It was an extremely busy and important week for measuring progress related to implementation of cloud computing in the federal government. This week, NIST held its 5th cloud computing workshop, attended by over 150 interested cloud computing companies, academics and standards organizations. SIIA was pleased to have been part of the agenda, with our Senior Director for Public Policy, David LeDuc, participating on a panel about the future of the cloud computing model and NIST’s reference architecture.
On Tuesday, SIIA released it most recent white paper on federal cloud computing, entitled Beyond the 25 Point Plan: A Roadmap to Implementing Cloud Computing and Reforming Federal IT. As evidenced by the significant attention that the white paper received at the NIST conference and in the press it appears that our recommendations caught the attention of federal decision makers. The report’s release was designed to coincide with the NIST conference and the reaching of the 18-month deliverables timeline from the original 25 point plan on June 9th. The key recommendations of the white paper are:
- Continue to promote the Cloud Frist Policy
- Promote changes to the acquisition and capital planning processes that will allow the federal government to keep pace with technology
- Lower the barrier of market entry for small businesses
- Review, revise and consolidate the implementing guidance associated with Cloud First, Shared Services, and Data Center Consolidation into a comprehensive federal IT strategy.
Lastly this week, GSA officially launched its FedRAMP initial operational capabilities (IOC) and is now accepting applications from cloud services providers desiring to receive their provisional authorization under the program and leverage its “do once, use many times” mantra to sell cloud services across the government. It is expected that we will see the approval of 3 CSPs under FedRAMP by December, 2012, according to GSA. For more information on FedRAMP or to download the application, visit www.fedramp.gov.
Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.