Patrick Shanahan, deputy secretary at the Defense Department, has said DoD will form a new steering group that will work to develop and oversee the implementation of a strategy to advance the adoption of commercial cloud platforms and services, FCW reported Wednesday.Shanahan wrote in a Sept. 13 memo that Ellen Lord, defense undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, will chair the new cloud executive steering group that will report directly to his office.
“While technological modernization has many dimensions, I believe accelerating the DoD’s adoption of cloud computing technologies is critical to maintaining our military’s technological advantage,” he wrote.
DoD will execute its cloud adoption effort in two phases in which a tailored procurement process will be adopted in the first phase to acquire an enterprise-based cloud services platform designed to support top-secret, secret and classified data, Shanahan noted.
Under the second phase, CESG will help DoD agencies transition to the acquired cloud platform.
The steering group will report to Shanahan’s office progress on several actions such as cloud migration efforts, contract award for the initial phase, establishment of funding for the initiative’s second phase and project management plan.
Shanahan also asked CESG to submit a report on DoD’s action plan for the cloud adoption initiative by Nov. 15.
