I was once told by a good friend that "open source is all well and good, but as a “John Doe” admin what do I need the source code for? It never does admins any good to have the source." At that time, I conceded. It probably wasn't as valuable for admins; it was for developers who need to change the behavior of something. Until today....

This week in Technically News: Amazon Web Services Celebrates 8 Years in the Cloud; Your U.S. Government Uses Open Source Software, And Loves It; Is Data Center Consolidation Losing Steam; Why Cloud Computing Is Like Water

This week in Technically News: Cybersecurity: Sharing Information Between Public, Private Sector Key to Battling Threats; What 24's Jack Bauer Can Teach Federal Agencies; Navy, Marines Corps Transferring Data to Commercial Cloud; Former CIA Director Explains Cybersecurity Threats Facing the US

This week in Technically News: Red Hat Linux Now Available on Amazon's Secure Federal Cloud; Cybersecurity Priorities Unveiled in FY 2015 Budget; Top Obama Adviser Speaks Mind on Cyberthreats; 9 Worst Cloud Security Threats.

This week in Technically News: AWS WorkSpaces May Spark Federal Demand for Desktop-as-a-Service; Agency CIOs Thinking Smarter as IT Spending Declines; Congress Embarks on Government IT Reform; How Federal Cybersecurity Measures Can Apply to Healthcare; DLT Builds Navy New Portal to Manage Oracle Tools.

This week in Technically News: IaaS Performance Benchmarks Part 2: AWS; CryptoLocker, Kegotip, Medfos Malware Triple-Threat; How Government IT Uses Virtualization to Lock Down Clouds; State CIO Scramble to Keep Pace with Technology; 7 Keys to More Modern & Secure Government.

Cloud computing is a global phenomenon. Its promise of rapid procurement of IT services, scaled up and down as necessary, results in the perfect mix for public sector CIOs and program managers looking to save money and improve service delivery. But what about the procurement process for these sought after cloud services?

This week in Technically News: Outsourcing Cybersecurity; Amazon Still Public Cloud Leader by a Long Shot; and Goverment CIOs Prioritize Business Intelligence, Analytics, IT Management as Role Changes.

If I asked you to name the top barriers government agencies face when it comes to cloud adoption, I’d be surprised if privacy, security, and compliance didn’t appear somewhere at the top of your list. So how can agencies do more in the cloud while ensuring their mission critical data and systems stay secure?

IT is currently facing two dilemmas. The first is many want their private cloud architecture to work with their existing data center. Secondly, IT professionals are looking to build private clouds that are open to other clouds but also equipped to run existing in-house systems and applications. So you may be asking yourself, “Why should I build a private cloud?”