Gap in the Clouds

MeriTalk Cloud Computing Exchange, a community of Federal cloud leaders focused on public-private collaboration and best practice exchange, today announced findings from a new study, "Cloudy with a Chance of Savings." The study, which identifies where the Federal government stands on cloud today and what the future holds for cloud adoption, reveals that Federal agencies are saving roughly $5.5 billion with cloud implementations today. This number pales then to the $12 billion annual savings estimates from the Cloud Computing Exchange Calculator, based on budget data input by Feds from real Information Innovation programs.

The inaugural Cloud Computing Brainstorm today

MeriTalk CCX announced these findings at the inaugural Cloud Computing Brainstorm today, co-hosted by Senators Carper and Brown. The program brought at the same time Federal and state chief information officers with industry executives to discuss cloud computing best practices, lessons learned, progress against FedRAMP, and fundamentally, to accelerate the government's path to cloud computing.

"At a time when we're facing record budget deficits, it's clear that the Federal government needs to do a better job of protecting our scarce taxpayer dollars and curbing wasteful spending on assets it doesn't need," said Senator Tom Carper,. "There's probably no better example of this financial mismanagement than the $80 billion we spend each year on IT. The Obama Administration has made remarkable progress in its efforts to reduce unnecessary IT spending, nevertheless we nevertheless have more work to do. That's why it's so important that we keep up this momentum and push forward on the Federal government's cloud computing initiative. By consolidating Federal data centers and moving the government to lighter, cheaper technologies, just as the cloud, we can provide better results for less money to the American people."

"What this survey shows us is that cloud computing is on track to enable a faster, smarter government," said Senator Scott Brown. "Open, honest debates like the Brainstorm encourage us to work at the same time to make better decisions. The Federal government should be one of the leaders of this pack."

The voice of tomorrow's government today

The voice of tomorrow's government today, MeriTalk is an online community and go-to resource for government IT. Focusing on government's hot-button issues, MeriTalk hosts Data Center Exchange, Cyber Security Exchange, and Cloud Computing Exchange - platforms dedicated to supporting public-private dialogue and collaboration. MeriTalk connects with an audience of 85,000 government community contacts. For more information, visit www.meritalk.com or follow us on Twitter, @meritalk.