Fed CIO: Cut costs with the cloud

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra is fired up about cloud computing. On April 7, he delivered a spirited keynote address on the the potential economic benefits of cloud computing (check out the slide presentation [PDF] or read a transcript of the talk):

There was a time when every household, town, farm or village had its own water well. Today, shared public utilities give us access to clean water by simply turning on the tap. Cloud computing works in much the same way. However, instead of water coming from a tap, users access computing power from a pool of shared resources. Just like the tap in your kitchen, cloud computing services can be turned on or off as needed, and when the tap isn’t on, not only can the water be used by someone else, but you aren’t paying for resources that you don’t use. Cloud computing is a new model for delivering computing resources — such as networks, servers, storage, or software applications.

It may be a little simplistic, but it’s interesting to see the continued promotion of cloud computing by a government leader, one who must deal with both the feds’ immense size and their legendary inability to change quickly. Indeed, the federal government spends over $76 billion annually on more than 10,000 systems to support 300 million-plus Americans, according to Kundra’s presentation. That technology infrastructure is “fragmented and inefficient,” says Kundra, who adds that “the number of federal data centers has grown from 432 to more than 1,100.” As a taxpayer who just filed, I’m not happy with that.

Will cloud computing be a catalyst for change? Kundra is right to shine a light on the inefficiencies of government, and I have little doubt cloud computing is part of the solution. However, the scale of the change required suggests a decade-long march, if not longer. Several administrations will have to keep beating this drum, and agency CIOs will have to get on board.

As you may remember, a cloud computing mandate now in effect stipulates that agency CIOs must begin adopting cloud computing by 2012 or explain their reasons for not doing so. I’m curious to see who makes the move and who will claim their systems are exempt. I suspect many will opt for the exempt status for some lame reason or another.

While not all applications and data sets fit the cloud computing model, there are private cloud options, and many core systems can be shifted to the public cloud. But getting there requires objective analysis, and no one wants to rationalize themselves out of a job.

I’m encouraged by Kundra thus far. Over the long haul, I’m hopeful that government will reduce waste by moving to the cloud, even if it has to be dragged kicking and screaming to get there.

This article, “Fed CIO: Cut costs with the cloud,” originally appeared at InfoWorld.com. Read more of David Linthicum’s Cloud Computing blog and follow the latest developments in cloud computing at InfoWorld.com.