Proposed 2010 federal budget supports cloud growth, virtualization

President Barack Obama’s recently released 2012 federal budget outline includes proposals to analyze and improve inefficiencies found among the government’s data centers. The outline calls for implementation of cloud computing and virtualization as a way to lower IT spending, while increasing productivity.

"In the proposed budget, planned spending on IT is expected to reach $79.5 billion, up 2 percent from 2010 enacted levels of $78 billion,” Barclays Capital said in a note to clients. “This modest increase is actually better than we had expected - we expected a cut.”

In 1998, the government employed just 432 data centers; however, that figure jumped by 385 percent during the next 12 years, with 2,094 existing in 2010. The newly proposed budget, through the help of cloud computing and virtualization as managed IT services, will lower the total to 1,284 by 2015, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

The federal government has been publicly active in the technology field during the last week. White House officials recently released an outline for its cloud adoption strategy, while those at the Pentagon announced they’ll be seeking $500 million in funds to investment cyber securities, which including cloud computing.