(TOPICS - The Global Eye) Idea to retire: Buy and build IT infrastructure (Craig Orgeron, Brookings)

Traditional information technology (IT) has long fostered a belief in the value of buying and owning infrastructure, a dominant model across many public sector organizations. However, the era of buying, building, and maintaining complex and costly infrastructure is quickly becoming an outdated and arcane approach to long-term technology investment. The need for state governments to deliver services to citizens as efficiently as possible has hastened the demise of traditional processes for planning, developing, and testing IT capabilities. Cloud computing, in its various iterations, embodies much of the debate in the public sector on how to maximize shared investment in technology and lower the cost of service delivery. In this new era, technology services are brokered instead of infrastructure being procured.

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Craig Orgeron serves as the as the executive director of the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services (ITS) and chief information officer for the State of Mississippi. A former president of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), Dr. Orgeron holds a doctorate in public policy and administration from Mississippi State University.