Get Rolling on Cloud Computing

Substantial cost savings and greater efficiencies—the main promises of cloud computing—along with recent government initiatives like the OMB’s Cloud First Policy and the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy are driving numerous agencies to investigate and invest in cloud computing. On Wednesday, February 23rd, DLT sponsored a webcast with i360Gov.com titled, Best Practices for Achieving Migration to a Cloud Model. During the webcast, viewers learned the steps government agencies should take to move to cloud-based solutions. DLT’s own Van Ristau (CTO), NIST’s Dawn Leaf and In-Stat’s Greg Potter all presented their perspectives on the matter. If you missed it, don’t worry, you can view the archived version here. In addition to the webcast, i360Gov also published a special report, Time to Get Rolling on Cloud Computing, which provided further details not discussed during the presentation. Included in the report are guidelines and advice provided by NIST on what agencies should do to get started. Below is just a quick sample of those pieces of advice:
  • Carefully plan the security and privacy aspects of cloud computing solutions before engaging them.
  • Shift focus from physical assets to the actual services provided.
  • Prepare the current IT infrastructure for change.
  • Applications that should move to the cloud should be determined by the maturity of available cloud offerings.
I think the webcast and special report put into perspective the effort that it will take to move to cloud-based solutions. A lot of pre-planning and careful thought must be implemented to make sure that you are on the right path and compliant with agency rules and regulations. Although there isn’t a right or wrong answer of how to do it or even what offerings to use, the foundation of how to begin has been set. The next step is to heed the advice and get rolling!