July 8-9, 2014 | Ronald Reagan Building | Washington, DC
The Federal Cloud Computing Summit: Embracing Today’s Cloud Opportunities was held on July 8-9, 2014 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. Below is media coverage from the event.
Cloud computing services can be purchased from most providers at any time online with a credit card, yet federal agencies have struggled to figure out the best method for procuring the cloud in the government.
“The procurement office, if they’re not savvy on what cloud is, it could go in a lot of directions,” said Barry West, chief information officer for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), at the Federal Cloud Computing Summit Wednesday in Washington. (Full story)
The General Services Administration announced a proposal Wednesday to create a new cloud services category on the Federal Supply Schedules.
The agency issued a request for information proposing to “create a single Cloud Computing Services Special Item Number (SIN) to consolidate and simplify the way that cloud computing is offered on the IT Schedule 70 program. (Full story)
The General Services Administration said Wednesday it’s seeking to roll out a new category especially for cloud services under its massive IT Schedule 70 contracting vehicle.
Maynard Crum, acting director of the Office of Strategic Programs in GSA’s Office of Integrated Technology Services, announced the agency’s pursuit of a new special-item number for cloud — or cloud SIN — during a panel discussion at the Federal Cloud Computing Summit in Washington, D.C. (Full story)
WASHINGTON – Cloud companies looking to do business with the federal government can help their cause if they address a punch list of concerns that weigh on the minds of many agency CIOs and executives, senior government leaders say.
Certainly, there are some challenges with government contracting that are beyond the capability of outside vendors to address, such as a daunting procurement process and a culture that at times can be stubborn in its resistance to change. (Full story)
The Internet is full of tips for demystifying and rethinking service level agreements in the cloud.
The problem is that SLAs vary wildly across cloud vendors, and even divisions within companies may offer different agreements for providing services that meet or exceed agencies’ expectations, said John Messina, a computer scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. (Full story)
Maria Roat, the director of the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, already has “eight or nine initiatives” lined up over the next two years that are designed to help the cloud-standardization program reach maturity.
Roat, speaking at a federal cloud computing summit Wednesday, highlighted several changes to the program, better known as FedRAMP, that are already underway. (Full story)
In December 2010, Interior Department Principal Deputy CIO Lawrence Gross and CIO Bernie Mazer made an important decision: They would closely review every IT purchase that exceeded $3,000.
It was a massive undertaking, but Gross said it needed to be done. (Full story)
WASHINGTON – If the government is to realize its goal of running an agile, largely cloud-based technology operation, it will require buy-in from all corners of the agency, senior technology executives said at a government IT conference on Wednesday.
Barry West, CIO of the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corporation, describes that process as “socializing cloud on the business side,” and it can be a lonely fight without support at the highest reaches of the agency. (Full story)
Culture that is resistant to change and the lack of a consistently agreed-upon and understood definition of what can be gained from cloud computing are some of the largest challenges facing government executives as they push their agencies to cloud adoption, said panelists at last week’s Federal Cloud Computing Summit hosted by the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center.
Moderated by Federal Times Editor Steven Watkins, the cloud acquisition and policy panel was among a slew of discussion topics at the two-day event aimed at identifying and addressing challenges to cloud adoption, the future of cloud, cloud security and FedRAMP and integration. (Full story)
They are coming: Cloudlets. Fog Computing. Cyberforaging.
As use of cloud computing grows and the federal government looks to harness its possibilities, scientists have already started working on what the next iteration of cloud will look like. At the same time, global bandwidth continues to dwindle, with networks only able to handle so much traffic. (Full story)
Like most federal agencies, the Defense Department is carving itspath forward in employing cloud solutions, whether it’s determining what type of cloud to use, how to purchase cloud capabilities or negotiating shared services.
In January the Defense Information Systems Agency announced a pilot program to test drive a new cloud security model that better defines security requirements and formalizes processes for buying commercial cloud services. Those efforts continue to mature as DISA rolls out services under its in-house milCloud platform and as more vendors obtain authority to operate on DoD networks under the new model. (Full story)
Extending the security baseline and moving to continuous monitoring of cloud service providers are among the top priorities for the federal cloud program over the next two years, its administrator said.
“I’m looking out about two years. Where should the program be? I’m in that sustainment period,” Maria Roat, administrator for FedRAMP at the General Services Administration (GSA), said at the Federal Cloud Computing Summit in Washington Wednesday. (Full story)