Page 54 - FCW, March/April 2018
P. 54

                                  COMPLIANCE CHALLENGES
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  GAME CHANGING TECHNOLOGY TO MEET AGENCY MISSIONS
THE ROAD TO THE CLOUD
REMAINS BUMPY
Con icting requirements can muddy the waters, but cloud migration is still a priority.
and National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS) programs, improving contract vehicles to help agencies acquire commercial cloud products that meet government standards, accelerate adoption of cloud e-mail and collaboration tools, and bolster security shared services.
There is help for agencies needing additional funds or motivation. The new Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act makes money available
for agencies to jumpstart their cloud adoption programs. The Cloud Center for Excellence, a new interagency working group, is developing best practices to help agencies move forward more quickly with adopting cloud technologies. It also has developed the Cloud Adoption Survival, Tips, Lessons Learned and Experiences (CASTLE) guide to help agencies plan for cloud services. And  nally, FedRAMP’s Agency Authorization Playbook, designed to help agencies move to
the cloud, is an invaluable resource. It outlines each step of the process and provides many links and templates to help agencies succeed.
Despite a federal policy requiring agencies to move some services to the cloud and adopt more cloud services over time, no federal agency has met the goal of moving 15 percent of their infrastructure to the cloud, according
to the Federal CIO Council. That same report also found FedRAMP has not accelerated the adoption of new cloud services as expected.
to a recent survey from Grant Thornton and PSC, one-third of federal CIOs interviewed said their agencies have moved to the cloud in some capacity, but only 5 percent are satis ed with their progress.
The reasons no agency has met the “Cloud First” requirements—part of
the U.S. CIO’s 25-point action plan to improve government’s acquisition and use of IT assets—are complex. They include budget and return-on-investment concerns, worries about security, and the sheer complexity of compliance.
That same survey found moving to the cloud is one of the top priorities for federal CIOs. That makes sense. The bene ts of moving workloads to the cloud are clear. They include greater  exibility and scalability, and the pay- as-you-go model helps agencies move more spending from capital expenditures to operational expenditures. Most importantly, the elasticity and vast capacity of the cloud helps agencies
use critical technologies like big
data analytics, which go a long way toward improving government agency ef ciency.
Lingering security issues remain
a major concern for agencies, even though there has been signi cant progress on that front. Cloud service providers now must become certi ed through Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), a framework for ensuring security and enforcing policy. Yet agencies still worry about security. They conduct their own security assessments for potential cloud providers. After implementation, it’s also up to agencies to monitor the security of their own applications and data in the cloud.
The push for more cloud-enabled services in government isn’t going
away any time soon. In fact, it’s getting even stronger. The White House, for example, is insisting federal agencies adopt more cloud services during 2018. Some requirements include modernizing the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC)
 Compliance with the Cloud First directive can be tricky because of other regulations agencies also must follow. Mandates like FISMA and FITARA, for example, have some requirements that make cloud adoption more dif cult, such as spending and oversight rules.
For all of these reasons, cloud adoption continues to proceed at a slower-than-expected pace. According
GameChanger
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