The U.S. Government Looks to Expand Cloud Usage
Spending over $80 billion a year on information technology, the U.S. Government is easily one of the largest consumers of technology and technology products in the world. Therefore it is no wonder that when President Obama created the office of Federal Chief Information Officer, one of the prime reasons was to look into ways to cut those costs.
Vivek Kundra was appointed the first official for the office and, during his two and a half year tenure, has created and implemented a view of the government that is leaner and much more internet-centric. One of the biggest changes he has made is to initiate cloud usage to various government departments by his implementation of “Cloud First”, a policy that introduces the idea of having all government departments move some aspects of their business to the cloud.
Kundra saw more than costs savings, he saw an opportunity for greater flexibility, something that government agencies are not well known for today. Agencies could adjust the scope of a project without having it affect the infrastructure already in place, making it easier to make adjustments along the way. “Cloud First” encourages government departments to incorporate the cloud as a part of new projects and requires each department to move at least three already existing projects to the cloud by the summer of 2012.
As to be expected, some of these departments, especially ones like the Pentagon, are concerned with security aspects of this new policy. But for departments that have less confidential material, such as the Department of Agriculture, they see it as a positive that will speed along technology projects. This department has already moved 46,000 employee accounts to the cloud and is expecting to move an additional 120,000.
The State Department has chosen some of the more low-risk projects such as the website for the Office of the Historian to implement their cloud technology. Concerns about disruption, security and the recent hacking of the Pentagon by what is perceived to be foreign government intelligence operations continues to slow the move.
Teri Takai, the Chief Information Officer for the Defense Department concedes that the global reach of hundreds of thousands of users spread across the globe could make the cloud a useful tool for them. The ability to use the cloud anytime and anywhere has led to the concept of a “Mission–Oriented Resilient Clouds” approach for military applications. “When done with the proper considerations and planning, cloud computing will be a very effective and efficient tool,” Ms. Takai said.
Another department that has moved swiftly to embrace the “Cloud First” policy is the General Services Administration. This department works with other departments to help them with transportation, office space and communications issues, and put the entire department’s e-mail services onto a Google Cloud Service last December.
With overall spending on cloud infrastructure growing at five times the rate of traditional corporate technology, up until now the corporate sector has been the driving force for growth. That may change with this new direction from the current U.S. administration. As part of the search for cutting waste in government spending, there has been a call for each department to re-examine its use of technology and for agencies to define new ways to share resources and cut costs. The cloud does seem like a natural fit for this new direction.
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