The Federal Cloud Computing Initiative (FCCI) is rooted in ITI LoB which was a Government-wide study of end user systems and support, telecommunications, mainframe and server services including optimizing performance, efficiency and effectiveness, and year over year comparisons. Subsequently, the Federal CIO Council identified Cloud Computing as a Federal IT priority and formed a CIO Working Group, the Cloud Computing Executive Steering Committee (CCESC), in March of 2009. GSA�s Casey Coleman chairs the CCESC which leads the Federal Cloud Computing Initiative.
The objective of the FCCI is to make cloud computing services accessible and easy to procure for Federal agencies. Actions taken so far have included:
Creating a cloud computing definition (NIST)
Hosting a cloud computing summit
Releasing an IaaS RFI and subsequent IaaS RFQ
Launching a cloud computing storefront: http://apps.gov
The FCCI Executive Steering Committee, Advisory Council, and Working Groups continue to work on identifying and addressing issues and obstacles to successful cloud computing implementation.
Cloud Computing Mission Statement
Drive the government-wide adoption of cost effective, green, and sustainable Federal cloud computing solutions.
Cloud Computing Vision Statement
Establish secure, easy to use, rapidly provisioned IT services for the Federal Government, including:
Agile and simple acquisition and certification processes;
Elastic, usage-based delivery of pooled computing resources;
Portable, reusable and interoperable business-driven solutions;
Browser-based ubiquitous internet access to services; and
Always on and available, utility-like solutions.
View the CIO Cloud Computing Strategy to gain more insight on the objective and goals for Federal Cloud Computing.
The more familiar state and local government IT decision-makers are with cloud computing, the more they support it and see the benefits it can deliver to their agencies, according to a survey sponsored by Bluetext, a Washington, D.C.-based communications and marketing firm. The vast majority of those familiar with the cloud see it as an effective tool in meeting a range of IT challenges, from providing backup and disaster recovery to desktop virtualization.
One hundred and fifty state and local government IT decision-makers were interviewed online in August by Fabrizio, Ward & Associates on behalf of Bluetext. Seven out of 10 of those very familiar with the cloud think that cloud data centers would bring immediate cost savings to their agencies. Nearly 91 percent of the IT managers polled would be interested in cloud data centers if they knew immediate costs savings could be achieved.
