Tactical or Strategic Cloud Services?
As presented in Network World, "The Equal Work Chance Commission (EEOC) expects to conserve 40 % over the next 5 years by changing its monetary management application to a cloud computing supplier-- an indication of the huge cost savings to come from the U.S. federal government's shift to the software-as-a-service model." Great, however not great.
The truth is that US government has a great deal of IT fat that can be punctured using cloud computing, with leveraging SaaS-based applications being the low hanging fruit. What's excellent about SaaS is that that business case is evident, and the cost savings are generally between 40 and 60 percent. Nevertheless, what's not so fantastic about SaaS is that you're only taking care of a single application domain and not the architecture holistically.
While the cost savings that the US government, and we as taxpayers, can delight in from cloud computing is considerable possibly tactical steps such as leveraging a single SaaS application just masks bigger more systemic problems. Undoubtedly, what's really needed is a general strategy around the use of cloud, and the architectural actions to get there. This consists of using other cloud options, such as IaaS and PaaS, in addition to SaaS.
The issue is that architectural modification around the use of brand-new technology, such as cloud computing, is hard while simply migrating from a single on premise application to a SaaS app is simple and quick. Nevertheless, the former offers many more effectiveness and expense savings when thinking about both the economies of the technologies along with the agility their use brings.
So, when government firms think cloud they have to thing long term and strategic, and not brief term and planned. We will all be much happier with completion outcome.