Relatively small increases in cloud spending as a percentage of overall IT budgets is largely a result of not considering cloud computing services for about 67 percent of IT investments, GAO has said in calling for additional opportunities and savings to be pursued.
It looked at GSA, the Small Business Administration and the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, State and Treasury, and said that overall the total number of cloud computing services implemented increased by 80 services, from 21 to 101, but that’s just a one percent increase.
The agencies said to a large extent they are maintaining legacy investments in operations and maintenance and only plan to consider cloud options for some investments when they are to be modernized or replaced, according to GAO-14-753.
However, GAO point to OMB policy that calls for cloud solutions to be considered first whenever a secure, reliable, and cost-effective option exists regardless of where the investment is in its life cycle. Until the agencies fully assess all IT investments, they will not be able to achieve the resulting benefits of operational efficiencies and cost savings, GAO concluded.
The agencies generally agreed with recommendations to assess a range of IT investments that have yet to be evaluated for suitability for cloud computing services.
