Government agencies can save 25 to 50 percent of information technology infrastructure costs through cloud computing, says a new Brookings Institution paper.

Cost estimates of cloud computing have ranged wildly, with some analysts predicting savings of up to 80 percent while others have argued that cloud computing is in fact more expensive than the current data center approach toward sourcing computing power and applications.

The Brooking analysis examines seven examples of government agencies--four cities and three federal agencies--that transferred some functionality to a cloud.

NASA, through its Nebula cloud system, avoided purchasing extra servers to handle an anticipated spike in computing demand associated with analysis of data transmitted by the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS).

"Specific cost savings are hard to compute because the project did not exist prior to Nebula," writes paper author Darrell West, director of Brookings' governance studies.

However, if "the group had not used Nebula, they would have had to procure a lot of new infrastructure in order to have the computing and storage resources...once the project concluded, the group would have a bunch of hardware just sitting there," West adds.

The State Department contracted in 2008 with SalesForce.com for an application that would provide budget information for its Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund over the Internet. The contract was for $1.4 million, which State officials said amounted to one-quarter of what it would have cost had the application been done in house.

The Air Force's 45^th Space Wing virtualized their two data centers and commands, estimating it saved $180,000 annually as a result, West writes.

Challenges to cloud computing adoption include privacy and security concerns, as well as a lack of global uniformity on how cross-border cloud transactions must be treated, West concludes.

"It is hard to get the full efficiency of cloud computing when laws are inconsistent or contradictory," he states.

For more:
- read the Brookings Institution paper (.pdf)

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