Transitioning to the cloud? Chances are, when you make the transition, you’ll take baby steps – assessing your workloads in totality and individually, determining the most efficient platform, preparing thoroughly and then migrating just that workload, then the next, and so on. It’s standard procedure and is the best way to proceed with minimal risk.

What you’ve done here is create a hybrid environment. Most of your IT is still on-premise, but certain workloads are in the cloud. And it’s likely to stay that way.

With this post, I wrap up this three part series covering the findings of the GAO’s report on the overall progress of the Cloud First initiative. If you missed the first to parts, you can find them here and here respectively Quick recap: Earlier this month the Government Accountability Office released the results of their study on the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Cloud First policy. The GAO assessed the progress selected agencies made and identified challenges they are facing in implementing the policy.

And just like that, Shamun is back with his expanded thoughts on the GAO’s Cloud First findings. If you missed yesterday’s review of the first of the seven findings, click here. Quick recap: Earlier this month the Government Accountability Office released the results of their study on the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Cloud First policy. The GAO assessed the progress of selected agencies and identified challenges they are facing in implementing the policy. Shamun covers the next three findings in today’s post and will wrap up the series with the remaining for later this week.

The below blog was written by and published with permission by Steve O’Keeffe. Steve O’Keeffe is the founder of MeriTalk –www.meritalk.com – the government IT network. MeriTalk is an online community that hosts professional networking, thought leadership, and focused events to drive the government IT dialogue. A 20-year veteran of the government IT community, O’Keeffe has worked in government and industry. In addition to MeriTalk, he founded Telework Exchange, GovMark Council, and O’Keeffe & Company OMB OMG Is Fed IT better after Kundra? Are cloud, data center, and cyber working? Where should Steven VanRoekel focus? As Fed IT makes it through year end, is Dell down and Amazon up? We put these questions and more to the Fed IT community at Innovation Nation on August 23. The new study, Over to You Mr. VanRoekel, gives the new Fed CIO a sense for his inheritance.