Jane Edwards
A new MeriTalk report has found that 80 percent of information technology leaders at the Defense Department said their agency needs to ramp up cloud adoption to execute their missions and keep up the military’s technical edge.
MeriTalk said Tuesday the “Innovation Imperative: The Drive to Modernize DoD” report underwritten by Red Hat and Amazon Web Services is based on a survey of 150 DoD IT decision makers.
The survey showed that IT managers, on average, suggested that DoD should migrate at least 50 percent of on-premises data to cloud environments.
At least 80 percent of respondents said they see the cloud’s role as a framework for next-generation technologies such as shared services, electronic warfare and big data analytics, according to the report.
The study showed that 53 percent of IT decision-makers who consider themselves “early adopters†of cloud said they are “very satisfied†with the capability of their agencies’ technology tools to support national security and defense missions compared with 11 percent of respondents who are described as “cloud laggards.â€
MeriTalk noted that 96 percent of respondents said IT modernization is needed, while 86 percent of IT managers associated the failure to update IT systems with national security risks.
The report also revealed that 83 percent of IT decision-makers at the Pentagon have expressed concerns about the ability of potential adversaries such as Russia and China to outpace the U.S. in the adoption of innovative technologies.
