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'Cloud First' Becoming Common in California, Other States

The California Department of Technology issued a directive in mid-2014 telling state agencies and departments to shift to a "cloud computing first” stance when considering new projects. Two years later, cloud-first has become the norm rather than the exception across the country.

The California Department of Technology issued a directive in mid-2014 telling state agencies and departments to shift to a "cloud computing first” stance when considering new projects. Two years later, cloud-first has become the norm rather than the exception across the country.

An annual survey of state CIOs illustrates this fact: Over 70 percent of state CIOs say they have a "cloud-first" policy that's formal, informal or in development.

California's "cloud-first" policy is formal, spelled out in a management memo. In that respect, California is out in front. According to the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) 2016 survey, 17 percent of respondents said their state has a formal policy for cloud first. Another 37 percent said their policy is informal and on a case-by-case basis. Another 17 percent said their state is developing such a policy. About one-fourth said their state has no plans for a "cloud first" policy.

One state CIO summed up how the tide has moved: Cloud first is antiquated. It's artificially restraining. If you're doing what you should be doing, you are creating an environment where modern software capabilities transcend that question."

The survey also asked CIOs about migrating legacy applications to the cloud. Forty percent said they have a strategy in place; 36 percent said a policy is in development; 24 percent said no strategy is planned. The California Department of Technology has developed an onboarding process and consulting services vehicle to help agencies and departments move their solutions into the cloud.

The top five categories of services that state CIOs plan to migrate or have finished moving to the cloud are email and collaboration tools (91 percent), storage (88 percent), disaster recovery (85 percent), office productivity tools (81 percent) and digital archives (76 percent).

The private cloud seems to be more commonplace than the public cloud for states that are moving systems. State CIOs said 51 percent of their migrated systems are in the private cloud, versus just 25 percent in the private cloud. Just 16 percent are in a hybrid cloud.

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Source: NASCIO

Matt Williams was Managing Editor of Techwire from June 2014 through May 2017.