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constraints and purchasing methods,” he said. “There are many strict opera- tional constraints in the federal space; violate them and \[you\] risk oversight scrutiny or legal action.”
Security is another frequently raised issue with regard to cloud platforms. Much of the federal data stored in Oracle, SAP and other ERP systems is protected by laws that come with criminal penalties for disclosure, said Roger Baker, a former assistant sec- retary for information and technology and CIO at the Department of Veterans Affairs who now works as an indepen- dent consultant.
Do vendors “really want to take on the liabilities implied with the storage of that information?” he asked. For now, federal employees “hold all that
Another friction point is the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program. It standardizes security by requiring vendors to have their cloud services certified. GSA has sought to streamline the certification process, but FedRAMP is “prohibitively expen- sive,” Dunkin said. “It really stifles innovation in the cloud.”
Despite such obstacles, shifting ERP from on-premises systems to cloud platforms could allow agencies to consider new vendor options.
Sherry Amos, director of market development for education and govern- ment at Workday, believes federal agen- cies have the same cloud opportunities that commercial customers have. But they must decide whether their custom- ized, unique features are justified.
Many vendors will try to move fed- eral users to the cloud in incremental steps. For instance, SAP SuccessFac- tors said some of its federal customers are adopting certain cloud-based HR functions, such as recruiting, perfor- mance measurement and goal setting.
Whatever the vendor mix, however, a smooth transition to cloud platforms is far from guaranteed. On one side will be the appeal of new automated features in vendor systems, which will have the ability to import, analyze and report without a human having to touch the data, said Matt Richards, a
“There is no reason for any agency in the federal government to have 400 systems.”
liability,” Baker said, adding that the “biggest impediment to change in fed- eral IT are requirements written into federal law.”
Vendors are creating government- specific cloud environments to deal with some of those issues, but those clouds still face obstacles, Dunkin said.
For instance, all civilian agency net- work traffic must pass through a Trust- ed Internet Connection when linking to a cloud service, and DHS’ Einstein program, which is designed to protect networks, also creates challenges.
Einstein “interferes with effectively using cloud services because it redi- rects the traffic through this device,” Dunkin said. It presents problems for users inside the firewall and especially for users outside the firewall who are trying to remotely access cloud services.
“There will come a point in the not- too-distant future where all of these applications are only cloud applica- tions,” said Amos, whose company provides cloud-native HR and finance software.
Incremental steps
Neal said that for the foreseeable future, the government’s core HR sys- tems will come from the big vendors, such as Oracle. “The complexity of those systems makes it very difficult to replace them,” he added.
But he also believes agencies cannot stay with their core on-premises ERP systems forever. Those systems can interface with other services, he said, and when agencies replace a tool with one that has better pricing and features, that new tool is likely to be in the cloud.
managing director at KPMG. “It would dramatically change repetitive tasks in an organization.”
But on the other side is federal IT itself. The government has a deep bench of technologists, creative think- ers and open-source advocates. For instance, more than a dozen agencies are participating in an effort to develop artificial intelligence-based personal assistants to improve access to gov- ernment services. So there could be a push for solutions that don’t square with those of incumbent firms or their cloud-native challengers.
“It’s not unusual for outsiders to be unaware of some of the remark- able technology innovations that have already taken root in the government, some of which are homegrown,” Bjorklund said. n
JEFFREY NEAL, ICF
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