Surveys and media coverage abound that conclude the federal government’s efforts to embrace cloud computing are slow and tentative. The most recent is an eWeek article titled, “Why Federal Government is Still Behind the Cloud Curve.” I would offer a different point-of-view, one that takes into consideration the business of government, its decision-making processes, and the guidelines and regulations it must follow. Taking these factors into account, I suggest that the government’s adoption of cloud is actually gaining momentum and is poised to accelerate over the next two years.
Steve Lefrancois, Solutions Architect, Public Sector Markets, Verizon Enterprise Solutions
The government has spent considerable time and effort over the past few years creating the building blocks that are essential to enabling broad cloud adoption. I group these efforts into three primary areas.
Budgeting, procurement and contracting. The purchase of cloud services by federal agencies required necessary budgeting, procurement and contracting actions. Budgetary authorizations needed to be passed by Congress, procurement processes needed to shift from purchasing items to buying end-to-end, on-demand solutions, and cloud services needed to be added to existing or entirely new contracts. These efforts are underway, creating a solid foundation for future purchases of cloud-computing solutions.
Compliance and security. Regulations and guidelines, including NIST 800-53 and FedRAMP are helping guide decisions related to the physical and virtual security of facilities, systems and data. There are now nearly 30 cloud platforms that have achieved FedRAMP compliance, offering government agencies a broad selection of certified cloud providers from which to choose.
Cultural considerations. Moving to the cloud is not just about purchasing network, IT and cybersecurity. It requires a cultural shift in how government agencies procure and manage IT resources. This cultural shift is an evolutionary and iterative process that takes time and is ongoing. Through a focus on education, training and candid discussions with government peers and industry on best practices and lessons learned, federal IT administrators are gaining a greater understating of the benefits and potential pitfalls of migrating to the cloud. This common understanding and pervasive knowledge base will continue to reap benefits in the years to come.
Workload readiness. Cloud is more than just network, IT infrastructure and cybersecurity. Enterprise applications and workloads must be ready and supportable to operate within a cloud computing environment. In many cases, legacy government applications and data are suitable for operation in the cloud. In other cases, applications had to be rewritten or replaced with cloud-ready versions. The work of addressing enterprise workload readiness has started and will be an ongoing process for many government agencies. Through the adoption of IT application lifecycle management, federal agencies are actively assessing their applications and making the necessary decisions to determine how and when to migrate mission-critical workloads to the cloud.
From its “Cloud First” strategy and 25 Point Federal IT Reform Implementation Plan to the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, it’s clear there is a strong federal commitment to cloud computing. More importantly, government agencies and key IT personnel are reaching a comfort level with purchasing from reliable providers the network, IT infrastructure and cybersecurity services that make up a cloud computing solution to support production-level, enterprise-focused workloads. Combined with the progress made in the areas of procurement, security, culture and workload readiness, the essential building blocks are now in place that will enable federal agencies to focus on accelerating cloud adoption through the assessment, planning and management of deployments across agencies large and small.
- Public Sector Cloud Webinar: Planning an enterprise cloud deployment but not sure where to begin? Join us on Thursday, May 7 at 10:15 am ET to hear Steve Lefrancois and Siki Giunta, SVP, Verizon Cloud, Data Center and Connected Solutions, discuss how federal government agencies can reduce risk and plan a successful cloud migration.
- Visit Verizon’s Federal, State and Local Government industry solutions centers to learn more about how innovative new technologies are helping public sector organizations achieve mission success.
- For more information about Verizon's Public Sector solutions or to contact Steve Lefrancois, email Kevin Irland at kevin.w.irland@verizon.com.
