Missile Defense Agency CIO likes what he sees from cloud computing

Friday, July 15, 2011

Jim Armstrong, chief information officer for the Missile Defense Agency, is confident in cloud computing and its potential to increase efficiency, service levels and management, according to a recent Computerworld report.

The agency felt that the cloud and other virtualization procedures could help it consolidate and better IT resources. According to Armstrong, the Missile Defense Agency uses its private cloud for "software-, platform-, infrastructure- and communications-as-a-service for our internal customers."

"For us or anyone else in IT services, this shift to the cloud is a logical technological progression," wrote Armstrong. "What's made cloud computing viable in today's world, besides the well-known server, storage and network virtualization technologies, is the huge improvement in the availability of bandwidth and communications connectivity at a reasonable cost."

With higher bandwith capacity than previously at its disposal, the agency is able to both use and provide cloud services, wrote Armstrong.

More organizations are looking to the cloud than ever before. According to a study by Avanade, 74 percent of organizations surveyed are currently using some form of cloud computing, which is a significant increase from the 25 percent who answered similarly in 2009.