GovCloud Predicitons for 2011

Happy New Year All!!

2011 will be the breakout year for GovCloud! Pressure to reduce budget, pressure to manage I resources better and the political pressure of the next presidential election will combine to accelerate adoption. The GSA IaaS groundwork has been laid and new policies are just about ready to be released !!

Here are my predictions for GovCloud!

1. The US Federal government will award over $2B in cloud computing related contracts. The USDA and GSA email deals are just the beginning. GSA final approval to the 11 government IaaS awardees will open the floodgate to rapid cloud experimentation. Lack of a final 2011 Federal budget will make cloud computing one of the few viable options for executing new IT programs next year.
2. The European Union will establish a European community cloud computing strategy and governance framework similar to the US FedRAMP program. Even with its flaws, FedRamp will become a model for government cloud adoption globally. The European Community won’t just standby and let American global cloud computing hegemony reign wild.
3. Major cyber attacks coupled with the rapid adoption of cloud computing by governments will cause a crescendo in security concerns. Wikileakes is just the beginning! The general public will not recognize the technical distinctions between events and clump them all into the category of “attacks on the cloud”. Politicians out of power will rant and rave about how cloud computing threatens US national security. Cybersecurity wonks from both sides of the aisle will do major battle.
4. Concerns regarding national sovereignty vis-à-vis economic advantages of using cloud computing threaten to slow the growth of international government cloud computing. Other countries will take note of the Korean cloud computing industry’s rapid rise. Government leaders will then focus on the politics of not having their own national cloud computing capability.
5. Major cloud providers will adopt common, interoperable infrastructure-as-a-service technical standards.Cloud computing network effect will trump industrial rivalry. This transition will drive all towards making IaaS even more of a commodity through the adoption of interoperable virtual machine and cloud storage standards.

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