Evidence has emerged that federal agencies are not necessarily as keen to consolidate physical datacenters into computing clouds as the Cloud-First Policy would need to succeed. But analysts at IDC and Forrester agree that there are sufficient drivers already in place to keep the cloud rolling into the federal government after Vivek Kundra steps down next month.
“Of course, there's plenty of speculation on 'what next' after Vivek heads out next month, but I think that there are a lot of agency CIOs who are committed to most of the initiatives that he set in motion,” said Thom Rubel, vice president of IDC’s Government Insights unit. “Part of that is due to the fact that Vivek is a collaborator and he brought the CIO council along by providing leadership, creating focus, and getting buy-in.”
In the process, Rubel added, Kundra led agencies over the inertia hump, such that they are less risk-averse, and more educated about the various cloud options and issues, armed with knowledge of the benefits.
[Part 1: Will Cloud-First carry on without Kundra?]
“Budget is such a big driver right now,” Rubel said, that agencies, much like commercial counterparts, simply cannot afford not to consider the cloud as part of the purchasing process for new applications, hardware, and platforms – and not just because it’s federal policy.
Indeed, the need for agencies to leverage and share common tools is the most potent driver of could computing, according to Chip Gliedman, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.
“Just yesterday, I was talking with another agency that was developing its plans to move its contact center infrastructure to the cloud over time,” said Gliedman. “Simply put, this move will allow them to have a single, nationwide infrastructure that can be accessed over the Internet, allowing the creation, if needed, of a single virtual contact center and CRM infrastructure.”
That’s just one example, of course. Gliedman continued that the quicker time-to-value and lower up-front expenditures make the cloud model particularly attractive in these tight financial times where every dollar is under scrutiny.
“So, I do believe that we’ll continue to see an increase in the use of cloud continuing past the reign of the current Federal CIO,” Gliedman said.
Nothing is guaranteed, however, and another question is whether or not Kundra’s vision of consolidating 800 datacenters will be successful.
As Katherine Broderick, also an IDC analyst, whose research focuses on datacenters, explained, the “government is a laggard now as it pertains to cloud.”
That is changing, thanks in part to Kundra’s Cloud-First Policy, she added, and because there are so many datacenters operating at such low utilization, the policy could be very effective over the long-term.
But only if the agencies carry it forward.
“Time will tell if the plan Kundra started will continue after he leaves,” said Broderick.
