Cloud computing is steadily working its way into the U.S. federal government, potentially simplifying access to information for the public, but also creating some consternation over who ultimately controls that data.
Some federal agency managers are reluctant to hand over their data to cloud computing providers, for fear of diminished security or potential hassles should they need to switch vendors, according to an article on FederalTimes.com.
But the government’s growing appetite for collecting information is forcing agencies to consider the promised benefits of cloud computing, such as storing and managing their data for less money and the ability to access data from any device over the Internet. The latter is a major tenet of the Obama administration’s push to make more data accessible to the public, and to increase productivity by allowing employees to access systems and files remotely, or via the cloud.