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Trump wants government on the cloud

by on14 December 2017


Make it easier for Russians to access

US comedy president Donald (prince of orange) Trump is apparently very enthusiastic about shoving lots of government data onto the clouds.

Apparently Trump has heard that lots of businesses are sticking data onto clouds, which is handy because now he has scientifically proven that climate change is a myth the US is going to be covered with a big CO2 cloud.

He thinks that the US government needs a major overhaul of information technology systems and should take steps to better protect data and accelerate efforts to use cloud based technology.

There is apparently a timeline over the next year for IT reforms and a detailed implementation plan. Trump has even found a cloud-based email provider to assist in keeping track of government spending on cloud-based email migration.

It is all based on an internal report which said federal government must eliminate barriers to using commercial cloud-based technology.

"Federal agencies must consolidate their IT investments and place more trust in services and infrastructure operated by others", the report found. Government agencies often pay dramatically different prices for the same IT item, the report said, sometimes three or four times as much.

A 2016 US Government Accountability Office report estimated the US government spends more than $80 billion on IT annually but said spending has fallen by $7.3 billion since 2010.

In 2015, there were at least 7,000 separate IT investments by the U.S. government. The $80 billion figure does not include Defense Department classified IT systems and 58 independent executive branch agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency.

The GAO report found some agencies are using systems that have components that are at least 50 years old.

While moving to internet structures is all very well, it is somewhat a pity that another part of the Trump administration is dismantling net neutrality. This will ultimately make cloud systems more expensive as ISPs will charge cloud suppliers more because they are using more bandwidth.

There are also some security issues involved. Although cloud based systems are fairly secure, placing them on the internet does present a target for Russian hackers who don’t have to make an effort to break into a building where a secure off-the-grid server is based.

Last modified on 14 December 2017
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