How governments can deliver national data more securely and at scale

This article explains how governments can modernize and securely deliver large national datasets at scale using cloud infrastructure and open standards.

• Environment Agency's Hydrology Data Explorer manages 5 billion readings spanning 100+ years
• Hybrid architecture separates measurement data from metadata for flexibility and reusability
• AWS services (EKS, Aurora, Lambda, SQS, ELB) provide elasticity and resilience
• UK House Price Index uses automated publishing pipeline for accurate, timely releases
• Open standards and linked data prevent vendor lock-in and support dataset evolution
• Invest in data stewardship and metadata models for long-term cost reduction
• Well-structured metadata enables AI/RAG systems to locate and interpret source data

Cloud-based architecture with open standards enables governments to maintain critical datasets reliably while supporting future innovation and automation needs.