Cloud computing can enable agencies to collect data from internet of things (IoT) devices and select the right tools for related tasks, IT industry leaders said Wednesday during a panel discussion at MeriTalk’s 2018 Cloud Computing Brainstorm.

“(IoT) is transforming everything and how we’re thinking about doing business,” said Peter Durand, vice president of Acquia Federal Sector. “We start to tie in all the datasets, and social media, and marketing data, it becomes a much richer user experience than just going to a website.”

“It’s really just driving that growth (in data), and I think the cloud is a great enabling technology for ‘how do I get all of that data and get it all collected,’” said Tim Bock, public sector chief technology officer for Virtustream. “Dispersion of the cloud and the cloud resources is a really cool enabling technology, but it’s an enabling technology. It’s ultimately what you do with that data on the backend from those IoT devices,” he said.

But panelists also noted how IoT devices bring unique security challenges, especially regarding how harmful data from IoT devices can be sent back to the cloud.

“I’m not sure there’s a clear answer yet,” said Durand. “That’s something that the service providers, and the companies that build these applications and devices are going to have to provide that.”

Panelists also touched on the benefits of multi-cloud strategies.

“Going through and rationalizing all those applications across an agency … that’s what we’re getting at – picking the right platform for the right use case and the right application set,” said Bock. He pointed to Virtustream’s specialized SAP and ERP applications offerings as an example.

“Looking at multi-cloud, there are obviously multiple reasons. It used to from a redundancy perspective … but I think it’s to the point where … it makes sense having multi-cloud because certain cloud providers … may be really tuned for that type of application,” said Durand.

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