By Andras Szakal, vice president and chief technology officer for IBM U.S. Federal
The government is making steady progress in executing the reforms outlined in its 25-Point Plan, delivering many ahead of schedule. At the core of this is the shift to cloud-oriented shared services, which hold great promise for government. Avoiding the redundancy of having each department’s IT shop develop its own software for managing personnel or dealing with public-information requests accounts for nearly half the $932 million in IT savings it has identified through its TechStat program for reviewing IT.
New Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) security standards are an important step to make it easy for agencies to purchase cloud and other services from approved vendors. They outline ways to standardize security requirements and contract language for implementing cloud-based IT applications. But they are just that — an outline — rather than a detailed roadmap to cloud implementation.
To be sure, cloud won’t be a one size fits all approach when it comes to government implementation. In most cases, a combination of different approaches — private clouds, hybrid clouds and public clouds — should all be examined to determine which approach makes the most sense for the specific need that is being met.
Applications like e-mail, content management, and back-up have been relatively easy to move to the cloud. But using cloud architectures to improve core functions and make development of processes quicker, while reducing duplication of effort will require careful analysis of each application to determine the best migration path.
Functions that are common to many agencies are natural fits for a traditional cloud model, while unique, dedicated functions are often better managed in dedicated systems that allow the flexibility to adapt to underlying business flows. Law enforcement case management and intelligence analysis systems, for example, require unique capabilities and security needs, which require greater agency control and dedicated systems support.
In cases like these, it often makes sense to use virtualization technologies inside government data centers. Many government programs have security needs that are easier to secure internally. Agencies can achieve some of the cost-cutting benefits of cloud technology by adopting “private clouds,” which are easier to secure because information never moves outside of a dedicated data center.
The coming year is an exciting time for Federal IT, as FedRAMP and the move to shared services — whether in the form of public or private clouds — provide the structure that will help new projects for cost cutting take root, ultimately saving taxpayers money by helping government become more efficient.
Andras Szakal is participating in a panel on the U.S. Government’s efforts to reform and improve the operational efficiency of its massive IT infrastructure tomorrow at CloudGov.
Andras Szakal is responsible for IBM’s industry solution technology strategy in support of the U.S. Federal customer.
Laura Greenback is Communications Director at SIIA.
Tracy Carlin is a Communications and Public Policy Intern at SIIA. She is also a first year graduate student at Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture and Technology program where she focuses on intersections in education, video games and gender.