What Government Orgs Are Missing About Cloud Computing

With the end of the Obama era just around the corner, the push to modernize legacy IT is likely a frequent topic of conversations around the government sector. Mid last month, GovWin shared some of the—somewhat lackluster—statistics about government spending towards cloud computing. As one of the first recognized AWS Technology Partners with Government Competency, we’re itching to explore the disconnect between cloud infrastructure management and government organizations—what’s the deal?
 

Operational and Security Concerns

It’s clear that government orgs face a few large obstacles with migrating to, automating, and optimizing the cloud. Beyond operational concerns of overall cloud migration readiness, Federal News Radio reported that top concerns with cloud computing consistently center around security and compliance. Considerations of policy enforcement and requirement clarity are frequent and important issues for government agencies considering a move to the cloud. The question of contract clause coverage and semantics is a key concern, as well.
 

Cloud Benefits for Government Agencies

In addition to the obvious challenges facing government organizations, the potential wins from migrating to the cloud seem unclear to many CIOs and decision makers (as reported by FNR). As seasoned AWS and cloud technology experts, we see many potential benefits for government agencies with cloud computing, including:

• Automated security compliance
• Inventory and utilization optimization
• Cost savings and expense control
• Operational efficiency and agility across teams

As the CIO of the Transportation Department noted in an interview, the visibility afforded by cloud computing enabled total governance and organizational changes to support future cost savings in data infrastructure. The GSA shared a report featuring several government cloud success stories, including several of CloudCheckr’s own customers.
 

CloudCheckr for Government

CloudCheckr provides purpose-built government solutions that help agencies across a variety of use-cases in continuous monitoring, cost management, security and compliance, resource utilization and asset management. We assist customers in both the AWS GovCloud (US), AWS C2S, and commercial regions. With CloudCheckr, government agencies can easily recognize the many opportunities with cloud computing, and simultaneously fulfill key requirements of security frameworks, such as the continuous diagnostics and mitigation (CDM) requirements within NIST SP 800-53 series and the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA).
Reach out to one of our cloud experts to talk about how we can help you leverage AWS.