Highlighting some lessons learned by federal cloud users
By
Frank Konkel
Migration to the cloud yields real benefits, but only when thought through and managed properly, say federal IT leaders who have made the move.
A study released Jan. 28 by Meritalk highlights the pros and cons of federal cloud adoption since the Office of Management and Budget’s “Cloud First” policy mandated just over three years ago that agencies begin migrating services.
The study is full of interesting tidbits from 15 federal IT leaders who have executed cloud migrations, but the general consensus is that while change is a challenge, cloud computing is the real deal in terms of savings and efficiencies improvements.
But cloud success and mastery – as with any other IT challenge –comes only from hard work and intelligent management practices.
“If we had defined our expectations when we started, it would be easier to answer whether the benefits from our cloud computing initiative were less than or greater than expected,” said Daniel McCrae, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Services Delivery Division.
NOAA was an early and successful adopter, moving its email and emergency messaging system to the cloud. The move cut costs and improved communication at the agency. The report puts hard numbers to some cloud projects, too. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives moved its email to the cloud, resulting in $1 million in annual savings, according to CIO Rick Holgate.
Shawn Kingsberry, CIO of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said RATB migrated to infrastructure-as-a-service on a public cloud, with a direct savings of $854,800 over two years. The Department of Agriculture’s combination of private and public cloud adoption has it primed to save $75 million over three years.
Even with successes, CIOs and other federal IT leaders said lessons learned over previous experiences will shape how they handle more intensive cloud efforts.
“Do the math, do the science, do the engineering. Develop a real business case. Start with functional requirements related to the mission. If the numbers don’t make sense, don’t do it. You won’t see real economies of scale or efficiencies, you will just be checking off a box,” McCrae said.
Cloud isn’t a buzzword anymore, but it’s not easy, either. As agencies go beyond removing the low-hanging fruit in IT, cloud projects will only get tougher. Yet some of the early successes provide a roadmap for what works and what doesn’t. And don’t expect evolving technology to do the work for you, as many of the federal IT leaders remarked.
“Take a good, long, hard look at the service you are looking to move,” said Walter Bigelow, chief of the IT Systems Management Division at ATF. “Do a full legitimate audit of that service so you know what’s involved – and how much it really costs you. Do a comparison to the cloud offerings that are out there and make an informed management decision. Speak to your peers.”