Commerce On The Cloud

By Steve Cooper, Tyrone Grandison

Today, the team is pleased to announce that after reviewing the results of the security assessments for Amazon Web Services (AWS) GovCloud and AWS East/West, the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) of the Department of Commerce has determined that the risk to agency operations, agency assets, or individuals resulting from the operation of these systems is acceptable. Thus, both cloud systems have an Authority To Operate (ATO) within the Department of Commerce.

In early 2011, the Administration released the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy — that advocates the ‘Cloud First’ approach in order to capitalize on its cost savings, availability improvements, energy efficiencies, system agility, centralized security management and increased reliability.

Over the years, federal agencies have been working diligently and tirelessly to empower federal employees, and leverage the benefits of cloud computing. Early federal cloud adopters have paved a path that demonstrates the power of the ‘Cloud First’ approach and show the proven way forward.

As “America’s Data Agency”, the Department of Commerce intrinsically understands and appreciates that a ‘Cloud First’ strategy is critical in maximizing the power of open data in order to facilitate the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. The Big Data Project from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Open Data efforts from the Commerce Data Service show this clearly.

This is why the Commerce team has been working carefully and meticulously to 1) create a robust process for assessing and providing access to cloud resources, and 2) guide the evaluation of the first system that will be made available to your internal stakeholders.

We think this is a great milestone for the Department and will be a catalyst for future data products and services that we create for the American people.

It is also important to note that even though this Authority is issued for the Commerce Department, the CIOs of the individual bureaus within the Department must arrive at their own determination based on the specific needs and requirements of their bureaus and render their own decisions.

Our determination provides guidance and a path for our own internal direction.

This is also posted at ESA