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An Economic Argument for Cloud Computing

October 21, 2009 By Kevin Merritt

Photo: Kevin Merritt, CEO and founder, Socrata Inc./Photo courtesy of Socrata Inc.

Now is not the time to take on large capital expenditures. Yet with the federal government and an ever growing number of states, counties and cities focused on making more and more data available online, the challenge is daunting for CIOs. The federal government alone has more than 24,000 Web sites, many of which host data.

Government transparency is not a trend that is going away anytime soon. CIOs will continue to be measured by their ability to make public data available to the masses. As we recently commemorated the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, we remember that for many the answer was "blowin' in the wind." Today, for CIOs and CTOs, the answer to reduced budgets and increased expectations may be living in the cloud.

Cloud computing will allow CIOs to pay for what they use and combine purchasing power across agencies, states, towns, cities or counties. At the same time, it still allows governments to control their data, monitor and measure the data's use and deliver the promises of government transparency. Many may argue -- fallaciously -- that cloud computing is not secure. However, these arguments are largely focused on private information, whether it be personally identifiable data or classified. The cloud actually lets the government better monitor the use of public data. Also, let's remember the data that is being made available to the public at large is just that, public, so it does not require the type of security needed for classified information.

CIOs face three key challenges as the pent-up demand for government data reaches its apex:

Political: From President Obama to our nation's governors and mayors, there is a commitment to open communication, transparency and civic participation.
Technological: Most government data sets are not in a format for consumption by nongovernment audiences.
Economic: Now is not the time to ask for added budget.

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