Page 6 - FCW, March/April 2020

Cloud Modeling for Success
Align to service, mission needs, technical requirements and policies.
Federal agencies continue moving workloads to the cloud in pursuit of cost savings, operational
operate in the cloud. On the other hand, most modern applications, SaaS, data sets, platforms and infrastructure are more efficient and cost-effective in the cloud. The key
is determining the right combination of public cloud, private cloud and on- premises resources.
critical resources, and more than three-quarters expect SaaS to become essential or important over the next two years. The SaaS model works well for everything from productivity applications and office suites to travel and expense management and customer support applications.
effectiveness, stronger security and improved mission efficiency. More often than not, agencies choose hybrid environments that blend private and public cloud environments. The flexibility of hybrid allows agencies to keep sensitive data on a private cloud while using more economical and scalable public cloud resources for less sensitive information or which require improved capabilities like DevOps, AI or Analytics.
Finding the best model for IT resources is part of what the OMB had in mind with its Cloud Smart strategy. A follow-on to the Cloud First initiative, the newer initiative aims to help agencies realize the potential of cloud-based technologies by encouraging them to evaluate options based on service and mission needs, technical requirements, and policy limitations.
“SaaS has become very important to our federal customers because
you can access applications from anywhere in the world and still
have the same experience,” says
Sam Lakhia, cloud client executive, federal for CDW·G. “They also really like the fact that upgrades are automatic, which really cuts down on maintenance time and costs.”
To get those benefits, agencies must adapt to cloud capabilities correctly. That means assessing
and identifying workloads that are suitable for the cloud and those that may be better off remaining on- premises. Although it may be obvious that extremely sensitive applications or data sets are good candidates for staying on-premises, some older legacy applications may not transfer well to the cloud, and still others could be prohibitively costly to
Making cloud sense
Agencies also are increasingly turning to cloud-based storage, in part because it has become easy to configure and use, in part because the amount of data generated by agencies today makes it difficult to keep pace with capacity requirements. The key is to understand and prioritize data to determine what makes sense to store in the cloud, Lakhia says.
Accessing applications via the cloud or utilizing storage and back- up services are the most common
use of cloud computing throughout government. According to one recent survey, a majority of federal agencies uses Software as a Service (SaaS)
for at least 30 percent of mission-
Cloud-based infrastructure –
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