Congress is getting more involved in federal spending priorities when it comes to Defense Department IT issues, especially when it comes to cloud computing, data centers, enterprise e-mail systems and cyber security. These measures are contained in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which President Obama signed into law on Dec. 31, 2011 (so many folks may have missed it in the holiday lull).
First, let’s take a look at the framing around data centers and cloud computing. If you look at the language of the NDAA, here are some of the key requirements:
- The Pentagon CIO (or the CIOs for the service branches, as delegated) must first approve funds for data server farms or data centers.
- DoD may not obligate funds for any data center or IT used therein, unless in agreement with the performance plan.
- No funding approval unless the existing resources cannot practically be used or modified to meet the requirements in an affordable manner.
- No later than January 15th, the military Secretaries and Defense agency heads such as DISA shall submit to the DoD CIO a plan on data centers to achieve a reduction in square feet; reduction in use of utilities; increase in multi-organizational use; reduction in investment for capital infrastructure; reduction in number of applications, and a reduction in number of people involved.
- No later than April 1st, the DoD CIO must submit to Congress a performance plan for a reduction in the resources for data centers, as well as a DoD-wide strategy for desktop, laptop, and mobile device virtualization; transitioning to cloud computing; and migration of DoD data and government-provided services from DoD-owned and operated data centers to cloud computing services generally available within the private sector; utilization of private sector-managed security services for data centers and cloud computing services; and transitioning to just-in-time delivery of DoD-owned data center through use of modular data center technology and integrated data center infrastructure management software.
- The DoD CIO and intelligence community CIO may jointly exempt intelligence components.
Some senior military officials are skeptical about the direction of this legislation and very concerned about the impact. People I’ve talked to within DoD don’t show much support for the idea of going to a fully commercial cloud, but it appears that Congress is pushing in that direction.
We’ll have to keep a very close eye on how the DoD CIO, Ms. Teri Takai, responds here, and how this actually progresses. Of course, we can expect many in our industry to jump on this legislation to push their IaaS, PaaS and SaaS services.
Next up, we’ll discuss how the new authorization bill affects cyber security in our next post on TechSource.
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