In a milestone move in line with the Obama Administration’s cloud initiative, Recovery.gov has been moved to Amazon’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform. On a conference call with reporters, Federal CIO Vivek Kundra stated “It is the first government-wide system to move to a cloud computing infrastructure, and the first to run on Amazon EC2″.
The cloud-computing initiative was a top priority since assuming command as CIO in early 2009. To demonstrate Kundra’s commitment to the newly created position as CIO, he ordered all new IT budget requests for FY 2011 to disclose whether they’ve considered the cloud as an alternative to on-premise systems.
The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board is looking to save around $750,000 over the next two years, with realized ROI happening this year at $334,000. The board hopes to shift those savings to it’s core purpose of preventing waste, fraud and abuse.
In Kundra’s blog post, he states:
“As the world’s largest consumer of information technology and as stewards of taxpayer dollars, the federal government has a duty to be a leader in pioneering the use of new technologies that are more efficient and economical, By using cloud services, the federal government will gain access to powerful technology resources faster and at lower costs. This frees us to focus on mission-critical tasks instead of purchasing, configuring, and maintaining redundant infrastructure.”
Security was one of the factors holding back previous moves to the cloud. Amazon.com was required to participate in an rigorous certification process. Requirements such as US-only data storage and compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act had to be met and independently verified.
Kundra concludes: “I am hopeful that that the Recovery Board’s move to the cloud will serve as a model for making government’s use of technology smarter, better, and faster.”
You can read more about this major milestone at recovery.gov.