President Barack Obama's administration recently proposed a 1.3 percent increase in IT spending for the 2017 fiscal year, which would raise the government’s IT budget to nearly $90 billion, with $38.5 billion going toward defense systems.

In a report this month by IDC, cloud spending represents about 8.5 percent of all IT spending by the federal government for the current fiscal year (which ends Sept. 30), up from 5 percent in fiscal 2015.

Kevin Kelly (pictured), CEO of networking provider LGS Innovations, which specializes in the government sector, says there are rich opportunities for solution providers to provide cloud and network security services as the government is focusing more heavily on these areas.

Kelly dives in with IT Best of Breed about government spending trends and opportunities for solution providers in this sector.