❓FAQs on DaaS

A common misconception may be that by participating in a DaaS pilot program, a country will be giving up complete control over infrastructure that caters to essential services. However, this is simply not true. Countries retain full control over the DaaS pilot and they are especially beneficial for short-term pilots demonstrating proof of success for the DPI approach.

Common thoughts that may arise || The answer to all is DaaS…

DaaS is a necessary but not sufficient innovation. It may not solve all technical capacity or funding problems, but it is a necessary first step to simplifying DPI adoption in countries.

Additional FAQs

Is DaaS only a cloud solution? What if I have data sovereignty and data localisation concerns with cloud?

To ensure speed in demonstrating proof of concept and proof of success, we advise countries to use a private or public cloud. A cloud-like computing environment makes deployment of DPG packages extremely simple and fast.

However, either way, cloud is NOT compulsory for DaaS! DaaS can be deployed in a non-cloud on-premises environment as well. The key criterion is for the countries to provision compute, storage, and network infrastructure to enable quick installation of DaaS packages. In the case of public cloud, the OPEX costs are included in the funding, whereas in case of on-premises hosting, countries are required to provision the infrastructure and key infrastructure support personnel from the existing setup; these are not part of the funding.

What if I have poor network connectivity and very high data cost for usage of internet or VPN or leased line?

Like all Digital Public Infrastructure, DaaS solutions are designed to work for last mile populations that may have poor network connectivity or high data costs. Alternate capabilities for users, such as those available with UPI or verifiable credentials that can work with network, without network in offline mode, with smartphones, feature phones, voice-based interfaces, and other modalities, can be implemented. Depending on the DaaS DPG package, many of these capabilities are built into the design itself and can be rolled out by countries according to their needs.

How much will I save in terms of time and money? Give me concrete examples. What if the service providers raise the subscription rates?

Our hypothesis, based on our work with countries, is that it typically takes up to 24 months to roll out a pilot DPI program since countries have to undergo various cycles of approvals, definitions, procurement, funding, and build phases. The DaaS approach will reduce this time period to 8-12 weeks to launch a pilot based on a pre-packaged, pre-templated DaaS package.

For the duration of the pilot, if and when a commercial Service Provider (SP) is involved, their rates can be fixed to avoid custom price discovery and negotiation by each country.

Once the pilot is over, the countries can choose to extend the contract with the same SP who handled their pilot, or switch to another one, depending on the terms finalised between the two parties independently.

What do I own and what do I not? Is it like renting a house Vs owning one?

The country will own all the infrastructure of DaaS.

This includes the core IP of the underlying open source DPG, as well as full control of management and data for the systems deployed under the DaaS pilot.

The distinction is not between owning vs renting a house. Rather, think of it as building a house from scratch brick by brick, vs buying a ready-made house that you can move into quickly, where the foundations are already in place but you can do your own customisations as needed.

Is it really so easy? Have you done it before?

It operates as a plug-and-play solution if you select one of the cloud options; however, it will require some configurations and extensions according to local country contexts, systems, and needs. This will be a minimalist effort provided by the Service Provider that goes into ensuring the ready-packaged DPI solutions (DaaS) work in a manner best suited to your goals.

None of the concepts of DaaS are new. Cloud technology is frequently used by governments, as are packaged software solutions, and DPI. They have all individually demonstrated ample proof of success. DaaS simply combines and harnesses the power of these existing innovations and infrastructure to enable rapid deployment of socioeconomic projects.

Won’t we get locked in to cloud service providers like AWS or Azure or google? How easy is it for me to move from AWS to Azure? Are there are multiple commercial companies providing same services (like I can switch from Uber to Ola for transport).

Since DaaS core packages are fully open source, the possibility of vendor lock-in issues is minimal. Core DaaS packages are built cloud-neutral and will be tested across clouds.

Moreover, multiple SPs will be offered for each DaaS product category. Countries can choose and modify their selections between providers as needed based on their requirements and preferences to create a choice of vendors

When can I see a pilot of (some service), at a sandbox level

DaaS is first being offered as a pilot itself. It is not intended to immediately scale but rather to test the concepts for countries to build confidence. For some smaller population contexts, DaaS could meet the full population needs via a pilot, and provide flexibility later to probably migrate the system if needed to a different host.

Individual DPGs that are powering DaaS have their own sandboxes. Countries are free to reach out to them directly to experience their products before accessing them through DaaS if preferred.

Once the use case from a country is known, how long will it take for the "package" to be ready

The typical steps envisioned are:

1. Install the DPG solution

2. Integrate with the country-specific workflow to enable the use case.

The goal is to have a DPG solution packaged to make the installation possible in less than 8 hours, with integration work requiring between 1 to 3 weeks. During this time, the policy and pilot modalities are worked out in parallel. The current plan is to provide DPI service to the first user within 4 weeks from the kick-off date, defined as the date when the country, service provider, and DPG owner hold their initial meeting after signing the MoU.

What "features" will the package have if you imagine a typical G2P use case

In the current release, the G2P use case envisioned is only ID to Account Mapper. Beneficiary & Scheme Management platforms are not planned within this first phase scope. In an existing G2P flow, Mapper comes handy to pay to a beneficiary using a functional ID.

If a service provider such as Deloitte is spending time and effort packaging this, how will it become available to the competition? Or will this package belong to Deloitte and others will have to build their own?

DPGs are providing the installable package. Deloitte and other service providers are consuming it as is. Deloitte is building tech support, project management unit (PMU) capacity, and coordination with cloud service providers as part of the DaaS initiative.

In the future, Deloitte may add new features to the open source offering and provide value-added services to create a competitive landscape.

Does the IP of the package be with the DPG who can allow any other vendor to use it?

Yes, for the work done and released by the DPG. For any custom packages in future, service providers may be encouraged to use open source licences but this is not mandatory. DPGs/Funders may enforce some of these policies.

What if the country wants to use some other private sector provider for the second use case of G2P payments (beyond the pilot)?

It is perfectly possible. It is up to the country to hand over the pilot work to the new private sector vendor or request to install a new instance.

Please note, underlying solutions picked in Phase 1, including Digital Authentication, Digital Credentials, and Mapper, can be reused across departments and vendors. This approach mirrors the implementation in India, Digi Locker credentials, Aadhaar, and NPCI mapper are used by various DBT programs.