While the technology industry is ga-ga over Cloud Computing, corporate CIOs seem less enthused. Early indications from ESG’s 2010 IT Spending survey indicate that cloud computing initiatives and priorities are near the bottom of the list. Why? Security and compliance concerns, lack of control, and technology immaturity top the list of issues.

So does this mean that cloud computing will be a no-show in 2010? Not at all. Cloud computing won’t gain widespread deployment, but we will see pockets of interest from bleeding edge companies and vertical industries. After doing some preliminary primary research, I believe that education will be one industry where cloud computing is poised to take off. Why?

1. Universities are already onboard. According to Educause, about 20% of universities have already moved to a SaaS model for e-mail. This isn’t limited to small schools; Clemson University, which has nearly 20,000 students, switched from webmail to Gmail several years ago. Many schools are also embracing or considering Google Apps.
2. Universities have a long history of academic cooperation. Whether through regional consortiums or technology, colleges and universities have long built cooperative relationships with other institutions. For example, the first Internet node was installed at UCLA and the first packets traveled between UCLA and Stanford (SRI). Faced with tax revenue deficits and budget issues, university systems have a tremendous financial incentive to build shared cloud computing facilities. Alternatively, leading institutions could recoup investment in HPC research computers by selling excess cloud capacity to smaller institutions.
3. Universities have the right identity infrastructure in place. Many schools have already built strong central identity management platforms using open standards around Web Services, Liberty, SAML, and XACML. Additionally, universities have been strong adopters of Federated Identity technologies like PKI, and InCommon. This identity infrastructure is necessary for central cloud services authentication, which is absolutely crucial for privacy, compliance, governance, and chargeback billing.

In addition to these factors, universities are notoriously lean when it comes to IT, therefore provisioning a service/application makes a lot more sense than provisioning IT technology infrastructure and then provisioning a service/application.

Finally, cloud computing will not be limited to higher education alone — actually, it is a perfect fit for K-12 as well. States could establish and run central cloud computing services for schools, eliminate the need for local IT and tech support, and level the playing computing field between rich and poor school districts.

In summary, cloud computing infrastructure, platforms, and applications fit education like a glove. Universities are already on board, so expect some of the most aggressive and creative cloud implementations to be based on campus. State and local governments that can overcome the political and compliance boundaries around cloud computing will also become leaders in cloud computing deployment and likely progressive educational programs as well.

Related posts:

1. State of Michigan Rolls Out Cloud Computing Services in Easy-to-Consume Bites
2. Changes Coming to the CISO Role
3. Federal Government Remains Curious — but Skeptical — of Cloud Computing
4. NASA Nebula: Scientific-focused Cloud Computing
5. What Types of Organizations are Investing in Cloud Computing?

Tags: Cloud Computing, InCommon, PKI, SAML, XACML