How is Cloud Computing revolutionising aerospace and defense

How cloud computing helped several industries was a recurring theme on my blog. I discussed about the advantages of cloud computing for industries including manufacturing and healthcare, and about the main benefits for the travel & accommodation industry. There are a lot of industries that adopted cloud computing and in this article I will discuss about an industry that was heavily weighed down by the worldwide recession – aerospace and defense (A&D).

Last year in July the Department of Defense released the Cloud Computing Strategy with the precise aim of realizing the value of cloud computing and providing a secure cloud environment for organizations. According to the DoD Cloud Computing Strategy, the cloud benefits are in terms of efficiency, agility and innovation. The DoD cloud computing goal is to implement cloud computing as the means to deliver the most innovative, efficient, and secure information and IT services in support of the Department’s mission, anywhere, anytime, on any authorized device. Taking into consideration that the A&D industry is a global industry influenced by national governments, it is extremely challenging and riskier to implement cloud computing.

However, here are some of the ways cloud computing can revolutionize the A&D industry:

• Mobile Devices would be used to bring the cloud out into the battlefield and to help transmitting the data or even accessing the information needed from military networks. Even more, mobile device management is now a part of the product design and managing production.

• Higher priority would be placed on virtualized apps – DoD is planning to diminish the cost of IT, to simplify IT service management and to accelerate service delivery through the virtualization, consolidation and standardization of legacy applications.

• Savings will be made by keeping infrastructure and operations as consistent and standardized as possible and by reducing the number of tools and personnel needed to perform the same basic functions.

• Cloud Security – Organizations in the A&D industry are among the most preoccupied with security. Multiple layers of security are needed to protect data and global-based product and program development projects, and cloud computing provides the right amount of security needed for this industry.

As we’ve seen, moving applications and data to the cloud has many benefits, but there are also important risks we need to keep in mind. The DoD has to deal with great challenges in terms of adopting cloud computing, but that’s another issue we will probably discuss in a future article.

Photo source: https://www.sxc.hu/photo/1411161