Cloud Computing Resources for Policymakers
The documents below are studies and reports on cloud computing that provide a good overview and introduction to what cloud computing is and what the major policy issues are. They are useful ways for policymakers to familiarize themselves with these important issues, and come from think tanks, university researchers and consulting firms. They sometimes advocate positions which might not necessarily be those of SIIA or its member companies. See the documents on the side for policy positions SIIA advocates.
SIIA RESOURCES:
Guide to Cloud Computing for Policymakers, SIIA, July 2011.
This paper is a guide to cloud computing for policymakers. It explains that cloud computing is not a new, nor singular technology, but rather an evolving mechanism for IT consumption and delivery, provisioning a wide variety of computing services from remote locations.
OUTSIDE RESOURCES:
Policy Challenges of Cross-Border Cloud Computing, Renee Berry and Matthew Reisman, USTR, May 2012
This article provides an overview of the global market for cloud services, and an excellent resource for policymakers' questions about cloud computing and how to enable greater adoption.
Envisioning the Cloud: The Next Computing Paradigm, Marketspace, Jeffrey F. Rayport and Andrew Heyward, March 2009.
This report provides an excellent overview of the development and potential of cloud computing.
The End of Corporate Computing, Nicholas Carr, MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring 2005 Vol. 46, No. 3.
This makes the case that it is inefficient for individual institutions to operate their own computer systems and they should be centralized in a computer utility, the way that electric power was a century ago. The key is the presence, now, of sufficient bandwidth capacity in communications networks to allow centralization of computer functions.
Exploring the Future of Cloud Computing: Riding the Next Wave of Technology-Driven Transformation, World Economic Forum, Spring 2010. Explores the benefits of cloud computing adoption, with an emphasis on it's potential for economic growth and job creation.
Saving Money Through Cloud Computing, Darrell West, Brookings Institution, April 2010
West reviews the cost saving potential of cloud computing for the federal government, and concludes that that agencies could save between 25 and 50 percent savings in moving to the cloud.
Steps to Improve Cloud Computing in the Public Sector, Darrell West, Brookings Institution, July 2010.
West lays out some policy recommendations cloud computing including updating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, harmonizing laws on cloud computing in different countries so as to reduce current inconsistencies in regard to privacy, data storage, security processes , and providing for mechanisms for data exchange to allow portability across platforms.
Privacy and Security in Cloud Computing, Darrell West and Allan Friedman, Brookings Institution, October 2010.
West and Friedman review the privacy and security issues in cloud computing and conclude that it has the potential to generate innovation without sacrificing privacy and security.
Internet Matters: The Net's Sweeping Impact on Growth, Jobs and Prosperity, McKinsey & Co., May 2011.
This report estimates that the Internet contributes 3.4 percent to GDP, creates 2.6 jobs for each lost to technology related efficiencies, and contributed 21% of economic growth over the last 5 years. The cloud is a natural evolution of the Internet. The report describes the advantages of cloud computing as resource pooling and the near-unlimited ability to enlarge or reduce computing resources and concludes that by 2015 it could account for 20% of IT spending.
The Economics of Cloud Computing, Frederico Etro, The IUP Journal of Managerial Economics, Vol. IX, No. 2, 2011
This study finds that cloud computing tends to increase business formation in European economies. Cloud computing reduces the costs of entry into a market by shifting fixed capital expenditures on information technology into operating expenses that depend on the size of a company’s output, spurring the formation of new firms. It’s easier for companies to get started when they can buy the computing services they need rather than invest in expensive large-scale computer hardware and software.
The Cloud Dividend: Part One, Center for Economic and Business Research
This study takes into account the economy-wide costs savings and new revenue opportunities made possible by cloud computing in five European countries.
The Cloud Dividend: Part Two: The economic benefits of cloud computing to business and the wider EMEA economy: Comparative analysis of the impact on aggregated industry sectors, Center for Economic and Business Research, February 2011.
This study analyzes the impact of cloud computing on various industries. Distribution, retail & hotels accounts for €233 billion of the cumulative economic gain through 2015, and government, education and health will gain the largest number of jobs - 801,000 - over this period. Banking has the second highest economic gain with €183 million and manufacturing is the second biggest beneficiary of job gains at 501,000 jobs. So the economic benefits are wide-spread.
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