With so much buzz around cloud computing and server security, I went where GovWin, the government and countless other companies go to get answers: Carpathia Hosting.

Michael Fox, director of public sector for Carpathia, and I had a chance last month to sit down and talk at their headquarters in Dulles, Virginia. I asked what he thinks about government cloud initiatives and what Carpathia is doing in the government space.

Is the cloud a fad? Is cost efficiency a driver for success? What about security? Hear Fox’s response in the embedded video below:

GovWin Interview of Michael Fox, Director of Public Sector for Carpathia Hosting from GovWin, a Deltek Network onVimeo.

Notable Quotes:

• On the General Services Administration: “GSA, I believe is really trying to blaze a trail… GSA has really gotten out in front to, in effect, answer the question, ‘How do you certify a cloud environment?'”
• “The real long pole in the tent is whether the government will adopt [the cloud] because of the security and data integrity perspective. If we can answer that question, and they are comfortable with putting those environments into these outsourced solutions, I think it will be a snowball rolling down the hill.”
• “I do agree that cloud is more complex. The management of it is more complex, you have more areas to focus on. However, in general, you’re doing the same things in the cloud as you’re doing in a dedicated or in-house environment.”

Background on Carpathia Hosting

Carpathia Hosting is a leading provider of managed hosting services, delivering secure, reliable and compliant IT infrastructure and management for some of the world’s most demanding enterprises and federal agencies.

I was aware of Carpathia before I joined GovWin.com, and even prior to my days as a technology reporter for dcTechSource. Carpathia has a strong reputation in the Washington, D.C., region as a hosting and cloud provider and technology leader.

The company was founded in 2003, and has grown to provide enterprise hosting solutions including collocation, managed services and cloud computing.

For more information, visit Carpathia Hosting at: http://carpathia.com