Security is rapidly changing from one of the biggest barriers to government adoption of the cloud to a major motivation for making the migration.
IT research and advisory firm Gartner projects that that by 2018, increased security will displace cost savings and agility as the primary driver for government agencies to move to public cloud within their jurisdictions.
Public cloud options now offer the scalability, computing power, storage and security to better enable digital government platforms and meet rising expectations for performance and value,” the research firm explained.
"Many cloud service providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google, invest heavily in incorporating higher levels of security into their products to continue building confidence that their data is more secure," said Neville Cannon, research director at Gartner.
"Many of these providers can invest more than what most nations could afford, let alone the average government agency,” he added.
Hindrances remain, however, as nationalism and concerns about data sovereignty will slow benefit realization, as cost savings and agility are maintained as subsidiary drivers in the belief that data is more secure when retained within its jurisdiction.