Industry group forms cloud commission to advise White House

An industry group with a record of shaping federal information technology policy has established a cloud computing commission to advise the White House on outsourcing more than $20 billion worth of IT services to the Web.

TechAmerica Foundation on Wednesday announced that the board will be co-chaired by the heads of two major Web services firms -- Salesforce.com Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff and CEO Michael Capellas of VCE. Last month, the Obama administration directed federal agencies to follow a "cloud-first" approach when budgeting computing resources. Instead of investing in new hardware and software licenses, agencies are expected to first consider paying for short-term subscriptions to computer programs, storage space and IT equipment hosted remotely on the servers of companies like Salesforce. The idea is that by consuming IT services on an as-needed basis, rather than maintaining in-house data centers, the government will boost the efficiency of its annual $80 billion IT budget.

The commission will provide recommendations for how agencies should roll out cloud technologies and suggest changes to policies that might obstruct the government's goals, according to TechAmerica officials. Recently, the Software and Information Industry Association, which represents cloud providers, successfully urged the government to consider relaxing requirements under the so-called FedRAMP cloud security program that it said would slow installations.

OMB spokeswoman Moira Mack said, "We always welcome new ideas to leverage technology to save taxpayer dollars, streamline government and improve services for the American people."

Michael R. Nelson, Internet studies visiting professor at Georgetown University, will round out the commission's leadership as a third, academic co-chairman, TechAmerica officials said. Jim Sheaffer, president of CSC's North American public sector, and Dan Reed, Microsoft Corp. vice president of technology policy and strategy, will steer task forces focused on federal cloud computing and commercial cloud innovation, respectively. Google, a major contender in the cloud market, is not on the board.

"The leadership of the commission represents a diverse cross-section of the companies leading in the cloud. It would be impossible to include everyone," said Jennifer Kerber, a TechAmerica vice president. "We would welcome Google's participation in the commission, as well as any of the many other companies innovating in the space."

The last time TechAmerica formed this type of advisory panel -- for a White House policy to modernize federal IT management -- the administration embraced most of its recommendations. The 25-point plan for overhauling computing contracts released in December 2010 included industry-backed rules for expanding communication between vendors and procurement officers, and for breaking down multiyear upgrades into less-risky projects that deliver new features every few months.

The TechAmerica committee also will advise the Commerce Department on policies for expanding the commercial cloud computing market.

"The United States has no choice but to advance its leadership in cloud-based technologies, or we will lose the jobs of the future to our competitors," Commerce Undersecretary Pat Gallagher said in a statement. "We at the Department of Commerce applaud the technology industry for tackling these questions and look forward to receiving the commission's recommendations."

According to the cloud agenda issued in February, the Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs departments are projected to spend more than $2 billion each on cloud computing annually.

"Although the government has released a cloud strategy and we are getting closer to having a FedRAMP certification program, there are still many policy questions and potential barriers that need to be addressed before the government can truly leverage the power of the commercial cloud," Kerber said. "There is potential that the policy environment, particularly in areas such as information security, privacy and trade, could put some limitations on U.S. leadership in cloud innovation."

This story has been updated to include a response from OMB.