In the wake of Amazon’s high-profile cloud outage — and doomsayers predicting catastrophe for federal cloud-computing efforts — a number of agency chief information and technology officers sat down to discuss cloud concerns.
At a May 4 TechAmerica federal technology symposium, agency IT officials said security remains at the top of their list of concerns.
“The old adage ‘trust but verify’ is the name of the game,” said Mark Day, chief technology officer at Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to a FierceGovernmentIT report. “It’s not without its moments where the comfort level may be less than you would like.â€
Federal CIO Vivek Kundra, one of the Obama administration’s top cloud crusaders, first set out the federal government’s “cloud-first†action plan as part of a broader 25-point reform of federal IT management.
Later, in February he issued the official Federal Cloud Computing Strategy to spur migration to cloud services, including looming deadlines.
But for now, the lack of clear security guidelines for vendor services may be hampering federal adoption, Nextgov reports. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management and Program was launched in November, but details are still being hammered out.
“If you want to get it right, FedRAMP matters,” Day added, according to Nextgov.
Agency IT officials’ other concerns are integration and making the business case for cloud adoption, according to FierceGovernmentIT.
