Highlighting some lessons learned by federal cloud users
January 29, 2014
Grazed from FCW. Author: Frank Konkel.
A study released Jan. 28 by Meritalk highlights the pros and cons of federal cloud adoption since the Office of Management and Budget’s "Cloud First" policy mandated just over three years ago that agencies begin migrating services. The study is full of interesting tidbits from 15 federal IT leaders who have executed cloud migrations, but the general consensus is that while change is a challenge, cloud computing is the real deal in terms of savings and efficiencies improvements.
But cloud success and mastery – as with any other IT challenge -comes only from hard work and intelligent management practices. "If we had defined our expectations when we started, it would be easier to answer whether the benefits from our cloud computing initiative were less than or greater than expected," said Daniel McCrae, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Services Delivery Division…
NOAA was an early and successful adopter, moving its email and emergency messaging system to the cloud. The move cut costs and improved communication at the agency. The report puts hard numbers to some cloud projects, too. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives moved its email to the cloud, resulting in $1 million in annual savings, according to CIO Rick Holgate…
Read more from the source @ http://fcw.com/articles/2014/01/28/meritalk-cloud-study.aspx