In his commentary, “Getting smart about IT in a time of austerity” at Nextgov.com, August 15, 2011, Timothy Durniak explains a growing problem and it’s “forced” solution: “Without similarly dynamic technology underlying its services, government will not be able to adapt quickly or economically” to “serve its citizens” in a world, constantly changing by “global interconnectivity, cultural and societal revolutions, and technological advancements.”
Durniak says, “Lack of resources can force reactive IT solutions that maintain current systems, rather than drive innovation for improved services.” Looking for ways to “do more with less”, says Durniak, [governing agencies can thrive in a depressed economy only] “if they shift to smarter computing systems designed and optimized to handle the perpetual churn of technological and societal change.” Enter: “the cloud.”
Apparently, our existing IT infrastructure is proving insufficient to contain, manage, secure, analyze, and access the oceans of data necessary to stay abreast of the constant barrage of newly appearing changes along with newly warranted controls by unprecedented demands in every sector: financial, medical, criminal, educational, and thousands of others.
And knowing Americans expect a government that delivers–without error or deficiency, with impeccable fairness and immpassable protection, our Lady Liberty scrambles to avoid the insults her children will hurl at her if she fails them. Recent history has proven that a majority of Americans, given the choice between pulling our belts a notch tighter to live within our means and/or keeping up with the Joneses, at home or abroad, would choose the latter. Economic prosperity is a higher priority to most than national security.
So, naturally, in these days of incredible political contention, governments are feeling the pressure, choosing the quickest, easiest fix to present itself, which is nothing less than a breed of outsourcing called, “the cloud.”
To date, several Federal and state government entities have already completed the transition from in-house computing to “the cloud”. . .saving millions of dollars in manpower and hardware. Who blazed the trail ahead of the rest? The U.S. Department of the Interior, the General Services Administration (GSA), the city of Norfolk, Virginia, North Carolina State University, and the California Alameda County Social Services Agency started the trend.
Incidentally, the GSA, after contracting with Microsoft as their cloud server, was brought to court by Google who charged the government agency with leaving them out of the bidding process. As usual, the fight over filthy lucre diverts attention from the weightier matters.
The question to focus on is whether security is compromised in cloud computing. Is sabatoge of the mammoth quantities of data more of a likelihood when it’s all sent to the cloud? With the trillions of bytes that keep our daily operations on track stored in remote vaults– it doesn’t get much easier.
Is operating in the cloud wreckless? An attempt to cover the inablity to technologically keep pace with business?
Is anyone concerned that the great soaring eagle maybe slowly morphing into a sitting duck?