Security isn't the only barrier to cloud computing

While the White House is pushing agencies to move more information technology operations to cloud-based systems, senior federal officials said they face a number of challenges beyond security.

Dawn Leaf, senior executive for cloud computing at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is developing standards for Internet-based networks, said: "One of the things we see strategically for not only government users but for all cloud adopters is the interoperability and portability piece. We talk so much about security we sometimes forget those two."

Leaf spoke with other executives during a panel discussion sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association in Bethesda, Md., on Thursday. Central to both of those challenges is software licensing. Because cloud computing provides a large group of users with on-demand network access to a shared pool of applications and other technology resources, conventional software licensing agreements are problematic.

"I don't want to buy licenses anymore," said Alfred Rivera, director of computing services at the Defense Information Systems Agency. "Software is the second largest cost driver, and a lot of that is the licensing. I want the right to use it when I need it."

Cloud computing changes the purchasing model for technology services, said Margie Graves, deputy chief information officer at the Homeland Security Department. "I'm worried about the licensing issues," she said. "We have certain enterprise licensing agreements for DHS as a whole. And when we stand up our [new] data center requirements and people are moving in, they're saying, 'Do we use that as a bundle from the data center and the service provider of the data center uses their licensing agreement with the software provider, or do we use DHS licensing?' What's the mixture of the two?"

"We don't want to have more licenses than we need," Graves said. "It's going to require that people team from a hardware, software and service capability to offer a cloud offering."

The State Department recently established an office to consider enterprise licensing, said Cindy Cassil, director of systems integration in the Office of the Chief Information Officer.