Moving Day

July is the most popular month to move, according to the American Moving and Storage Association.

Homeowners and renters aren’t the only ones boxing up their paperbacks and photo albums. Federal agencies are doing the same thing. But they’re moving to the cloud.

Packing Up
The Department of Defense (DoD) may have the most boxes to pack, so MeriTalk produced a new report that focuses on the agency’s efforts to migrate apps to the cloud.

Turns out they’ve done some heavy lifting already – 57 percent of DoD apps in the cloud today were migrated from legacy systems, according to “DoD’s Move to the Cloud: Box it Up or Build New?

Liking the New Neighborhood
Moving is hard on everyone, not just the people lifting those heavy boxes, but DoD sees a lot of advantages from moving apps to the cloud:

  • 87 percent say cloud provides greater agility
  • 87 percent say it saves money
  • 87 percent say it saves time
  • 86 percent say it provides better security

Build New
Sometimes DoD doesn’t have to pack up and move anything – that’s because 43 percent of the apps in the cloud today were built there. That’s a good way to avoid hurting your back.

Rather than move apps from legacy systems, 52 percent of IT professionals said the smarter move is building apps in the cloud. Why?

  • 56 percent cite better security
  • 51 percent cite the speed of deployment
  • And 48 percent cite the opportunity to reduce redundancies

But 43 percent also cite lack of funding as their biggest hurdle preventing them from building new apps in the cloud.

Settling In
DoD is nesting, and they can’t wait to do more to make cloud feel like home. The agency hopes to have 57 percent of all applications in the cloud by 2020, MeriTalk says in the report, “DoD’s Move to the Cloud: Box it Up or Build New?

Even though DoD wants to have 57 percent of apps in the cloud in five years, budget pressures could mean the agency has just 24 percent of apps in the cloud by 2020.

DoD is a Big Deal
We all know DoD has the biggest house on the block. It will account for 37 percent of all the money Federal agencies will spend on cloud computing in the current fiscal year, or $772.9 million of a total $2.05 billion, according to the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group’s report.

So it’s good to keep up with our friends at the Pentagon.

See “DoD’s Move to the Cloud: Box it Up or Build New?” here. And tell us your agency’s plan for moving apps to the cloud. Does it have one? Is it better to move apps from legacy systems or build new apps in the cloud? Does that save money? Let us know what works for your agency so we can spread the word.

Feel like sharing something Noteworthy? Post a comment below or email me at bglanz@300brand.com.

Bill Glanz is the content director for MeriTalk and its Exchange communities. In the past 14 years, he has worked as a business reporter, press secretary, and media relations director in Washington, D.C.