Tripwire Survey: Feds Rapidly Adopting Cloud

Chris Talbot| Talkincloud

Although there may still be some security concerns related to cloud, the U.S. federal government is chugging along at a rapid pace in its adoption of cloud computing technologies. The results of a survey of federal IT professionals from Tripwire shows that cloud adoption within the federal government has increased by 400 percent.

According to the second annual survey, security concerns are often cited as roadblocks, but the feds’ Cloud First policy seems to have been taken seriously by the various agencies and departments within its purview.

“The data indicates that this move is working—not only do stakeholders perceive improved security from this initiative, they are showing confidence by moving more important data and workloads into the cloud,” said Dwayne Melancon, chief technology officer for Tripwire.

Not only that, but the survey results showed a “slow but steady increase” in the adoption of baseline security controls. Part of the reason for that is the adoption of FedRAMP’s baseline security controls, which are helping to mitigate some risk, Melancon said.

A few other key findings from the survey include:

• Of the 100 U.S. federal IT professionals surveyed, 58 percent said federal initiatives designed to encourage cloud adoption have improved security.
• Four times more respondents said they are outsourcing at least a third of their IT infrastructure to cloud vendors than in 2012.
• Half are moving moderate-impact data to the cloud, which is up from 31 percent in the 2012 survey.
• Of the respondents, 28 percent said FedRAMP’s baseline security controls have accelerated their agencies’ migration to the cloud, which is up significantly from the 11 percent who said the same in the 2012 survey.

The federal cloud computing market is expected to continue growing at 32 percent annually over the next three years, according to Deltek. And at least some of those sales are going to channel partners, creating a huge and growing opportunity for partners playing in the cloud space.