Defense agencies desire cloud but unsure of budget

Defense Department agencies would like to move 57 percent of their applications to the cloud by 2020 but only think budgets will allow 24 percent of these applications to make the transition, according to a recent MeriTalk report.

The report, called “Box it Up or Build New?” and underwritten by General Dynamics Information Technology, examines where agencies stand in their move to the cloud and which method they plan to take.

There is no argument that agencies understand the utility of the cloud, with benefits such as improved agility, lower costs, and saved time being recognized by 87 percent of respondents, the report said.

As far as the method by which agencies are converting to the cloud, 57 percent of respondents reported that they were migrating from legacy applications, with 43 percent building anew in the cloud. In the future, building is preferred over migrating legacy applications (52 percent versus 18 percent).

The biggest challenges to converting to the cloud include lack of funding (43 percent), integration challenges (41 percent) and length of time needed to develop requirements and launch (34 percent).

Click here to download the report.