Does cloud computing give you a headache?

The Fed Cloud Blog told you earlier this week about a recent survey of federal IT professionals by InformationWeek. The survey showed 58 percent of respondents are either already using cloud computing or plan to be using it within the next 12 months.

Federal News Radio wanted some more information on the survey, so we asked John Foley, the editor of InformationWeek Government, to join us on In Depth with Francis Rose. Foley says dealing with the administration’s cloud-first policy is giving some IT professionals a headache. Listen to the full interview here.

Francis also spoke to Bob Otto this week about how to consolidate data centers effectively. (Data center consolidation is another of the administration’s top IT priorities.)

Otto was the former chief information officer at the U.S. Postal Service and offered some advice on how cloud computing fits in to data center consolidation.

Survey: What feds really think about cloud computing

29 percent of federal IT professionals are currently using cloud computing and another 29 percent plan to be using it within the next 12 months, according to the latest survey from InformationWeek Government and InformationWeek Analytics.

InformationWeek surveyed 137 federal IT pros for the survey.

Some of the other major findings in the survey:

• 21 percent say they are shifting to cloud services to comply with guidance from the Office of Management and Budget.
• 62 percent say they are taking the jump into the cloud to lower IT costs.
• 77 percent say security is a major concern in moving to the cloud.
• 46 percent say they are “already using or highly likely to use private clouds.”
• 11 percent say they are “highly likely to adopt commercial cloud services.”
• 22 percent say they are likely to use commercial clouds that have been adapted for government customers.
• 44 percent are unfamiliar with FedRAMP. (FedRAMP was established “to provide a standard approach to assessing and authorizing cloud computing services and products” across government, according to the CIO Council website.)
• 53 percent are unfamiliar with NIST’s new program, the Standards Acceleration to Jumpstart Adoption of Cloud Computing. (SAJACC helps develop cloud computing standards.)

Cloud news roundup

Happy holidays!

On this Monday, we bring you a roundup of cloud news, just in case you weren’t paying attention over the weekend.

A recent article in Ecommercetimes says that cloud computing will only become more popular in the public sector during 2010.

Bob Flores, a former fed himself, writes that cloud adoption is inevitable for government, mainly because of the money-saving possibilities:

“Since the government is dependent upon taxpayer dollars, the defense and intelligence fields must be as frugal as possible when considering infrastructure spending. Computing and organizing large amounts of data on a limited budget is a significant challenge for defense and intelligence agencies. Cloud computing offers a solution to this problem by allowing the government to cut IT expenses while increasing scalability and improving data and applications management. However, the government sales Download Free eBook – The Edge of Success: 9 Building Blocks to Double Your Sales cycles are slow and are resistant to major changes in infrastructure. Cloud computing hopes to break the Federal late adoption model and appears to be making headway, driven by the economic downturn and internal pressure to innovate.”

Jeffrey Kaplan of Seeking Alpha made some predictions at the beginning of this year, and examines how well he did in a recent post.

Among his thoughts — the Obama administration would put policies into place to promote on-demand services.

Seeing as how apps.gov premiered in September, we’d say Kaplan has a pretty good crystal ball (so to speak).

Another good read in terms of lists comes from Chris Murphy of InformationWeek, who examines his top five cover stories. (We particularly like this list because one of the headlines involves the word ‘squishy’.)

In his reflections and predictions, Murphy touts the concept of alternative IT making a difference next year.

Not everything is coming up roses for the cloud, though.

A New York Times blog post directs the reader to the January, 2010, issue of Technology Review, where security — or the possible lack thereof — is raised as an issue that shouldn’t be ignored next year.

Also, author Tim Bajarin predicts in Computerworld that cloud computing will suffer a setback next year if cyber criminals can figure out how to exploit vulnerabilities in the cloud.

Well, whatever happens next year, FCB will bring you the latest.