The cloud buzz in the CGI booth at the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) annual meeting last week was palpable and not surprising given the growing number of cloud RFIs that we’ve seen lately from the defense and intelligence community.

Such activity may increase even further as these agencies look for ways to do more with less as a result of growing budget concerns. Understandably, this community had been more conservative about how and when to adopt new delivery models like the cloud for their programs. In many ways, the questions they are asking now about the various cloud models and security capabilities are similar to the questions civilian agencies were asking at the beginning of their cloud adoption curve.

There are some of the same misconceptions about what the cloud can and can’t do, and a need for greater education. For example, across the federal government, 88 percent of FISMA categorized systems are designated as low or moderate impact. Many defense and intelligence programs are not “top secret” and are good candidates for cloud infrastructure as a service. As an example, CGI works with a number of training organizations that are thinking about how to make their programs more accessible to servicemen and women wherever they are and whenever needed.

The cloud is an excellent delivery model for these programs to consider for enabling anywhere/anytime access to CBTs and individual learning modules. We see this cloud learning-curve phase for the defense and intelligence community as a harbinger for the next wave of building demand for cloud services.