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In 1965 there was a proposal to to create one massive federal data center. It was stopped by a public outcry about invasion of privacy and because it would have cost about $12 million a year. Instead, by 2011 there were 2,094 federal data centers scattered around the globe at a cost of about $80 billion/yr. Now they there’s concerted movement to reverse the trend, move to the cloud, and reduce the data center number by about half. So what is the US Government cloud progress and how fast is it moving? By all reports, progress is good and benefits are being realized faster than anyone expected. The results could be $18.8 billion in annual savings within a few years. How’s that for exceeding expectations? Looking at IT energy efficiency, sustainability and ultimately cloud IT, the US government is a most fascinating case to follow. They are the biggest IT user in the world. So the striking pace of cloud IT progress made across nearly every agency and department is impressive. There is a concerted effort to internalize cloud concepts with some demonstrated creativity on multiple fronts. These are political times and I have no intent to be political here. That said, the appointment of the first CIO for the United States in 2009 and an ongoing push by the White House that created the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy has certainly influenced the speed of government cloud adoption. Then, in May of this year, came a White House directive to launch “a comprehensive strategy to build a “21st Century Digital Government”. Steven VanRoekel, the current US CIO, calls it a “coordinated, information and customer-centric approach to changing how the government works and delivers services to the American people.” VanRoekel also shows the savings in his flat budget. And he shows it in his mission statement: “We will aspire to promote a bright and prosperous future for the United States through the strategic use of Federal Information Technology.”
Progress The government seems to recognize that they have some very big technology challenges and have put a very big emphasis on the journey. They’re making a lurching but impressive progress. Of course, with over 2000 data centers around the world, a bit of lurching is to be expected. Beyond the impetus to save dollars the emphasis upon delivering better services and sharing critical information across departments and agencies is emphasized repeatedly. Even the CIA is going all in. Their cloud will be private of course, but according to Gus Hunt, CTO of the Central Intelligence Agency "I have a petascale problem and need a petascale solution, to deliver capabilities we weren't able to deliver before at a scale and price and agility level we were never able to do before”. A number of other implementations are underway. Information Week published their list of the top ten indicators of government cloud progress with the intent to shift 20% of the $80 billion annual IT spend to cloud:
There is still lots to do. Security is still a big concern and mission critical apps in the cloud are moving slowly. But even there, 38% of agencies questioned have already moved at least one critical application to the cloud.
Culture Then there is federal culture. Fed culture ranges from smart & responsible use of taxpayer's money to silliness, waste and fraud - which has little or nothing to do with technology. It's the way of thinking that needs to change if the cloud technology is going to effectively deliver. So, as they save all that taxpayer money, they need to address the thinking that will help to take advantage of the new infrastructure and deliver better services too. Make the cultural shift. What we do in the US is very likely going to be different than what is done in the UK or Germany. But there are lessons we can learn from them and them from us. As you move to smaller countries and economies it will be different yet again. For example, I had a chance to learn about the current thinking in Poland and customer interest in virtualization and cloud. So far it’s a gradual virtualization adoption with considerable reluctance to embrace cloud - at least outside of institutional firewalls. The savings are enticing but trust is a big factor - a strong cultural bias toward maintaining direct physical control of data and infrastructure. Not trusting anyone else to safeguard it. Sound familiar? Now, you might be correct in thinking that it's only a matter of time before they "catch up". Or it just may be that the culture will keep them where they are - for awhile at least. In the interim US.gov will push ahead and it’ll be fun to watch.
More detail on the government IT plans and activity can be found at: My earlier posts regarding government cloud progress are linked below. The White House and Cloud Computing Security Government Cloud on the Fast Track
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