NASA Leverages In-House IT Talent

As the debate over insourcing versus outsourcing continues -- in part thanks to a recent Project on Government Oversight report that says contractors cost more than federal employees doing the same work -- NASA announced that it has developed its own private cloud using mostly in-house technology expertise.

AOL Government reports that NASA's scientists and engineers, with the help of NASA contractors, have built the agency's own private cloud, called Nebula, to host most of the applications and services destined for the cloud at NASA.

NASA values its "engineering expertise and it is critical to nurture the technical knowledge of our in-house employees so they can make sound technical recommendations or decisions [on cloud initiatives]," Tsengdar Lee, NASA's acting chief technology officer for information technology, told AOL Government.

Meanwhile, agencies like the Homeland Security Department have been evaluating the levels of contractors versus federal employees, particularly in fields like information technology. Earlier this year, DHS Spokesman Larry Orluskie told Wired Workplace that DHS identified about 3,500 jobs performed by contractors that could either be eliminated or converted to civil service positions, many of which were in the IT field, as part of its balanced workforce initiative.

What are your thoughts on the insourcing versus outsourcing debate, particularly as agencies like NASA and DHS are increasingly looking to in-house expertise for IT projects and programs?