Governments, on what appears to be a global level, are pushing for more investment in cloud computing. The European Commission, for instance, recently announced its plan to spend nearly $50 billion on cloud services – an investment the organization hopes will produce 3.8 million jobs and more than $200 billion annual GDP gains by 2020.

Cloud computing is a game-changer for our economy,” said Neelie Kroes, digital agenda commissioner. “Without EU action, we will stay stuck in national fortresses and miss out on billions in economic gains.”

The Canadian government, according to a recent ZDNet report, also announced it will increase spending on cloud services in hopes of improving the country’s digital economy.

Governments are likely making a wise decision in moving online databases to the cloud, as a mid-September MeriTalk report found that it could reduce annual federal agency costs by approximately $16.6 billion.

The benefits of moving mission-critical applications to the cloud can be realized while also maintaining confidence in the security of those resources,” said Kyle Keller, cloud business director at EMC Federal.

According to the report, which polled 151 IT federal government managers, 91 percent of respondents who had moved at least one mission-critical application to the cloud found it to be successful. In addition, 43 percent of IT executives believe cloud-based services will enhance their organizations’ big data capabilities.

Meanwhile, respondents said they expect more than a quarter of their applications to be online within two years, and 44 percent to be virtualized in the next five years.