Federal Cloud Computing Strategy Officially Launched

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra officially launched the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy today. While this is clearly not new news, the document does state the government’s position in a very succint manner.

• By using the cloud computing model for IT services, we will be able to reduce our data center infrastructure expenditure by approximately 30% (which contributes to the estimated $20 billion of IT spending that could be migrated to cloud computing solutions).
• Cloud computing can complement data center consolidation efforts by shifting workloads and applications to infrastructures owned and operated by third parties.
• The shift to cloud computing can help to mitigate the fragmented data, application, and infrastructure silo issues associated with federated organizational and funding models by focusing on IT services as a utility.
• Cloud computing can accelerate data center consolidation efforts by reducing the number of applications hosted within government-owned data centers.

To strengthen security from an operational perspective, DHS will prioritize a list of top security threats every 6 months or as needed, and work with a government-wide team of security experts to ensure that proper security controls and measures are implemented to mitigate these threats.

NIST will issue technical security guidance, such as that focused on continuous monitoring for cloud computing solutions, consistent with the six step Risk Management Framework (Special Publication 800-37, Revision 1).”