10 Ways Government Clouds Have Changed This Year

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Kevin L. Jackson.

In December 2012, Cary Landis and I made 10 predictions about how cloud computing was likely to evolve this year and how those changes were likely to impact enterprise computing. But things are moving fast in the world of cloud computing, reaffirming some of those predictions and altering others. Here’s a recap of what I predicted then and an update of how I see those trends unfolding now.

1. Cloud technologies will converge.

The cloud will continue to forge a massive convergence of technologies — similar to the evolution of the cellphone to the smartphone. The lines between platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and cloud services brokerages will blur into a conceptual operating system for the "Web as a platform" — providing tools to allow users to take advantage of multiple cloud solutions at once, and bringing the cloud closer to the end user in more meaningful ways…

Update: As the cloud computing marketplace continues to rapidly evolve and grow, the focus for buyers is shifting from software-as-a-service (SaaS) to infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). There is also a heightened awareness about choices around building, buying or leasing IT infrastructure services. For government agencies, this will lead to more options and opportunities, and will drive the need for additional analysis and a deeper understanding of how cloud computing technologies can be used to improve mission performance…

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