January 13, 2016 | Marriott Metro Center | Washington, DC
The ATARC Federal Cloud Computing Summit was held on January 13, 2016 at the Washington Marriott at Metro Center in Washington, D.C. Below is media coverage from the event:
The government rarely gets credit for listening and hearing when industry is concerned. But the Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) for cloud cybersecurity services deserves credit for doing more than just giving lip service to long-standing vendor complaints. Most of industry’s concerns center on the speed of the approval process by the Joint Authorization Board (JAB), which many vendors believe is the “gold standard.” On average, contractors are waiting 12 to 15 months to get a JAB approval. Currently, eight cloud service providers (CSPs) are awaiting final approval, but dozens of others are in the queue to get to that last step.
Matt Goodrich, the director of FedRAMP, has heard the complaints and is doing something about it. He said he too is concerned about the timeline to get JAB approval. To that end, Goodrich said one of the program office’s main goals for 2016 is to talk to and hear from its customers. “We are talking to CSPs and third-party assessment organizations (3PAOs) as well as the JAB, my office and agencies,” he said Jan. 13 at the ATARC Federal Cloud Computing Summit in Washington. “We are hearing what their view of the process has been and will talk about our interactions and actions they have taken with the program.” (Full Story)
If you’re responsible for managing your agency’s IT and you haven’t moved applications to the cloud, one agency chief information officer believes you should get the ax. “As a business person, not a career government person, I believe that if you’re the CIO of an organization . . . and you’re still writing code and custom developing applications in Java or investing in data centers, you should be fired,” said Joe Paiva, CIO at the International Trade Administration. “Summarily fired.” Paiva spoke Wednesday during a panel discussion on cloud computing hosted by the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center. (Full Story)
The next few months will be busy for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program as it launches its high baseline standards, issues new requirements for third-party assessment organizations and spreads the cloud security gospel, FedRAMP Director Matt Goodrich said at the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center’s cloud summit on Jan. 13. (Full Story)
It’s difficult to do an accurate comparison of cloud computing technology when the technology is poorly understood or ill-defined, said Air Force Chief Technology Officer Frank Konieczny. That’s just one reason the service is squarely focused on governance of its cloud deployments. “We have to do comparisons across the board. It’s apples and oranges half the time,” said Konieczny during a Jan. 13 panel discussion at the ATARC Federal Cloud Computing Summit in Washington, D.C. (Full Story)
As director of the Department of Agriculture’s relatively new cloud strategy and policy office, Tony Cossa is working to build out department’s cloud services and drive a cultural change inside and across government agencies. The USDA’s cloud computing strategy leverages the agency’s multiple enterprise data centers to provide both USDA components and other government agencies with an agile, secure and cost-effective service environment that can quickly respond to their changing needs. It aims to build agencies’ trust in the cloud and in the USDA by prioritizing the needs of agency partners, USDA CIO Jonathan Alboum told attendees at the Jan. 13 ATARC Federal Cloud Computing Summit in Washington, D.C. (Full Story)