Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal

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Overview: Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies

An NJVC® Executive White Paper

Kevin L. Jackson General Manager, Cloud Services

September 2011


The Obama administration has publicly identified cloud computing as a viable solution to help cut the federal budget. The administration adopted a “cloud‐first” policy as part of its 25‐point IT reform plan … For the federal government, the evolution to the cloud is not something to consider in the future—it is something to put into operation today.

Executive Summary Cloud computing is a game changer. The value of the new approach of cloud computing to the provisioning and consuming information technology lies within its ability to enable more efficient and effective information sharing. Its merit is not just in cost savings, but in enhanced mission and business enhancements and improved allocation of resources. Its characteristics not only dramatically transform how an IT infrastructure is managed, but also the traditional roles of enterprise IT professionals to a more service management orientation—as they become responsible for helping their internal customers better use the externally provided IT services. Building a cloud computing roadmap is essential to unlocking the value of the cloud in a predictable fashion with acceptable risk. This paper outlines the essential steps to constructing a solid cloud computing roadmap. As a young approach, cloud computing is not without its challenges. Few established tools, procedures and formats, potential risks exist. Primary challenges exist in security controls—particularly related to the protection of sensitive data—lack of federal regulations and compliance standards, and data sovereignty. The benefits of cloud computing are recognized by the federal government, including the defense and intelligence communities. Dialogue on cloud computing has been ongoing within the government for years, but agencies are still in the early stages of implementing and adopting this new IT approach. The Obama administration has publicly identified cloud computing as a viable solution to help cut the federal budget. The administration adopted a “cloud‐first policy” as part of its 25‐point IT reform plan, which mandates all federal agencies to develop and implement one cloud‐based solution by December 2011 and three such solutions by June 2012. For the federal government, the evolution to the cloud is not something to consider in the future—it is something to put into operation today.

The government can learn many lessons from the private sector pertaining to the implementation of cloud computing solutions, as the private sector embarked on the journey to the cloud some time ago. These valuable lessons include the need to expect a multi‐year transition to the cloud, use a consistent cloud opportunity identification process to reduce the risk of project failure and formulate appropriate metrics (economic, operational and service) that are directly tied to mission.


For intelligence professionals, the use of cloud computing can not only make the automation of the interpretation of documents and translation of data into operationally relevant entities and events possible, but it enables real‐time continuous processing of the now digital document flow of our adversaries.

Use of a gate‐driven cloud adoption process designed to terminate failed projects early in the project lifecycle and deliver measurable capabilities within a quick timeframe is recommended. The defense and intelligence communities require utility computing methods that scale on demand and enable self discovery and self‐service access to secure, timely and relevant information in support of mission. Designing software independence from the hardware through the use of cloud computing solutions allows an operating system, applications and data to “live” across the enterprise and is fundamental to the transformation of compute, storage and network functionality. Facing an estimated $178 billion in budget cuts during the next several years, the Department of Defense is exploring a number of administrative and structural cost‐cutting measures—and IT is one of the first areas for consideration. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently stated that the agency is reviewing how to reform how it currently uses IT, which costs the agency approximately $37 billion annually. DoD is in the process of consolidating hundreds of data centers and utilizing cloud computing in this shift, and the fact that the defense community is beginning to explore cloud computing through various smaller‐scale projects is promising to proponents. For intelligence professionals, the use of cloud computing can not only make the automation of the interpretation of documents and translation of data into operationally relevant entities and events possible, but it enables real‐time continuous processing of the now digital document flow of our adversaries. This commodity also removes the human from this tedious task, allowing intelligence professionals to apply higher order professional analysis and insight. The human‐based documentation exploitation process has led to a reliance on “operationally proven” processes and filters. Instantiated by the use of multi‐page structure query language (e.g., Boolean) and the ubiquitous goal of obtaining an appropriate “working set” of data, these processes were born from the need to meet critical decision timelines within a computationally inadequate environment. Cloud techniques and technologies can now be used to work on all the data. And with an ability to leverage the power of a supercomputer at will, the working set requirement is now an anachronism and critical decision timelines can now be more easily met. Cloud computing can uniquely address important issues associated with mission support—particularly related to its ability to remove information silos among various organizations that have joined forces on the same mission. Moving IT operations to the cloud assists in enhanced collaboration to meet mission needs. It is critical to our national defense. As a bonus, cloud computing also can improve IT enterprise efficiencies and incur marked cost savings during project lifecycles to alleviate some of the pressure of budget reductions for the defense and intelligence agencies.


Different cloud computing deployment models are actually changing what it means to be an IT professional … This transition puts the enterprise IT professional into a service management role, responsible for helping his or her internal customers better use externally provided IT services.

Introduction Cloud computing is a new approach in the provisioning and consumption of information technology (IT). While technology is a crucial component, the real value of cloud computing lies in its ability to enable new capabilities or in the execution of current capabilities in more efficient and effective ways. Although the current hype around cloud computing has focused on expected cost savings, the true value is really found in the mission and business enhancements these techniques can provide. When properly deployed, the cloud computing model provides greatly enhanced mission and business capability without a commensurate increase in resource (time, people or money) expenditures. Cloud Computing: Changing the Game The use of commodity components, coupled with highly automated controls, enable cloud computing.1 These characteristics also enable the economic model that makes it so disruptive to the status quo. As an example, the software‐as‐a‐service cloud delivery model typically does not require any advance usage commitment or long‐term contractual arrangements. SaaS not only changes the typical software vendor business model, but also radically changes the strategy, budgeting, buying and management options for the buyer. When Salesforce.com proved the viability of SaaS, the software subscription model was instantly endangered as a profitable business model. Amazon Web Services is similarly attacking data center hosting with its Virtual Private Datacenter Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering.

Looking at this phenomenon from another angle, different cloud computing deployment models are actually changing what it means to be an IT professional. Since the days of the first computer, IT workers have prided themselves in their ability to design, build, operate and fix the enterprise hardware and software components that comprise the IT lifeblood of organizations—both in the public and private sectors. These tightly knit teams worked hard to keep these custom‐made platforms updated, patched and ready to meet daily business and mission requirements. In the cloud computing world, IT infrastructure that is not delivering differentiating value is viewed as worthless cost. Critical business applications like email, Customer Resource Management (CRM), Human Resource Management and Enterprise Resource Planning are being routed to more capable cloud providers of these same services. This transition puts the enterprise IT professional into a service management role, responsible for helping his or her internal customers better use externally provided IT services. The new enterprise IT department is more a services organization than the traditional delivery organization.


The new cloud economic model also radically changes the view of what’s actually possible. Traditional IT procurement and provisioning processes have historically driven timelines associated with the delivery or fielding of improved information and data processing capabilities. Multiple threads of development, test, training and maintenance can also tax an organization’s short‐ and long‐term financial resources. IaaS and Platform as a Service options can not only eliminate or limit capital expenditures, but can reduce or eliminate the expectation of operations and sustainment costs. The time required to realize mission or business value also is substantially reduced. With these differences, the impossible can suddenly become not only possible, but often can lead to new mission capabilities or brand‐new cloud‐enabled, revenue‐generating businesses. Challenges of Cloud Computing Despite the myriad benefits of cloud computing solutions, several challenges still exist. Being a young industry, there are few tools, procedures or standard data formats or service interfaces in place to guarantee data, computer application and service portability. As evidenced with the recent situation involving the services failure of Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, outages can be a potential risk—and can have widespread implications for consumers of cloud services. This risk becomes even more severe if a mission‐critical environment could be impacted. A benefit as well as a challenge, security concerns have also slowed the widespread adoption of cloud computing. A variety of security concerns exist. According to the article, “Three Cloud Computing Risks to Consider,” in Information Security Magazine (June 2009), “the logging and auditing controls provided by some [cloud] vendors are not yet as robust as the logging providing within enterprises and enterprise applications,” which can put critical and sensitive data and information at risk. Security, of course, becomes increasingly critical in defense and intelligence IT environments. For the government market, the lack of regulations and compliance standards are also cause for concern. Currently, no federal regulations are in place to govern cloud computing, and according to an April 2011 Information Systems Audit and Control Association survey of 1,800 Chief Information Officers (CIOs), compliance is a top risk. Approximately 30 percent of the CIOs surveyed said that “compliance projects are the biggest driver for IT risk‐related projects”—particularly in public clouds. Specific to federal environments, data sovereignty is a challenge. According to a speech given by former Federal CIO Vivek Kundra at an April 7, 2010, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) forum," [Data sovereignty] is not going to be a question of technology. [Data sovereignty] is going to be a question of international law, and treaties that we will need to engage in the coming years.” CIO Kundra later added: “We've got a very diverse interpretation and a very diverse perspective when it comes to privacy or international security, if you look at our neighbors—Canada or Mexico—versus what's happening in the European Union.”

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Frequently observed signs for failure should be avoided Lack of formal planning process Missing or poor IT governance Poor or missing responsibility matrix Neglecting the human resource management challenges No established program/project management office Missing inventory of assets

A risk mitigation plan also must be formalized that addresses each of the following concerns:2 Loss of Governance. When moving to a cloud environment, clients relinquish control to the CP on a number of security‐related issues. A gap in security defenses may also exist as service level agreements may not adequately address CP‐related security requirements.

Portability. Issues related to provider lock in are outlined in the Challenges section of this white paper on page 5.

Isolation Failure. Multi‐tenancy and collaboration are at the core of cloud computing. Resource isolation failure addresses mechanisms separating storage, memory, routing and reputation among different clients on the same cloud (e.g., guest‐hopping attacks). However, it must be noted that attacks on these mechanisms are not as pervasive and much more difficult to attempt versus attacks on traditional operating systems.

Compliance Risks. Investments in certifications (e.g., industry standard or regulatory requirements) may be compromised or lost when moving to the cloud.

Management Interface Compromise. Security is an issue with client management interfaces with the public cloud provider. The reason? These services are provided via the internet and permit access to a larger set of resources than traditional operating systems. Security risk can dramatically increase when this is combined with remote access and web browser vulnerabilities.

Data Protection. It may be difficult for clients to effectively check the data‐handling practices of their CPs to ensure critical and sensitive data is handled lawfully and ethically. This problem can be aggravated in cases of multiple transfers of data (e.g., between federated clouds). However, it must be noted that some CPs share information on their data‐handling practices with clients and others offer certification summaries on their data processing and data security activities and their various security controls (e.g., Statement on Auditing Standards 70 Certification.

Insecure or Incomplete Data Deletion. As with most operating systems, when a request to remove a cloud resource is made, a true erase of data may not happen. Adequate or timely data deletion also may not be feasible (or undesirable from a client perspective) because extra copies of data are stored but not readily available or the disk to be destroyed also houses other data from other clients. When multi‐tenancies and the reuse of hardware resources are added to the mix, this risk can increase.

Malicious Insider. Cloud architectures necessitate the creation of certain staff positions (e.g., CP system administrators and managed security service providers) that can be extremely high risk in terms of internal security threats.


1. Can compliance requirements be balanced with other IT prioirities?

2. Is this an IT function or service the agency has mastered?

3. Can the agency use a standardized service? 4. Is the test case easily implementable?

Creating a Cloud Computing Roadmap for Federal Agencies First Steps According to, GovCloud: Cloud Computing for the Business of Government, when a government agency is ready to undertake the implementation of a cloud‐based solution, it must determine which IT services, business functions and processes to deploy in the cloud environment. A five‐year roadmap should be created that includes the desired order to move each of the services to the cloud for each year during that time period.3 Requirements for each service to be deployed in the cloud should be developed and a cost/benefits analysis performed to establish the rationale why each targeted service should move to the cloud. Implementation of a Low‐Risk Test Case A low‐risk test case should be implemented prior to undertaking a wholesale transfer of services to the cloud.4 This is harder than it may sound as some IT services that may seem simple to deploy to the cloud are not so easy. Four questions should be asked (and answered) to decide which IT services are best suited to live in the cloud5: A misconception may exist that just because an application or service being deployed to the cloud isn’t mission critical, the process will be simple and straightforward. This is not always true. If the agency is new to the cloud and wishes to establish a private cloud it will take time to determine the appropriate split of responsibilities between the service provider and the agency’s IT team.6 Compliance and liability issues can also be tricky, as defining compliance conditions and establishing liability for intellectual property protection with cloud vendors reach well beyond the IT world—and, as such, with so many moving parts may take time to properly address and resolved.7 NIST has launched the U.S. Government Cloud Computing Business Case Working Group to assist agencies with the development of cloud‐compatible user cases. Email, geospatial data exchange and services management are among the first user cases currently in development.


Additional Recommendations The authors of GovCloud: Cloud Computing for the Business of Government also offer seven recommendations that must be considered during the development and implementation of an agency’s cloud roadmap:

Own the information, even if you own nothing else. An agency must claim its right to own the information even if it doesn’t own the infrastructure, application or service associated with that information. Any agency is liable for its information—regardless of where it lives—and some education will likely be needed about this fact among its IT team. While it may be unrealistic to prevent departments from provisioning their own cloud application, the agency must institute policies and procedures to ensure it can monitor how information deployed to the cloud is managed. As it is often hard to envision future uses of information, it also is recommended that agencies make sure cloud‐dwelling data can be brought back into the enterprise if needed.

Don’t take terminology for granted. It is vital to ensure that important terminology is defined in the same way by the agency and the cloud service provider—room for different interpretation always exists. A review of information governance policies must take place to identify the areas of highest risk so authoritative definitions for vocabulary in these areas can be developed and adopted.

Hope for standards, but prepare to integrate. In short, the cloud is young and isn’t established enough to have developed standard specifications for platform interoperability and data exchange. Strategic groundwork for future data integration needs to be laid in the early stages of any movement to the cloud. Agencies must insist that their cloud service providers provide clear documentation on the data formats and schemas used for information storage in their systems.

Control cloud platform proliferation. Agencies should minimize the number of different cloud platforms that require support to limit information fragmentation and decrease the chance of a future huge integration effort. To the greatest extent possible, an agency’s IT team should help departments look for shared requirements in standardized business functions. The team can identify cloud platforms that meet these needs and consolidate the agency’s services on them, when possible. Not only will the ability to share information increase, this will result in greater leverage when negotiating contract terms and pricing.

Make the information “cloud ready.” Agencies that organize their data sets well enough for use across multiple platforms will be best positioned to take advantage of cloud services, and will be better able to deploy enterprise information to the cloud more easily.IT teams need to get into the habit of encrypting data into one common format (probably XML)—a process even more important if data moves through externally operated resources to the cloud.

Master solution integration. The shift to the cloud requires IT professionals to change their focus from owning and operating enterprise systems to becoming master information service integrators. In addition to linking legacy databases to SaaS, IT teams need to connect their private and public clouds to create a seamless technology environment that works like a single cloud custom‐made for their specific enterprises.


Designing software independence from the hardware allows an operating system, applications and data to “live” across the enterprise and is fundamental to the transformation of compute, storage and network functionality.

Cloud Computing for Defense and Intelligence The defense and intelligence communities are not immune to cloud computing. Arguably more than any other government agencies, their missions require a fabric of utility computing that scales on demand and enables self discovery and self‐service access to secure, timely and relevant information in support of mission: individual or shared. The traditional IT model requires system engineering that binds most software to the hardware and does not provide an enterprise suite of functionality or allow for increased flexibility and a governed lifecycle of services. Designing software independence from the hardware allows an operating system, applications and data to “live” across the enterprise and is fundamental to the transformation of compute, storage and network functionality.

Defense is dealing with a $78 billion budget cut—the first since September 11, 2001—and another $100 billion in other cost‐cutting measures over a five‐year period commencing in FY 2012. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is directing that the budget be cut from agency administrative and structural areas (e.g., the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Network Intelligence and Information, the Business Transformation Agency, and the Joint Forces Command are in the process of being eliminated or disestablished with some essential functions transferred to other organizations with the Pentagon). In an official statement on the proposed budget costs provided on January 6, 2011, Secretary Gates said: “First, reforming how the department uses information technology, which costs us about $37 billion a year. At this time all of our bases and headquarters have their own separate IT infrastructure and processes, which drive up costs and create cyber vulnerabilities. The department is planning to consolidate hundreds of data centers and move to a more secure enterprise system, which we estimate could save more than $1 billion a year.” Department of Defense Chief Information Officer Terry Takai also publically commented about the potential IT budget cuts at an April 21, 2011, INPUT event, stating DoD’s support of the move of some of its IT operations to the cloud—particularly data centers. DoD has begun to explore cloud computing through several smaller‐scale projects; some of these are outlined in the “Examples of Successful Federal Cloud Solution Implementations” on page 13.

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Solution Benefits Fewer recruiters required to

handle the workload of the five traditional recruiting centers that the AEC replaced

Faster application upgrades Dramatic reduction in hardware

and IT staff expenses Significant increase in staff

productivity

Solution Benefits Avoidance of high start‐up costs and

additional ROI through software reuse Savings of between $200,000 and $500,000

per project due to rapid project start‐ups at lower costs

An estimated $15 million in cost avoidance by using open source software that provides for software reuse and collaborative development—in addition to lower funds for licensing and support

Improved software for agency users by providing version control and traceability

Examples of Successful Cloud Implementations Army Experience Center Pilot Program, United States Army Two years ago, the United States Army initiated a pilot program to explore how to better utilize new technologies in support of its marketing and recruiting work. The Army Experience Center (AEC) in Philadelphia, PA, uses a variety of exciting technology—touch‐screen career exploration kiosks, virtual reality simulators and social networking tools to educate potential recruits about the Army and help them make informed decisions about enlisting. As part of the center operations, the Army needed a customer relationship management system to track prospect engagement (virtual and in person) to help personnel better manage the recruitment and enlistment process. Despite constant updates over the years, the Army’s legacy data system could not be modified to meet the new requirements of the AEC, specifically social networking and other web 2.0 applications, data access from multiple platforms including mobile devices, the tracking of AEC visitor information and the amalgamation of marketing and recruiting data. After reviewing bids from both traditional and “non‐traditional” IT vendors, the Army chose a customized version of Salesforce for the pilot program. The annual cost of the pilot is only $54,000—compared to the proposed operational costs from traditional vendors of $500,000 to $1 million a year. This cloud‐based, mobility solution CRM tool allows the Army to track potential recruits as they participate in the different virtual activities in the AEC, and recruits can remain engaged with recruiters after they leave the center through social media and email. Due to the mobility of the platform, recruiters also can access potential recruit information anytime and anywhere. Rapid Access Computing Environment, Defense Information Systems Agency The Defense Information Systems Agency made the leap to the cloud by establishing the Rapid Access Computing Environment in 2008. RACE is the agency’s secure, stable, private cloud that utilizes virtual server technology to provide on‐demand server space for development teams. RACE is made up of several virtual servers co‐located in a single physical server.


Solution Benefits Cost savings by dividing the costs of

provisioning and operating one physical server among several virtual servers

Rapid provisioning of functional server space to users (24 hours), compared to a traditional dedicated server environment (three to six weeks)

Improved security through built‐in application separation controls so all applications, databases and web servers are separated, and a strict data cleaning process

Solution Benefits: Savings of $4 million annually Seventy percent increase in

customer engagement in the knowledge base

Reduction on the time required for customers to find answers from more than 15,000 documents on file: from 20 minutes to only two minutes.

RACE, which uses virtual server technology to provide on‐demand server space for development teams, aims to be more secure and stable than a traditional public cloud. RACE consists of many virtual servers inside a single physical server. Within this virtual environment that meets DoD security standards, customers use a self‐service portal to provision computing resources in 50 GB increments. The cost for RACE access is reasonable and can be established with an approved government‐issued credit card. RACE offers the same level service and availability as a traditional server environment. Since RACE was implemented, hundreds of military applications, including command and control systems, convoy control systems and satellite programs have been developed and tested on this cloud‐based solution. Forge.mil Program, DISA Forge.mil is the secure software development environment established by DISA designed to provide DoD with tools and services to rapidly develop, test and deploy new software and systems. CollabNet provided DISA with a cloud‐based software development platform to allow customers to reuse and collaborate on software code. To date, forge.mil manages more than 5,000 users with more than 300 open source projects, 500 file release posts and 30,000 downloads. Forge.mil hosts an array of projects for different DoD agencies, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Personnel Services Delivery Transformation, Air Force Personnel Center Due to the mandated manpower reduction initiative, the Air Force Personnel Center had to find a new, viable way to deliver human resource tools and services, while improving customer experiences by providing self‐service solutions and the ability to track customer needs. AFPC decided that the SaaS solution by RightNow was the solution necessary for improved knowledge management, case and contact center tracking and the ability to meet client survey mission requirements. After implementation of the RightNow solution, customer searches on the knowledge base have risen to nearly 2 million per week. This cloud‐based platform also provides the ability to scale services to meet fluctuating demand without any impact to customer experience.


Appendix 1: References

1. Mell, Peter, and Grance, Timothy. “The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing: Recommendations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.” January 2011. Jackson, Kevin L., and Philpott, Don. GovCloud: Cloud Computing for the Business of Government: Desk Reference, March 2011

2. “Cloud Computing: Benefits, Risks and Recommendations for Information Security.” European Network and Information Security Agency. November 2009.

3. Jackson, Kevin L., and Philpott. Don. GovCloud: Cloud Computing for the Business of Government: Desk Reference, March 2011.






Appendix 2: Cloud Computing Resources Info.apps.gov (http://www.info.apps.gov/node/19) Federal Cloud Computing Initiative (http://www.info.apps.gov/node/2) Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) – (http://www.info.apps.gov/content/federal‐risk‐and‐authorization‐management‐program‐fedramp) Cloud Computing Resources (http://www.info.apps.gov/node/14) “Cloud Musings by Kevin L. Jackson” (http://kevinljackson.blogspot.com/) “Cloud Musings on Forbes” (http://blogs.forbes.com/kevinjackson/) “Government Cloud Computing on Ulitzer”(http://govcloud.ulitzer.com/) NIST Business Use Case Template (https://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki‐cloud‐computing/bin/view/cloudcomputing/businessusecasescall03) NIST Computer Security Division, Computer Security Resource Center, Cloud Computing (http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud‐computing/)


About the Author Kevin Jackson is General Manager, Cloud Services, at NJVC. Before joining the company, Mr. Jackson served in various senior management positions with Dataline, LLC; Cryptek, Inc.; IBM; and JP Morgan Chase. Recently, he was named a “Cyber Security Visionary” by U.S. Black Engineer and Information Technology magazine. Mr. Jackson is the founder and author of “Cloud Musings” (http://kevinljackson.blogspot.com) and “Cloud Musings on Forbes” (http://blogs.forbes.com/kevinjackson), a Forbes magazine online blog dedicated to public sector cloud computing. He is also founder and editor of “Government Cloud Computing on Ulitzer“ electronic magazine (http://govcloud.ulitzer.com ). His first book, GovCloud: Cloud Computing for the Business of Government was released in spring 2011. Mr. Jackson has been deeply involved in the broad collaborative effort between industry and the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology on the federal government’s adoption of cloud computing technologies. He is the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium’s Cloud Computing Working Group Chairman. About NJVC® NJVC® is one of the largest information technology solutions providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense. We provide innovative and high‐quality IT solutions to the government and commercial organizations, and specialize in supporting highly secure IT enterprises, particularly for the intelligence and defense communities. To learn more, visit www.njvc.com.


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