Great challenges can bring great opportunities to any business, and with the inevitability of cloud on the horizon, IT organizations will need to embrace this change. Taking the first, second or even third step can be scary, but the return on taking such risks will pay off so long as the IT organization champions the deployment.

Cisco itself has also had to face these risks of deploying cloud, and has already embarked on the private cloud (IaaS) journey -all the way from virtualizing the compute, network, and storage resources to integrating change management, and metering services for "pay as you use".

Some of the challenges that we encountered typical that other IT organizations could face in cloud adoption were:

? Ensuring security.Each cloud solution has to be matched to appropriate security capabilities. The new capabilities may include centralized management (vs. trying to manage firewalls on ever-changing edges or trying to manage security on each endpoint), scalable multi-tenant architectures, real-time threat analysis and dynamic mitigation delivery.

? Navigating the required steps. Even the public cloud model is never one-size-fits-all. A successful cloud initiative requires several best practice steps, which occur in three phases:
Plan, including aligning the business and architecture strategies, planning and design, and security.
Build, including staging, testing, and implementing solutions and systems integration.
Manage, including network assurance, remote monitoring/diagnostics/alerts, optimization, and support.

? Establishing the business justification.Calculate the projected and actual ROI from cloud project expenses for equipment and services.

It's very rare for any IT organization to already have all the in-house expertise and experience that's required for a cloud project. This will eventually happen, but IT organizations can fast-track their cloud initiatives by partnering with a company that understands the cloud journey.

Cisco Services has a proven methodology for implementing private clouds that can help ensure your agency makes a smooth and effective transition to cloud. It starts with the Cisco Domain TenSM discussion to identify where you need to focus among ten crucial areas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnLFReBBV7c

Cisco Cloud Enablement Services professionals and Cisco Certified Partners can guide you through any, or all, of the plan, build, and manage steps. They can help you integrate the entire cloud solution, including reducing the complexity of security.

New cloud platforms are rapidly transforming government IT-just as client/server and mainframe/terminal platforms did in decades past.

If you embark on the cloud journey, you're committing to an exciting and long-term opportunity. And when you step out your door to head to work each day, you'll be an agent of change for your organization and your career.

I'm curious, what do you see as the biggest challenges to a government entity adopting a cloud model?

Stay tuned to view upcoming installations of the Cloud for Local Government blog series or clickhereto register and reserve your copy of the complete compilation of the blog series, including this blog as well as a variety of cloud resources, which will be available in May.

To read this blog in Spanish, click here.  For Portuguese, click here.