One of the trends in technology seems to be this “my IT infrastructure + Cloud = 
” However, it is not that simple. Michael Krieger, the Army’s Deputy CIO got together with Carolyn Lawson of the state of California’s Office of the CIO, John Foley of InformationWeek and Darrell West of the Brookings Institute (a NPO public policy organization) to talk about value adds they have found in cloud computing.
California is battling a tough budget deficit, but making every cent count in IT
Carolyn is enjoying cloud computing because it is enabling fast provisioning of necessary capabilities. Carolyn is using cloud to offer capabilities that would previously take months and months (including acquisition and procurement cycles) and shrink the timeline to weeks. She is finding that cloud providers are extremely aware of government data, regulations and security needs, and the providers are addressing those issues posthaste. Carolyn proffers that we look towards smaller (cheaper) applications like Twitter and Facebook to connect government and their constituents. One of the largest impediments Carolyn has noticed are that employees are worried about losing their jobs. Carolyn is also finding hidden costs by doing more with the same, since these costs are not in the base line, cost avoidance can provide big wins. Her greatest value add from cloud computing is the ability to be nimble. It enables her to quickly comply with government mandates and needs.
With 1.4M registered users, clouds provide agility to the US Army
Mike Krieger spoke to how the USAREC (Army Recruiting Command) is using the CRM trackers of Salesforce.com to help recruit and track soldiers. He also mentioned that cloud computing is being used to provide access to data while that data is physically in motion (in connexes traversing the globe). Mike finds a challenge in the format of Army funding. The Army has well over 200 data-centers, but determining cost accounting is hard to wrap up completely because of how the costs are attributed. In addition, in the Army there is a huge purchase of new IT equipment and services at the end of the year. So if you cut those costs, you are not attributed with saving money, because those funds came directly out of operational funds form the year before. Mike is enjoying the security capabilities of the cloud, because it can be turned off at any minute.
Brookings is engaged in consistent research into government capabilites
Darrell and Brookings attempted to find data that would be representative of government connecting to the cloud. However, through case study analysis, they found that agencies were able to cut costs 25-50%. A primary form of cost savings is the ability to cut file servers, and file server costs. They are observing that low-security data and systems are easily moved to the cloud, providing a higher margin of cost savings. On the other hand, when higher security applications need to move to the cloud, there are both physical and virtual security concerns which can eat into potential cost savings. Darrell’s prediction for the cloud is that it will help to eliminate issues of interoperability, which should be a money and time saver in the future.
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