Cloud computing: Seriously, now, what's the point?

The federal government’s infatuation with cloud computing will go nowhere until agencies come up with real-life business case for the technology, according to one reader at GovLoop.

The reader was responding to a topic posted as part of the FCW Challenge, a joint FCW-GovLoop project to spark debate about key topics in the federal IT community.

Our thesis was that a mandate for the cloud is just wishing for pie in the sky. Although federal CIO Vivek Kundra wants every agency to jump into the cloud, he doesn’t really have the incentives—or sanctions—he needs to make this happen.

Srinidhi Boray agreed.

“Why engage with solution, when the problem has not been defined accurately,” Boray wrote. “Some of the agencies have also concluded that the cost savings, cost avoidance for IT portfolio cannot be established. This is despite the fact that agencies had earlier engaged Gartner wasting millions of dollars to conduct IT Optimization studies…. When agencies can successfully establish demonstrable clear cost savings and cost avoidance argument, cloud computing as a solution achieving ‘economy of scale’ driven by design considerations might be the inevitable choice.”

What do you think? Check out the conversation about cloud computing here.

You can also read more about the FCW Challenge here.

Here are the other topics up for debate:

Government social networks are Towers of Babel, doomed to topple.

The Open-Government Plan is Vaporware 2.0.

Acquisition 2.0 will give ethics officers the heebie-jeebies.

The federal workplace will never change. Telework? Fuggedaboudit!

Cybersecurity: This is a job for McGruff the Crime Dog.