CIAS AMAZON-BUILT CLOUD JUST WENT LIVE

The Central Intelligence Agency is now

officially an Amazon Web Services
cloud consumer.
Less than 10 months after a U.S. Court of Federal
Claims judge ended a public
battle between AWS and IBM for the CIAs
commercial cloud contract valued at up to $600
million, the AWS-built cloud for the intelligence
community went online last week for the first time,
according to a source familiar with the deal.

The cloud best thought of as a public cloud computing environment built
on private premises is yet far from its peak operational capabilities when
it will provide all 17 intelligence agencies unprecedented access to an
untold number of computers for various on-demand computing, analytic,
storage, collaboration and other services.
The timing aligns with public comments
made by CIAChief Information Officer Douglas
Wolfe in June, though neither the CIA nor Amazon
would confirm the cloud has come online.
Our goal is to make the IC clouds commercial
services available to customers beginning in
summer 2014, and we are on target to meet it,
a CIA spokesperson told Nextgov. The services
will be available to all intelligence
community agencies.

Now available to intelligence agencies,
the IC cloud is akin to a freight train beginning to
accelerate down the tracks. The basic
infrastructure is in place, but it will take time for
intelligence agencies to identify applications,
information and data to transition to the
cloud platform.
In time, the clouds full capabilities are expected to
usher in a new era of intelligence sharing and
cooperation even as the IC collects ever-greater
amounts of data from sensors, satellites,
surveillance efforts and other sources.
Importantly, the CIA believes the IC cloud will be
as safe as or safer than security on its
current data centers, having met IC standards that
govern the handling of classified information. Each
intelligence agency has a say in the accreditation
process, according to intelligence officials.
The AWS-built cloud launch essentially means the
entire IC has vouched for its security.
The IC always applies a rigorous process to
determine the operational readiness of
its IT systems and all of the intelligence agencies
have an opportunity to participate in these
procedures, a U.S. intelligence official
told Nextgov.
The ICs use of cloud services was first outlined
three years ago in the Intelligence Community
Information Technology Enterprise in an effort to
reduce IT spending, harness innovation from the
private sector and improve information sharing
within the intelligence community.
The massive effort, led by the CIA and the National
Security Agency, which built its own private cloud,
culminated in a CIA contract awarded to AWS in
February 2013 that was held up in court until
October 2013 by competitor IBM.
The ICs decision to tap a commercial cloud
provider allows it to only pay for services it uses as
opposed to costly internal data centers. The IC will
also benefit through private sector innovation.
Amazon, for example, made 200 incremental
improvements last year to its platform; the IC will
be able to implement those kinds of improvements
as it sees fit.