Federal agencies make 2013 the year of cloud
December 30, 2013
Grazed from WashingtonPost. Author: Alex Rossino.
This past year will long be remembered by government contractors as the year that federal cloud adoption began in earnest. Between October 2012 and September 2013, federal agencies awarded over $17 billion in cloud computing-related contracts. After a couple of years evaluating and piloting cloud technology, federal customers dove in headfirst, awarding large contracts, such as the Interior Department’s $10 billion Foundation Cloud Hosting Services program and the CIA’s hotly contested $600 million cloud infrastructure award.
Practically every federal agency awarded cloud-related contracts in fiscal 2013, but this growth was not evenly distributed across the government. Awards by civilian agencies totaled $16.5 billion, far outstripping the $65 million in total awards made by defense agencies and the military services…
Why the discrepancy? Two critical factors come to mind: security and mission requirements. Concern about the security of data in commercial clouds is a hurdle that the Defense Department has been slow to overcome…
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