The Pentagon’s Move To The Cloud Is Right But Presents Unique Challenges (From RealClearDefense)

Moving government IT activities to the cloud is imperative. Operating in the cloud holds out the promise of improved cybersecurity, better data management and information sharing, faster access to cutting-edge technologies and reduced costs. Yet, despite the top-down pressure to move aggressively towards the cloud, progress by government departments and agencies has been relatively slow. The reasons for this range from reluctance to adopt new technologies and a new operating/contracting model, to security concerns, the importance of data sovereignty, the difficulties of migrating data and applications, lack of resources and sheer bureaucratic resistance. Most information that could be migrated to a cloud has compliance and regulatory requirements that must be addressed. It is the complexity of migrating critical government data and activities to the cloud that was at the core of DoD’s decision to structure its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) as a single award and to ensure the ability of the winner to make the security of information migrated to the new cloud a high priority. I have written more on this subject here.