Energy CTO: Go beyond the bare minimum on cloud compliance

Agencies shouldn't settle for meeting the mandate to move three systems to the cloud by June of this year, but instead should jump at the opportunity to do more, said Energy Department CTO Peter Tseronis at an April 3 presentation at the FOSE Conference and Expo.  

The "cloud first" directive requires agencies to identify three use cases to migrate to the cloud within 18 months, something Tseronis said should be as easy as finding three datasets that the entrepreneurial community can take advantage of through data.gov.

“There’s so much information and opportunity in the agencies to promote to the cloud,” he said.

Virtualizing a data center is a step toward cloud computing, he said, "but you can’t stop short."

Energy’s approach to the cloud began with a dip of the proverbial toe in the water by migrating its website from a client-based service. To build off that successful move, the department is now contemplating transitioning its public key infrastructure to the cloud, an effort Tseronis described as “pushing the envelope a little.”

“I like that we’re taking something that’s not as simple as ‘yeah, we’ll just jump in and do our website hosting,’ so we’re pretty jazzed,” he said.

Agencies that want to go beyond the mere compliance of moving three systems should take the opportunity to do so, because migrating just three in 18 months isn’t very impressive, he said.

“I’m not throwing confetti around that discussion,” he said. “That’s pretty lame. ...  We need to be doing more.”

FOSE, held April 3 to 5, is organized by 1105 Media, the parent company of Federal Computer Week, Government Computer News, Washington Technology and Defense Systems.