Uncle Sam takes to the Cloud

The United States government is embracing the cloud computing model in an effort to address its rising IT costs.  US federal CIO Vivek Kundra recently announced the launch of the Apps.gov website where US government agencies can acquire and deploy cloud computing applications.  While sensitive and secret data will continue to be handled by secure government-operated facilities, there is vast potential for savings for Uncle Sam if agencies can leverage low-cost, web-based technologies for routine, non-sensitive applications.

Cloud service infrastructure and application providers like Amazon and Google are certainly eying the public sector market with keen interest. The US government alone spends over $75-billion on IT, for example.  These technology companies are thus working hard to address issues related to the security, privacy, and data management concerns that are typically associated with a move to the cloud computing paradigm.