Kundra: 25 percent of IT spending should to go to the cloud

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra’s recently released Federal Cloud Computing Strategy calls for about a quarter of federal IT spending to be committed to cloud systems.

Additionally, under the Cloud First program, agencies will be required to move three services to the cloud within 18 months, adopt a cloud model wherever feasible and evaluate cloud options before making investments. An estimated $20 billion of the federal government’s $80 billion in IT spending could be used for cloud computing, Kundra said in the report. The agencies expected to spend the most on cloud technology are the Homeland Security and Treasury departments, at approximately $2.4 billion apiece, followed by the Defense, Veterans Affairs and Transportation departments. Funding for the move will be created through data center consolidation. Kundra anticipates a 30 percent reduction in data center infrastructure costs by moving to cloud solutions, with similar efficiencies in software applications and end-user support.