GAO report finds federal cloud computing inevitable – when implemented correctly

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Tim Harder

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was recently asked to testify in front of the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and its Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and Procurement, on the benefits and risks of moving federal information technology into the cloud. The testimony resulted in a report that GAO issued on July 1, 2010 detailing what the cloud was, several different models for cloud implementation and a recommendation for the steps that the government should take to implement cloud computing.

When it came to answering the question of should the government embrace cloud computing the GAO clearly delivered an overwhelming “yes” in the report.

The reason? In a time when the government is struggling with budget deficits and national debt, the switch to cloud computing is something that can yield large savings over time. In addition, the GAO found that there were multiple other benefits to cloud computing in the federal government, which a survey of 25 agencies identified as:

  • a reduced need to carry data in removable media
  • the ability to access the data through the Internet, regardless of location
  • low-cost disaster recovery and data storage
  • the ability to apply security controls on demand

Despite both the significant savings and additional benefits towards continuity of operations, disaster recovery, flexibility and other areas, the GAO’s survey and subsequent report shows federal agencies are still approaching cloud computing with caution. In fact, only two of the 24 agencies polled felt comfortable that cloud computing provided the security needed for federal government data. Their concerns were related almost exclusively to having an outside vendor control their cloud environments, specifically:

  • the possibility that ineffective or non-compliant service provider security controls could lead to vulnerabilities
  • the potential loss of governance and physical control over agency data and information
  • the insecure or ineffective deletion of agency data by cloud providers once services have been provided and are complete
  • potentially inadequate background security investigations for service provider employees

The GAO report proves that although cloud computing is increasingly necessary in the federal government, the architecture is critical to agency adoption and security. While public clouds and multitenancy tend to play into these fears and make government data more susceptible, there are delivery methods that could actually make government data even more secure than it was prior to the cloud.

Technologies and effective best practices exist today to deliver private cloud environments inside federal organizations that yield all the dramatic cloud improvements in IT efficiency, while also providing the security required to protect sensitive information. When implemented correctly, these cloud environments can be much more secure than today’s IT environments, which are often protected by inadequate perimeter security practices and vulnerable to cyber exploitation.

Government IT decision makers are beginning to see the inevitability of cloud computing adoption. It’s necessary for  robust virtualization, automation, broad access, and economic scale in the federal government. However, these decision makers need to contemplate their needs and security requirements to identify the cloud delivery model that can provide all of the benefits of cloud computing and reduce perceived risk.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Senate cuts could kill cloud just when it’s needed most

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Tim Harder

Understanding the increasing need to segue the federal government from traditional, physical data centers to a cloud computing model, the Obama Administration requested $35 million to facilitate a cloud computing transition.

However, in light of increasing pressure on the government to cut spending and reduce the federal budget, the Senate Appropriations Committee recently voted to decrease the budget for the cloud computing transition by $15 million, from $35 million to $20 million.

With the federal budget inflated from economic stimulus programs, extensions to unemployment benefits and other initiatives designed to help get the country through one of the worst economic downturns in recent history, it’s understandable that these Senators would want to cut costs wherever possible. Unfortunately, cutting the amount of money needed for a cloud computing initiative is counterproductive for what they’re looking to accomplish.

The benefits of cloud computing in the federal government are multiple and powerful. In addition to increasing collaboration by making important data more accessible and easier to share, the potential for cost savings is huge.

By reducing the amount of federal data centers, the government will eliminate costly and perpetually recurring costs, such as:

  • The high electric bills incurred by running power-hungry IT hardware and cooling infrastructure
  • Property costs (rent, etc.) for the space necessary to house data centers
  • Hardware costs for new equipment

The exponentially increasing amount of data that federal government agencies are being forced to store also means that physical storage solutions will continue to be stressed and new storage capacity will continue to be added. This is just another expense that these agencies will need to incur that could be eliminated with cloud computing and storage.

Cloud computing will also free up IT staff to do higher order tasks. By eliminating the burden of doing commodity operations, cloud computing gives IT staff members a better opportunity to tackle tasks that better align with core mission values.

Much like the creation of America’s space program, the transition to cloud computing will take a significant initial investment. After all, you couldn’t build a spaceship without first building a transistor and microchip. But also like the space program, the transition will yield significant innovation and cost reductions in the long run.

When you look at the federal government’s overall IT budget of approximately $75 billion, the $35 million originally requested for the cloud computing transition is approximately .05%. However, that small percentage has the potential to be the single largest IT cost reduction, if managed correctly.

How many technology vendors of scale are going to be motivated to focus, invest and innovate with such a small cloud computing budget? By promising to redirect the $75 billion in spend to more utilitarian solutions, like cloud computing, the government could better focus the private sector on the innovating new cost-cutting technologies.

CIO’s and agency heads should be motivated to redirect their agency’s IT spend to the cloud. Most CIO’s we speak with tell us that approximately 80% of their budgets are directed towards “just keeping the lights on,” with high-yield innovation and new cost saving expenditures accounting for an abysmally small portion of their IT spend. Cloud and virtualization technology has the capacity to disrupt the legacy model.

Instead of cutting the cloud computing budget and other IT budgets, the federal government needs to begin to look at their IT acquisitions differently. Instead of acquiring technologies based on how much they cost, they should instead be looking for technologies that will eliminate costs in the long run. The value of these IT acquisitions will, over time, be significantly greater and function to save the government large amounts of taxpayer dollars.

If the Senate Appropriations Committee wants to positively impact the country’s current economic situation, they need to do something more creative than simply cutting budgets. The committee needs to promote the kind of technologies that save taxpayer dollars over time, and cloud computing is just such a technology.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

A Head in the Clouds…

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Tim Harder

Hello and welcome to GovCloudTalk. My name is Tim Harder, and this is my blog focused entirely on the current adoption of cloud computing and the cloud’s role in the government. I’ve been with EMC for the last ten years and am currently leading the business development efforts for EMC Cloud Infrastructure in the national public sector

Looking at the trends in data storage, it’s becoming very plain to see that data is quickly outpacing the amount of storage that organizations have in their data centers. Every day, the amount of information increases, and we’ve reached a point where implementing a cloud infrastructure to meet these demands is an integral part of the organization’s health and success.

This is especially true in the public sector, where an exponentially increasing amount of records, information and data needs to be shared, stored and analyzed for agencies and government entities that are spread out across wide areas.

I launched GovCloudTalk to provide IT leaders and decision makers in the federal government with a forum where they can find useful information about the cloud and answers to their agencies’ cloud computing questions.

I hope that this site will be a source of interesting information, as well as a community to have your questions answered and share best practices. Please feel free to drop me notes and comments about your personal experiences with the cloud, or the hesitations you’re feeling about cloud computing adoption. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for visiting. I hope you check back frequently and take some time to comment and share your opinion

-Tim

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.