Agencies to share advice on cloud strategies

Later this month, AFCEA Bethesda will hold the first symposium in its four-part Cloud Lifecycle Management series. According to the group’s website, the event will take a look at “how agencies define, plan and measure a successful cloud computing strategy.”

Six months into the Obama administration’s cloud-first policy, focus will be placed on how far agencies have come and the progress being made in order to reach their 12- and 18-month cloud goals.

According to AFCEA, some of the issues that will be addressed include:

• how agencies are deciding between public, private and hybrid clouds,
• the expected cost savings of using the cloud,
• the risks of moving to the cloud, and
• where the cloud strategy will be over the next year.

Confirmed speakers for the event include:

• Earl Crane, director of the cybersecurity strategy division in the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer at the Department of Homeland Security
• Lisa Davis, assistant director of information technology and chief information officer in the U.S. Marshals Service at the Department of Justice
• Rick Holgate, assistant director for science & technology and chief information officer at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives
• Dawn Leaf, senior advisor and senior executive for cloud computing in the Information Technology Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
• Bill Lewis, director of the Portfolio Management Division in the General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service
• Henry Sienkiewicz, chief information officer at the Defense Information Systems Agency
• Michael Wood, director of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board

The event will be held from 7-11:30 a.m., June 29, at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in northwest Washington D.C.

Agencies announce 78 cloud projects

The Federal CIO Council released Thursday a list of 78 cloud projects being completed by the 25 largest federal agencies.

Starting in December 2010, each agency was required to identify three projects to move to the cloud within 18 months as part of the Obama administration’s 25-Point Plan to Reform Federal IT Management.

Web hosting and email topped the list of cloud projects. Ten agencies are already using or plan to use the cloud for web hosting while 13 want to use the cloud for email.

Collaboration services, geospatial services, and capital planning software were also popular uses of the cloud amongst agencies.

The Department of Homeland Security announced its plans to move its public-facing websites to a public cloud at the Management of Change Conference earlier this month. More details about that plan were released in the CIO Council’s cloud document. DHS plans to migrate 50 percent of the websites it identified by June 2012. The agency believes this will reduce hosting costs by up to 10 percent.

Other agencies, such as the Education Department, are looking towards the private cloud. The agency said it will use a private cloud to offer infrastructure-as-a-service offerings internally. And, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it will save $50,000 per year by moving its capital planning tool (eCPIC) to the General Services Administration’s private cloud.

In addition to hosting its website, the Office of Personnel Management says it wants to use the cloud for website analytics (measuring the number of visitors, page views, time spent on the site, and website errors).

Other cloud projects include a FOIA case management system for the Social Security Administration and a collaboration services tool for the Commerce Department’s CIO Council.

Does cloud computing give you a headache?

The Fed Cloud Blog told you earlier this week about a recent survey of federal IT professionals by InformationWeek. The survey showed 58 percent of respondents are either already using cloud computing or plan to be using it within the next 12 months.

Federal News Radio wanted some more information on the survey, so we asked John Foley, the editor of InformationWeek Government, to join us on In Depth with Francis Rose. Foley says dealing with the administration’s cloud-first policy is giving some IT professionals a headache. Listen to the full interview here.

Francis also spoke to Bob Otto this week about how to consolidate data centers effectively. (Data center consolidation is another of the administration’s top IT priorities.)

Otto was the former chief information officer at the U.S. Postal Service and offered some advice on how cloud computing fits in to data center consolidation.

This week in cloud computing

Kundra: Agencies on path for transition to cloud

Agencies are on track with their cloud computing strategies. Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra told those in attendance at the NIST Cloud Computing Forum and Workshop that all agencies have identified the three systems they will move to the cloud as part of the administration’s cloud-first policy. Kundra gave several examples of agencies that are moving full steam ahead. Read more and listen to Kundra’s speech by clicking the link above.

Six-month budget slashes e-gov fund by 76 percent

Among the cuts agreed to by lawmakers and President Obama in the 2011 budget compromise is a dramatic reduction in the administration’s E-Government fund, which pays for open government websites such as Data.gov, the IT Dashboard and USASpending.gov. Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra testified last week the government has saved $3 billion so far with the use of its 25-point IT restructuring plan. He said the process of adding transparency to IT programs was key to the cost savings the administration has achieved.

Also testifying at the hearing was Dave McClure, associate administrator in the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies at the General Services Administration. McClure said when GSA begins offering cloud email services under a blanket purchase agreement it estimates it will save agencies as much as 44 percent over their current email costs. Read the full story by clicking the link above.

Cloud-first policy, cloud security top of mind for feds

Federal News Radio covered two big stories this week on cloud computing. Check them out!

Cloud computing e-discovery risks a concern
Federal lawyers and record managers are watching closely how the General Services Administration, the Agriculture Department and others move their email and collaboration services to private sector cloud computing providers. Federal News Radio’s Jason Miller says they have questions about accessing data if the government faces a lawsuit.

Kundra details cloud-first success stories
Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra was on hand at the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s latest Cloud Computing Forum and Workshop. During a Q&A session, Kundra discussed some of the success stories for the Obama administration’s cloud-first policy. Listen to the Q&A by clicking the link above.

Obama budget reiterates cloud-first policy

President Barack Obama released his FY 2012 budget proposal yesterday.

In it, he reiterates his administration’s goal to move towards a cloud-first policy as a way to create efficiencies in the federal government and, in turn, save money.

“By consolidating data cen­ters and leveraging cloud computing the Federal Government will reduce the Nation’s data center footprint, strengthen security, and yield savings in the form of real estate, energy, equipment, and maintenance costs that can then be redirected to­ward the projects with the greatest benefit to the American taxpayer.”

The President also plans to make government more efficient by:

• Cutting improper payments by $50 billion
• Disposing of excess or under-utilized federal buildings
• Reorganizing the government
• Reducing administrative overhead
• Moving to competitive grant programs based on Race to the Top
• Saving billions of dollars in contracting
• Continuing to evaluate program performance
• Continuing to drive progress on priority goals

HUD defines current and future cloud use

In our continuing quest to find out how agencies are currently using the cloud and how they plan to use it in the future, Federal News Radio caught up with Chris Neidermayer, deputy chief information officer for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In light of the Office of Management and Budget’s cloud-first policy, we asked Neidermayer where HUD is headed and if the agency is looking at the cloud for anything like email.

Neidermayer says, “Not yet. We’ve tried to narrow our focus to what we have the capacity to support. Those are things that are on the horizon. We have adopted the cloud-first approach where those services are available. We want to define why we couldn’t use them before we eliminate using them. We are in a private cloud for all of our infrastructure…We’re already there in that regard and that has helped us understand the value of those types of services.”

Hear more from Neidermayer and HUD CIO Jerry Williams. Federal News Radio’s Jason Miller recently had them as guests on his Ask the CIO program.

Latest cloud computing news from Fed News Radio

Federal News Radio spoke with multiple guests this week about cloud computing. Read the full stories and hear the interviews by clicking on the headline links below.

Tactics for your agency’s move to the cloud

The administration’s cloud-first policy has put agencies in a spot where they need to figure out what can be moved to the cloud and how quickly it can be done. HP recently announced the launch of its Government Cloud Consulting Services. Federal News Radio spoke with HP’s U.S. Public Sector Chief Technology Officer Jeff Bergeron about what the new service offers and how agencies can take advantage of it.

Eight major changes coming to endpoint security

“Current models of endpoint security are becoming outmoded as a more diverse set of mobile and Internet-connected devices become a larger share of the market,” according to Jack Gold, founder and principal analyst at J.Gold Associates, an information technology analyst firm.

In an interview on Federal News Radio this week, Gold says over the next 3-4 years there will be a dramatic change in the way devices are protected. He believes security will stop being device-centric and start moving into networks and the cloud. Gold says, “This means a good deal of the security footprint will be behind the scenes and often invisible to the end user, and with little device impact. Some security SW will remain loaded on the device, but its imprint will be substantially diminished and will provide only basic services.”

Cloud, cloud, everywhere there’s cloud

Wow. So much news about cloud, so little time. Good thing we have this blog, right?

Federal News Radio was busy covering news about cloud computing this week. We’ve gathered all of those stories here for easy access.

• Army weeks away from enterprise e-mail rollout
  The Army will begin migrating employees to its new cloud-based e-mail system starting February 15. Federal News Radio reporter Jared Serbu reports testing for the Army’s new e-mail is almost complete. The Army expects the change will mean a significant savings in software licensing.

• Behind the USDA cloud
  The cloud services offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture have become quite popular among other federal agencies. Federal Tech Talk host John Gilroy talks with Jim Stevens, Acting Deputy Chief Information Officer for Business, Finance and Security about what the agency offers and how your agency can compare security of the various cloud options out there.

• Exclusive: OMB uses budget to set cyber guidelines
  The administration’s recently announced cloud-first policy was one of several governmentwide provisions specifically mentioned in the annual IT budget passback guidance. In his exclusive report, Federal News Radio reporter Jason Miller says the “guidance also instructs agencies to consider the technologies that have been approved under the FEDRamp process.”

• Microsoft announces new cloud computing option
  Microsoft has made its customer-relationship management application available online. The cloud version will be available worldwide beginning Feb. 28, 2011.

• What will the Google bid protest mean for cloud?
  Off the Shelf host Roger Waldron talks with David Dowd, partner at Mayer Brown, about the Google/Microsoft/Interior Department cloud decision recently handed down. The Interior Department had been ordered to stay an award to Microsoft after a judge ruled it violated the Competition in Contracting Act and rules in the Federal Acquisition Regulations. Waldron and Dowd discuss the potential implications for agency requirements development and acquisition planning.

2011 – the year of cloud computing?

Cloud computing began to take center stage in the federal IT community during the last few months of 2010. And Ed Meagher thinks that trend will continue in 2011. Meagher is the former deputy chief information officer at the Veterans Affairs Department and the Interior Department. He’s now vice president of health care strategy at CSC.

He also tells Federal News Radio he thinks cloud computing will be a game changer in the years ahead.

“People have heard cloud computing for years, and now all of a sudden this is money,” Meagher said.

Multiple agencies made a serious push toward cloud computing this year including USDA, GSA, and the Treasury Department. USDA and GSA both announced plans to move their email to the cloud while Treasury moved its website, Treasury.gov, completely into the cloud. It’s the first cabinet-level agency to do so. At the same time, the White House announced a cloud-first policy for agencies.

But security issues remain a big concern for agencies. CSO Online recently listed five cloud security issues it sees for 2011, including the increased use of smart phones to access data, the need for better access control, compliance concerns, the risk of multiple cloud tenants, and the emergence of cloud standards.

VA is one of the agencies struggling with cloud security issues. Roger Baker, the agency’s CIO, fully admits that he must find a way to strike the proper balance between use and security because there is a growing call for cloud-based tools.

“The government by itself can’t keep up with Yahoo!, Google, Apple and others who are creating great applications for medical usage. We have to figure out how to embrace those and at the same time ensure that we are providing privacy and health information protections that we are committed to doing. These are great tools for patient care, and right now my position as the CIO has to be ‘you can’t use them.’”

Baker said he is looking into how to make that balance work but still has not found the right solution to this problem.