With IT budgets slashed, and what money there is being used to sustain aging legacy systems, the public sector is having a hard time finding funding to transition to cloud.

Mark Johnson, senior VP of Oracle’s Public Sector, joined John Furrier and Dave Vellante, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, at Oracle CloudWorld 2016 in Washington, D.C. to discuss Oracle’s long-term relationship with the public sector and how federal agencies could be a perfect use-case for the new Oracle Cloud Machine, an on-premises cloud platform that brings public cloud PaaS tools within the corporate IT infrastructure.

Federal agencies don’t have budget for front-end modern systems

Eighty percent of a federal agency’s IT budget is currently spent for operations, maintenance and sustainment, according to Johnson, who explained that although IT departments are attempting to squeeze money out of infrastructure for new net initiatives, the adoption of cloud is very slow.

Currently third-party providers are responsible for moving non-mission critical data — “safe stuff” such as email — to the cloud. However, approximately 94 percent remains on-prem in legacy systems, with a tiny six percent with a cloud provider.

Is Oracle Cloud Machine the answer?

Existing legacy systems need to be moved to a third-party cloud provider and then retired to save money, said Johnson, who sees a huge opportunity for the Oracle Cloud Machine. By consolidating, modernizing and bringing in engineered systems, he believes Oracle can help to drive costs down by 50 percent in many cases, freeing up budget to be applied to new initiatives.

Federal security issues

Addressing the “elephant in the room,” Furrier asked how Oracle is addressing security issues. Oracles runs most of the government databases, said Johnson, who described how Oracle’s dedicated team of security experts work in coaching government agencies in secure practices. It’s not about selling more software, he said, it’s about making people more aware from a security perspective.

Watch the full video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Oracle CloudWorld 2016. And make sure to weigh in during theCUBE’s live coverage at the event by joining in on CrowdChat.

Photo by SiliconANGLE