CIA Putting Final Touches on Their AWS Private Cloud
Last year, the CIA chose Amazon AWS to launch their private cloud services. The move was seen as groundbreaking because many cloud analysts figured that IBM would get the contract. As the CIA puts the final touches on its private cloud, the infrastructure is set to be rolled out the intelligence community by the end of the summer.
Douglas Wolfe, CIO of the CIA says, “I think that we’re going to end up with a very good and quality product and a very secure product to handle all kinds of different workloads at the classified level in the intelligence community.” Wolf goes on to tell FedTechMagazine that users of the private cloud will be billed back for their exact usage. An example would be if one of the CIA’s sub departments used the private cloud for a project, that sub-department would foot the bill for cloud services in a pay as you go fashion.
In regards to the new private cloud, Wolfe continues on by saying. “I am determined that they will not only have the innovation on how do we spin up the servers and spin up the IT … but to start to bring the innovation from the commercial sector in terms of applications to the mission space.”
Wolfe made his comments on the stage of the AWS Government, Education and Nonprofits Symposium on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. This symposium is designed to show off the capabilities of Amazon’s cloud that is tailored for the government. As more agencies in the US government begin to seek out cloud contracts, the competition within will get fiercer. The deadline for submitting your FedRamp application has recently passed earlier this month. The FedRamp certification qualifies organization as federally approved cloud vendors.
While Amazon AWS is the most popular public cloud platform, it was seen as a slight to IBM for the CIA to choose Amazon over Big Blue. According to the tone of Wolfe’s comments at the AWS Symposium, it seems as if the CIA is happy with their choice to give their private cloud contract to AWS.
