management of the server side components (Badger, 2011):

• 1.

  On-Site Community Cloud: The management and the maintenance of the server are being implemented by the members of the community.

• 2.

  Outsourced Community Cloud: The management and the maintenance of the server outsource to a private company.

These two types of community cloud computing are going to influence governance in various levels regarding its distribution and application. The most interesting example is the case of self governed communities such as small municipalities or villages. Users could be divided into those who only act as citizens and those who manage the server’s tasks, but remain citizens as well (Figure 1). It is important that everyone is obliged to obey the rules of the community.

Figure 1.

On-site community cloud computing