The Government Accountability Office issued a report yesterday highlighting seven key challenges that remain for federal agencies to effectively implement cloud computing. These are:
- Meeting Federal Security Requirements
- Obtaining guidance
- Acquiring knowledge and expertise
- Certifying and accrediting vendors
- Ensuring data portability and interoperability
- Overcoming cultural barriers
- Procuring services on a consumption (on-demand) basis
Addressing these issues is key to effectively implementing cloud computing broadly across the federal government, a goal SIIA fully supports. In fact, the recommendations track very closely with the recommendations made by SIIA in its whitepaper, Beyond the 25 Point Plan: A Roadmap to Implementing Cloud Computing and Reforming Federal IT, released last month in conjunction with the 18-month anniversary of the 25 Plan and NIST Cloud Workshop V.
SIIA is pleased to see the continued focus of the Obama Administration on promoting IT as an enabler to reduce the cost of government and improve services to citizens. We are also pleased that the GAO report found the same common issues facing federal agencies as were highlighted in our whitepaper.
SIIA’s whitepaper called for the consolidation of the guidance implementing Cloud First, Shared First/Shared Services and the Data Center Consolidation Initiative along with any future IT initiatives into a comprehensive IT roadmap. If accomplished, this would go a long way to ensuring that agencies had clear guidance as they move forward with implementing cloud solutions.
The whitepaper also called for a continued focus on developing the IT acquisition workforce, breaking down cultural barriers that might hinder cloud adoption, making changes to the capital planning and IT acquisition regulations to allow acquisition to keep pace with technology and making sure the FedRAMP is open and functions effectively for all market participants.
The good news here is that the hardest part of solving a problem is identifying what it is. Now that we have clear consensus on the challenges, we can continue to work together towards the solution. With this collective strength, federal IT leaders and leading IT companies can work together to comprehensively evolve the federal IT environment to catalyze government operations for the 21st Century.
Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.