Federal Government Defends Move Towards Cloud Computing

During a meeting on Capital Hill Federal officials defended their move towards cloud computing, citing increased security measures as a means to an end.

David McClure, associate administrator for the General Services Administration’s (GSA’s) Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies spoke to the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and noted:

“Our problems with security are not unique to cloud-computing systems.”

That response came after committee chairman Rep. Dan Lungren argued that the federal government must prove that cloud computing poses no more of a risk to national security that in-house and legacy systems.

Lungren revealed:

“You’ve got to have a promise that the security of the cloud is going to be measurably better than the security we have in the current system.”

In response McClure said new systems currently being worked on and tested by federal works will help ensure better security for cloud computing systems used by governmental agencies.

In the meantime supporters of the cloud computing program point out that the new systems will save governmental agencies money and provide a more robust computing system that can scale for each agencies future needs.

According to InformationWeek:

The key measure agencies are taking to secure the use of both public and private cloud systems is the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, which centralizes security for cloud computing, addressing three critical problems that McClure outlined before the House Thursday.

The system will set up baseline security controls and continuous monitoring requirements, maintain assessment criteria for the security of cloud systems, and maintain an active inventory of approved systems, he said.

Do you believe that cloud computing is a smart move for the federal government given the ability to scale systems?