The Cloud and Data Analytics Opportunity in Ireland.

ICT is a result of the natural evolution of a movement that began back in the ’80’s and ’90’s when
companies like Apple, Intel, and HP came to Ireland to manufacture products to serve their European
markets. What they found was a government that took great interest in their work and did whatever
they could to facilitate it…a workforce well-trained in science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics…and a mild climate that offered a major advantage in terms of the significant costs
involved with cooling their data centres.

The Irish government itself recognizes the opportunity that cloud computing and data analytics
represents and is becoming a user of the technology itself all the while partnering with the IT
sector to facilitate its growth in Ireland. Ireland’s colleges and universities are also working
with cloud and big data businesses on a variety of initiatives while focusing their on-campus
efforts on turning out graduates well trained in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths)
and developing courses and formal degree programmes in cloud computing and data analytics.

As part of its “Programme for Government and Public Service Reform Plan,” Brendan Howlin, TD,
minister of public expenditure and reform, recently published his Cloud Computing Strategy. Among
other initiatives, it outlines how the Irish government will use cloud computing to revolutionize
the way public services are delivered to citizens and introduces a plan to consolidate its computer
and data centres from potentially hundreds to just 10 primary facilities.

In addition, EMC, which has been operating in Ireland since 1988 and already employs 2,500 people in
the country, recently announced along with the Irish government, Cisco, VCE, VMware, plans to open a
new cloud innovation centre.

Dubbed Cloud4Gov, the new centre will feature two world-class private cloud infrastructures that
will perform a number of important roles. The first will be a testing and proving ground for apps
targeted at the public sector, created by indigenous SMEs and multinational corporations. Secondly,
it will be a place where public sector departments and agencies can test new cloud solutions without
the threat of making expensive IT mistakes. The centre will also play a role in promoting Ireland’s
leadership position in cloud computing and big data and provide entrepreneurs and start-ups
opportunities to compete for government contracts on a level playing field with larger firms.

On the educational side, Cork Institute of Technology and EMC recently collaborated on the
development of the world’s first suite of undergraduate- and masters-level degree programs in cloud
computing. The one-year, add-on courses for computer science graduates aim to provide them with
advanced conceptual understanding, detailed factual knowledge, and specialized technical skills
required to hold such positions as “data scientist,” professionals tasked with understanding,
forming, and executing useful strategies for volumes of data residing on corporate servers.

Meanwhile, University College Cork has partnered with Dell and VMware to open a cloud incubator for
SMBs, a project aimed at helping SMBs realize the significant cost savings possible with cloud-based
IT infrastructure. The UCC law faculty also recently hosted a cloud computing conference, which
sought to explore the legal questions of cloud computing, such as cloud computing client contract
issues, the regulatory balance between cloud provider and cloud client, and legal consequences for
security breaches of data held in the cloud.

Indeed, there are many aspects of the cloud and big data, and all of this is merely a snapshot of
Ireland’s rapidly growing involvement with it. As the U.S., China, and other traditional powers try
play catch-up, Ireland has established a blistering pace in the race to become the “Silicon Valley”
of the next great computing revolution.

Companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Accenture, D&B, Aon, Munich Re, Fidelity, IBM, HP,
and Cisco have all opened data analytics or cloud computing research and development centres in
Ireland.