Federal Cloud Computing Strategy Update

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The following short slide deck provides insights into the challenges facing the US government in streamlining its use of IT and the promising results achieved to date.  Vivek Kundra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer authored these slides, which taken together underscore the urgency of managing government IT to performance benchmarks.  Highlights from this short deck include the following points:

• The typical U.S. Government Server has a 27% Manufacturing Capacity Utilization Rate, while the industry standard Manufacturing Capacity Average Utilization is 79%.

• From 1998 to 2010, the U.S. Government grew its total data centers from 432 to 2,094.  IBM had 235 data centers in 1997 and 12 by 2009.

• Vivek Kundra estimates $20B of the total $80B US Federal Budget on IT will be for Cloud-based spending in 2012.

• Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Treasury and Department of Defense are the three largest potential consumers of cloud computing IT systems and services according to Mr. Kundra’s analysis. His slides show that an estimates $2.5B spending each for DHS and Treasury departments alone.

• The benefits of having a more coordinated IT plan government-wide are also shared briefly.  Health and Human Services (HHS) for example has been able to significantly reduce go-live dates of systems from over a year to 3 months and have made electronic medical records available to approximately 100,000 practitioners. Cloud e-mail migration at the General Service Administration (GSA) and two projects at the Department of Defense are also profiled in this short deck.

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