Dedicated Google cloud for government customers in the US. Today, we're excited to announce our intent to create a government cloud, which we expect to become operational in 2010. Offering the same services and features as our existing commercial cloud (such as Google Apps), this dedicated environment within existing Google facilities in the US will serve the unique needs of US federal, state, and local governments. It is similar to a "Community Cloud" as defined by the National Institute for Science and Technology. The government cloud will allow Google to manage and meet additional government policy requirements beyond FISMA.
Finally the Obama administration is doing something I support.
Surely it must be a fluke!
How will the entrenched bureaucracy respond to this?
Done right, this should represent huge cost saving for the feds allowing them to dispense with redundant re-invent the wheel projects (of the sort I was once a part). Yes, that means people out of work, but hopefully out of work doing useless things and re-deployed doing useful things.
The biggest pushback however won't be from downsized consultants but from permanent government staff who "manage" these projects. The size of the budgets assigned to them to do things like replacing everyone's desktop hardware and software every two years they see as an indicator of their importance even though in most cases they have little understanding of the technologies they are responsible for.
Web based applications don't need the latest hardware or software and eventually could be cheaply run on devices that would be impervious to malware and would only need to be replaced when power supplies burned out etc.
This is a ways off for both government and many businesses but the trend in that direction is looking stronger all the time.
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