Bringing federal IT into the cloud
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The cloud improves security. The cloud saves taxpayer dollars. The cloud makes government more efficient.
That’s the message Mike Bradshaw, Director of Google Federal, will take to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform during today’s hearing on federal IT and cloud computing.
Mike’s testimony will highlight three main points:
- First, cloud computing can provide improved security. Under legacy computing models, data is stored on local computers – this is the equivalent of keeping cash under your mattress. Storing data securely in the cloud is like keeping cash in a bank. (To learn more, check out our Google Apps security whitepaper.)
- Second, the cloud can save taxpayer dollars. The Brookings Institution found that government agencies that switched to some form of cloud computing saw up to 50 percent savings. To put that in context, the federal government is currently spending $76 billion per year on IT, with $20 billion of that devoted to hardware, software and file servers.
- Third, in addition to securing data and lowering costs, cloud computing can improve efficiency and collaboration in ways that are simply not possible under the legacy IT model. Millions of individuals, businesses, and governments are already enjoying these benefits. We’re beginning to see federal cloud initiatives and more robust pilot programs, and we support efforts like FedRAMP to accelerate the process.
You can read Mike’s full written testimony here, and we’ll be posting video of the hearing here soon.
Update: Check out video of Mike's opening statement, below.
If one wished to audit access, assess content or apply role-based access, how would you do it? It is easy to, for example, set up a Sharepoint server for document sharing then learn you have to address a data leakage issue. There are third party products, such as Varonis, to review document content and access to documents on a Sharepoint server. Is there a similar solution if one decides to store their documents "in the cloud?"
ReplyDeleteI feel that the Google-China conflict is, sadly, an indicator of similar conflicts bound to occur in the future. At the end of the day, access to the Internet’s information empowers enables users them to hold others accountable.
ReplyDeleteGovernments should not be able to censor web content, yet regimes such as Vietnam, Iran, and China continue to do so; maintaining a populace that is vulnerable to grotesque abuses of civil and human rights.
It is both fortunate and unfortunate that Google is stuck in the middle of conflicting political ideologies; if it did not exist at all (or had pulled out of China when the conflict first arose) the Chinese people would have dramatically less exposure to new ideas then they do thanks to Google’s remaining presence. However, it is unfortunate that a company that so deeply prides itself on an anti “evil” corporate philosophy may have to comprise its core values to remain a part of the Chinese market.