eDiscovery Daily Blog
eDiscovery Trends: NY Times Says US Government Has Its Head in the Clouds
No, this isn’t a post bashing our government – you can find plenty of articles on the web for that! 😉
As noted a few months ago, Forrester and Gartner have predicted big growth for the cloud computing industry, with Forrester predicting nearly a six-fold growth in nine years. Many organizations are finding that cloud computing solutions, including Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for using applications over the web, are saving those organizations significant costs over the costs of having to provide their own software, hardware and infrastructure. In eDiscovery, these SaaS solutions support every phase of the EDRM life cycle, from Identification to Presentation.
Earlier this week, the New York Times published an article entitled Tight Budget? Look to the ‘Cloud’, written by Vivek Kundra, the Obama administration’s chief information officer from 2009 until earlier this month. Mr. Kundra noted that there were “vast inefficiencies” in the $80 billion federal IT budget when he took office, and that the Defense Department spent $850 million over ten years on one personnel system alone.
In response, Kundra and his staff instituted a “Cloud First” policy, which advocates the adoption of cloud computing solutions by government agencies. It even went as far as to mandate the transition of at least three projects for every agency to the cloud by next summer. As a result, some agencies, such as the General Services Administration, have embraced cloud computing and cut IT costs on some systems by over 50 percent.
Some agencies, like the State Department, have balked at the transition to the cloud, citing security concerns. However, Kundra notes that “cloud computing is often far more secure than traditional computing, because companies…can attract and retain cyber-security personnel of a higher quality than many governmental agencies”. Here is an example of the security associated with cloud based solutions, using the facility used by CloudNineDiscovery (formerly Trial Solutions). As you will see, there are numerous mechanisms to secure sensitive client data.
Kundra notes that a shift to cloud-based services in health care alone to achieve a 1 percent productivity increase over ten years would result in a $300 billion savings. Noting significant growth in cloud computing in Japan and India, he advocates the creation of a global Cloud First policy to enable nations to determine how the flow of information internationally should be handled, leading to global efficiencies.
So, what do you think? Do you use any cloud based solutions in managing your discovery needs? Please share any comments you might have or if you'd like to know more about a particular topic.
Full disclosure: I work for CloudNine Discovery (formerly Trial Solutions), which provides SaaS-based eDiscovery review applications FirstPass® (for first pass review) and OnDemand® (for linear review and production). Our clients’ data is hosted in a secured Tier 4 Data Center in Houston, Texas.
Have a Happy Labor Day!