DOD expanding use of commercial cloud

The Defense Department is planning to make a more use of commercial cloud services for non-classified information, as part of its move toward the Joint Information Environment.

DOD CIO Teri Takai told the House Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee this week that nine cloud companies are lined up to join the four already approved to provide cloud services to the military, Adam Mazmanian reports for FCW.

To date, Autonomics Resources is the only company identified as a DOD-qualified provider, though FCW has reported that Amazon Web Services and CGI Federal were close to achieving their security certifications.

DOD’s security requirements are in addition to those of FedRAMP, the General Services Administration-run program through which more than a dozen services have been approved for government use, including those from Autonomics, AWS and CGI Federal.

Security certifications may open up new areas of service for providers, but the military already has been making use of commercial clouds. In an April 2013 memo, for example, Navy Department CIO  Terry Halvorsen told the Navy and Marine Corps to start using commercial clouds for publicly available information. And Amazon already hosts the Navy secretary's Web page.