Delivering the Digital Government Mission

We've talked a lot about cloud over the years, but agencies are finally entering the stage where talk and pilots have turned to actual use of the technology.


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We’ve talked a lot about cloud over the years, but agencies are finally entering the stage where talk and pilots have turned to actual use of the technology. Back in 2009 and 2010 when the Office of Management and Budget released its cloud first strategy and 25-point IT reform plan is when the potential of cloud first came into the spotlight. And as of 2014, the growth of cloud computing is huge. Deltek a market research firm, estimated that “cloud- related expenditures by federal agencies will grow from $440 million in 2010 to $1.44 billion in 2015.” And Market Research Media, another market research firm, estimated the cloud market to grow to $7 billion by 2015. So no matter how you slice and dice the numbers, agencies are more comfortable in moving to the cloud. In fact, a new Federal News Radio survey of federal CIOs and deputy CIOs finds 60 percent of the respondents say they’ve already moved email and collaboration to the cloud, and 48 percent say they’ve moved public websites to the cloud. Human resources, acquisition and agency specific apps are the next areas CIOs say they are moving to the cloud. And what kind of cloud are these apps in? It’s almost split evenly between a government only commercial cloud–44 percent of the respondents; a commercial cloud–36 percent; and a government run cloud–20 percent. Finally when asked which apps do they plan to put in the cloud in the coming months, customer service and agency specific apps were among the most popular. The survey shows agencies have moved past their initial toe-dipping into the cloud, with email and public websites, and are ready to push mission critical apps into the cloud. But even with the growing trust with the cloud, there still are plenty of challenges and concerns. Security is the top one. A Congressional Research Service report from February says State Department officials say cloud providers aren’t able to match their ability to monitor their systems in real time. CRS also found Treasury Department officials say the Federal Information Security Management Act’s requirement of maintaining a physical inventory is challenging in a cloud environment because the agency does not have insight into the provider’s infrastructure and assets. CRS also says there are concerns over portability and interoperability, and internal project management expertise to deal with cloud solution, and of course there are the budget challenges on how to pay for cloud services.

Moderator

Jason Miller, Federal News Radio
Jason Miller is an executive editor and reporter with Federal News Radio. As executive editor, Jason helps direct the news coverage of the station and works with reporters to ensure a broad range of coverage of federal technology, procurement, finance and human resource news.As a reporter, Jason focuses mainly on technology and procurement issues, including cybersecurity, e-government and acquisition policies and programs.

Panelists

Adrian Gardner, Chief Information Officer, FEMA
Adrian R. Gardner serves as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC. In this position, Mr. Gardner is responsible for the governance and operations of the agency’s information systems, ensuring the system complies with regulatory requirements in support of FEMA’s mission and objectives.
Harry Lee, Senior Computer Scientist, U.S. Census Bureau
Harry Lee has served as the Senior Computer Scientist for Infrastructure for the U.S. Census Bureau since May 2012. In his role, Lee is responsible for helping standardize, stabilize and optimize the IT Infrastructure for the Census Bureau in alignment with all federal directives, strategies, and policies. This includes IT Infrastructure for cloud computing, mobile computing, collaboration and unified communications, data management, security, and service management.
Chuck Riddle, Chief Information Officer, GPO
As Chief Information Officer, Charles Riddle manages and provides policy guidance and oversight of agency-wide IT policies and standards relating to the acquisition, implementation, and operation of telecommunications and IT systems of the agency. He is also responsible for developing and maintaining operating budgets for network IT systems consistent with programmatic plans and established financial guidelines and monitoring activities and costs as related to the overall utilization of information resources required to meet programmatic operations requirements.
Greg Pelton, Chief Technology Officer, Avaya Government Solutions
Greg Pelton is the Chief Technology Officer for Avaya Government Solutions. In this role he is responsible for defining the product strategy and roadmap, as well as leading all technical resources for Avaya’s division that serves the US Federal Government. Keys to success included developing a highly skilled and solutions-oriented Sales Engineering organization to enable sales growth, defining programs to meet Federal customer needs, ensuring Government standards are adopted programmatically across the Avaya product portfolio (unified communications, contact center, data, video, cloud offers) and developing go to market offerings and collateral to enable the sales force. Greg joined Avaya Government Solutions in 2011 as Vice President of Product Strategy.

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