GovLoop Agency of the Guide: Cloud Computing

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DISCOVERING GOVERNMENT’S NEXT IT FRONTIER: Y O U R PAT H T O A D O P T I N G C L O U D C O M P U T I N G

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Your Journey Begins: How Cloud Computing is Changing the Game at Your Agency 8 Reasons to Adopt the Cloud How the Cloud Leads to New Opportunities for Government Employees How to Get Started With Your Journey to the Cloud 10 Best Practices for Cloud Adoption An Inseparable Pair: Cloud and the Agency of the Future

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At the height of the Roman Empire, the Romans controlled nearly 1.7 million square miles of land. In order to manage their territory, they built a sophisticated network of roads spanning about 50,000 miles.

This complex and intricate highway was an engineering marvel for its day; it’s still regarded as a remarkable engineering feat.

Today engineering feats the Romans could only dream of result in new types of highways – digital ones. You can now transport information, computing power, tools and services quickly and efficiently, radically changing the way your agency does business.

Powering this digital highway is the cloud, and it is reimagining the way your organization operates.

This report will show you how the cloud is now an essential tool to move your agency forward. There’s simply no denying it: The cloud will shape the agency of the future.

That’s why we are thrilled to present this guide, the latest in GovLoop’s “Agency of the Future” series.

The series highlights how cutting-edge technology is transforming government agencies, and, more importantly, how you can take advantage of it.

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• Survey results from 223 government professionals. GovLoop recently surveyed our members to explore best practices, strategies and applications of cloud in government.

• A special interview with industry experts at network solutions firm Brocade, exploring how the cloud has transformed the public sector and how it is foundational for the agency of the future.

• Six government case studies from cloud.cio. gov highlighting how the government is successfully adopting cloud computing.

• A local government cloud case study from Casselberry, Fla. • A public-sector cloud computing cheat sheet.

GovLoop’s cheat sheet will provide you with a synopsis of the guide and need-to-know cloud information.

This is your first step in learning how you can make the most of the cloud. Just like the Romans did with their revolutionary highways, now is the time to break the mold and launch your agency into the future. As the saying goes, all roads lead to the cloud.

This report will provide you with the information you need to know about cloud computing. Specifically, this report includes:

CLOUD COMPUTING

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How FRee IS YouR IT? Is your network strategy dependent on one vendor’s roadmap?

Do you spend 60% or more of your budget on hardware from one network provider?

Does maintaining legacy infrastructure leave you with 20% or less for new services?

Your network is captive. Set it free.

Learn how Brocade can help free your network and your budget at brocade.com/federal. Š 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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In our personal lives, many of us rely on the cloud to store our digital music downloads, share our social calendars and post family photos for relatives to view. Cloud computing is also emerging as an essential technology in the workplace. To understand how agencies are using cloud computing -- and to learn from their experiences -- GovLoop conducted a survey of 223 federal, state and local government employees and contractors. The GovLoop survey

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shows that although the majority of agencies are aware of the benefits of cloud, many are still unsure of the best practices and risk mitigation techniques that must accompany the technology.

Our survey found that most agencies are in the early stages of deploying cloud technology. The results to our survey question, “Are you using cloud technology at your agency?’ can be found in Figure 1.

FIGURE 1

13%

relies on the cloud to meet agency goals.

AR E Y OU USI N G CLOUD T E CHN OL OGY AT Y OUR AGEN CY?

17%

exploring how to best leverage the cloud.

31%

38%

leveraging cloud at a basic level.

not using cloud, but they are interested in learning about opportunities.

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78%

Information Sharing

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Cost Reduction

Although only a small group of agencies indicated they are using cloud computing to achieve critical mission objectives, the vast majority of participants said they know about the potential benefits of cloud for their agencies. Participants noted the benefits shown in Figure 2.

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Increased Efficiencies

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of cloud environment their agencies use, as you’ll see in Figure 3.

These statistics demonstrate the need for more education about cloud technology and its applications.

GovLoop also explored the types of cloud environments agencies were investing in, asking respondents to choose from platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS) or unsure. More than half (55 percent) of respondents answered, “Unsure,” while 34 percent selected SaaS, 23 percent chose PaaS and 22 percent IaaS.

Our government audience also shared success stories from adopting cloud computing. “With the ability to rapidly implement and easily integrate multiple systems with the cloud, we have far less dependency on the availability of [information technology] resources,” one participant said.

“This has allowed us to be more accountable, innovative, keep up with program needs and reduce organizational cost.”

This demonstrates that although the concept of cloud is well known, many respondents can’t distinguish between various cloud environments. Survey participants had similar answers for what type

Another respondent cited the many applications of cloud. “We are currently looking at cloud for disaster recovery and business continuity operations,” the participant said.

AGENCY OF THE FUTURE

53%

Ease to Scale

44%

Licensing and Software

“A private cloud in North Carolina allows the state to deliver employment in rural areas,” another said.

An Ann Arbor, Mich., city government official said, “The city has multiple successful implementations of SaaS-based solutions. In addition, we run our own private cloud data center service for other small agencies.”

These responses show a trend toward the use of private rather than public clouds at government agencies. “At the current state of our studies, we can say that an internal or private cloud is the most appropriate technology to leverage infrastructure, storage and provide increased security,” a respondent from the French Ministry for the Economy and Finance said.

Despite these factors, many respondents were wary of moving

their operations to the cloud because of perceived security risks.

“We have only used cloud to share files at a basic level,” a respondent said. “I worry about the security of law enforcement’s sensitive information.”

Despite such concerns, many government systems, from nationwide ones, such as gov.uk, to local ones are run on clouds. In fact, the respondent from the French ministry also noted that storage on a dispersed cloud is safer than physical data storage in one vulnerable area.

“ W I T H T H E A B I L I T Y T O R A P I D LY I M P L E M E N T A N D E A S I LY I N T E G R AT E M U L T I P L E S Y S T E M S W I T H T H E C L O U D , W E H AV E F A R L E S S D E P E N D E N C Y O N T H E AV A I L A B I L I T Y O F [ I N F O R M AT I O N T E C H N O L O G Y ] R E S O U R C E S , ” O N E PA R T I C I PA N T S A I D . “ T H I S H A S A L L O W E D U S T O B E M O R E A C C O U N TA B L E , I N N O VAT I V E , KEEP UP WITH PROGRAM NEEDS AND REDUCE

Throughout this guide, we will provide you with a path toward safe and secure cloud adoption.

We will share lessons learned from industry experts and government case studies to help you make smart cloud investments and align the cloud to your agency’s most critical mission needs.

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13%

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WH AT KIND OF C LOU D S OLUTIONS ARE YOU CONS IDER I NG?

Hybrid Cloud

30% None

25% Unsure

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DISCOVERING GOVERNMENT’S NEXT IT FRONTIER Y O U R

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Let’s start with a challenge: Take a moment to consider how often you use the cloud in your personal life. Every time we access information on our smart phones, view a document online, download information from the web or stream a video, chances are we are using cloud computing. Amazed at how ubiquitous the cloud has become? The cloud has truly reshaped how we engage with family and friends. Now, it is poised to radically redefine how your agency delivers services.

• How can you prepare your agency to adopt cloud?

In this section, we explore pertinent questions regarding cloud adoption. As you read, we are challenging you to consider how the cloud can transform your agency, specifically:

Speaking with industry experts from Brocade -- Tony Celeste, director of federal sales, and Steve Wallo, systems engineering manager -- we will assist you in your quest to adopt a cloud solution that fits the unique needs of your agency.

• What obstacles can you expect to face on your path to cloud procurement?

• Have you assessed your infrastructure for cloud?

• What benefits will cloud provide and how can your agency leverage it?

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Y O U R JOURN E Y BE GI N S : HOW CL OU D C O M P U T I N G I S CHANGING TH E G A M E AT YO U R A GE NCY At its core, the cloud has transformed everything from how government designs contracts to how it deploys IT. “Cloud computing is changing the way government agencies use, acquire, implement and manage IT in support of the mission,” Celeste said.

ing of public-facing sites and ‘seat’ management contracts for the acquisition of personal computers.

Cloud computing has evolved, and today is a key priority for federal [chief information officers] under initiatives like Shared-First.”

Government-specific regulations and complex acquisition requirements can make cloud adoption more challenging, but more and more agencies are finding success.

In this section, we provide six public-sector cloud case studies from cloud.cio.gov. They are excellent examples of federal agencies excelling with the cloud, but they’re not all encompassing.

The Shared-First initiative started in May 2012 to reduce waste and duplication across federal IT organizations. Now, with the SharedFirst mentality occurring at all levels of government, the cloud is primed to have an enormous effect on the way agencies deliver services. Agencies are moving toward using the cloud to create business applications, manage e-mail and support productivity tools.

“Agencies have actually been leveraging cloud and infrastructure as a service for some time now,” Celeste said. “Early examples of federal agencies leveraging cloudlike services included web host-

You can see how the cloud can transform your agency. Before we provide you with insights into common challenges and best practices, here are eight reasons to adopt a cloud solution.

C LOU D C A S E S T U D Y: I M P L E ME NT ING NEW B U S I NE S S A P P L I CAT I O NS The cloud is one of many technologies shaping the agency of the future, and agencies are using it in a variety of ways to meet mission needs. Cloud.cio.gov highlighted six ways in which agencies are using cloud, and we provided them for you throughout this report.

The first case study comes from the Social Security Administration’s Online Answers Knowledge Base. The agency receives millions of inquiries online about benefits. To provide a higher level of service, SSA officials decided to create a cloud-powered self-service option for citizens. Benefits of moving to the cloud included: • Nearly 99 percent of 25 million web self-service sessions were handled without agent intervention.

• The largest work year savings over any other eService at the agency.

• A highly scalable option to meet peak traffic loads without needing to add costly infrastructure.

CLOUD SUCCESS STORY. A G HERE: E N C YSOCIAL O F T HSECURITY E F U T U RADMINISTRATION E 9.LEARN MORE

8 R E ASONS TO ADOPT T HE C L OUD

We asked our experts to describe the diverse benefits of cloud computing. Their responses show the power of the cloud to radically redefine how you are doing business: 1. Cloud meets increasing citizen and organizational demand at a lower cost.

2. It delivers improved services to citizens more rapidly and efficiently.

3. Cloud computing sends information safely and securely to military personnel.

H O W T HE CLOUD LE ADS T O NE W O P P OR T UNIT IE S FOR GOVE R NME NT E M PLOY E E S 4. It leverages the pooling of computing resources.

5. Cloud provides computing capabilities to increase or decrease computing power based on business needs.

6. Cloud removes government’s burden of paying to power and cool IT centers.

7. It reduces your agency’s carbon footprint.

8. Cloud lets users choose their devices -- smart phones, laptop computers or tablets, for example.

These reasons provide additional evidence of the opportunities that cloud holds. The cloud can be a game changer for government agencies, and as we explore in our next section, it’s changing your role as a government employee.

It’s clear that the cloud is modernizing organizations, but what’s the effect on government employees? How is this changing your job function and making your job easier? Clearly, the cloud is creating a more effective and efficient workforce. In doing so, it is allowing you to focus on mission-critical and essential programs. The cloud also is facilitating telework and mobile solutions in addition to the deployment of applications to increase availability and accessibility to information.

Our experts have identified four overarching trends that are affecting the cloud and your career.

1. New roles and responsibility require new training methods. The cloud is changing the way your agency provides training and develops workflows. “The cloud is requiring the adaptation of roles and responsibilities,” Brocade’s

Celeste said. “This transformation will take place over time. It requires new training approaches, but will ultimately transform the federal IT professional’s role into one more directly supporting the agencies’ missions. The federal IT professional will support mission requirements with IT bringing new innovative services and applications more rapidly to market.”

2. A more efficient workforce will emerge. One of the major effects of the cloud is that it is allowing you to be more efficient in your day-to-day tasks. The cloud facilitates mobile work, enabling access to information anywhere, anytime and on the device of your choice. Agencies are beginning to create policies to reflect these new dynamics. “Cloud computing is giving the workforce an opportunity to run a more efficient and optimized IT model,” Brocade’s Wallo said. “This approach, in some cases,

CLOUD CASE ST UDY: DE VEL OPI N G AGILE INFR AST R UCT UR E The Energy Department’s Magellan Supercomputing Platform is helping scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center receive on-demand computing resources. Benefits of moving to the cloud included: • Complete flexibility and scalability through tailoring needs on a project-by-project basis.

• Management of 100 teraflops of total computational power.

A teraflop is 1 trillion floating-point operations per second.

• The freeing of limited supercomputing resources for projects that demand it, providing a tailored solution for midrange computing needs.

LEARN MORE HERE: ENERGY DEPARTMENT CLOUD SUCCESS C L O USTORY. D COMPUTING 10.

CL O UD CASE ST UDY: L E VE R AGING SOCIAL ME DIA The General Services Administration’s Customer Management & Support and Collaboration & Application Development System was implemented as a cloud-based solution to improve collaboration efforts. The benefits of moving to the cloud included: • Giving all 18,000 GSA users access to this toolset and suite of capabilities, with roughly 1,200 using the system’s customer management capabilities.

• A familiar social media-based collaboration approach that allows users to instantly crowdsource answers to questions.

• Centralized management of what were at least three separate collaboration solutions.

LEARN MORE HERE: GSA CLOUD SUCCESS STORY.

allows users a higher level of support and flexibility while enabling the operations staff to spend more time on growing and scaling the business rather than troubleshooting and servicing older, more complicated resources.”

3. Cloud will have a domino effect on other technology trends. The cloud is also essential to related trends such as big data, analytics and cybersecurity. “At this unprecedented time where budget pressures are great and agencies are being asked to do more with less, cloud will play a significant role in enabling new mission applications and technological solutions for government in the areas of mobility, big data and cybersecurity,” Celeste said.

4. Collaboration among agencies will increase. The cloud has also made the sharing of information and data among agencies easier than ever. Now information can be housed in a single repository accessible by many organizations.

We cannot emphasize enough that the cloud is transforming operations and the way we work – and it’s catching on quickly. New and innovative policies are needed to

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match this new kind of environment. In the following section, we explore how to craft the right kind of cloud policies and strategies as you embark on a journey to revolutionize your business systems.

H O W T O GE T S TA R T E D W IT H YO UR JOUR NE Y T O T H E CLOUD In order to capitalize on the opportunity the cloud presents, your agency must overcome some challenges. Here are four examples, followed by the best practices and strategies to overcome these temporary roadblocks.

Challenges to Cloud Adoption 1. Policy: As we have already mentioned, crafting the right kind of policies will challenge any cloud adoption initiative. “Agency policy must be adapted or created to accommodate the use of cloud, addressing items like roles and responsibilities, user agreements, records management, e-discovery and the Freedom of Information Act,” Celeste said.

2. Security: With any program, security is the paramount concern for IT leaders. Adopting new solutions could lead to new risks if systems are not properly secured. “Security capabilities must be enhanced,” Celeste said. “New standards will need to be created or adapted to accommodate the cloud approach where agencies do not have physical control over assets. In addition, national security and general security considerations must be addressed.”

3. Network understanding: As a government IT administrator, you are challenged to identify what applications reside on your network and how they can be migrated -or if they should be. Many agencies we see throughout our business are finding through resource visibility that many applications are no longer being used or are used so little that it does not justify the cost to move or maintain the applications,” Wallo said.

4. Management support: As with any IT adoption program, gathering support from managers is essential to success. “Creating a plan to move to a cloud-based model, even for just part of the IT business, will ultimately fail with-

out full management support and understanding,” Wallo said. “Communicating the plan, the timelines, the cost requirements and what the ultimate end result saving is to resource stakeholders and owners is paramount to a successful cloud transition approach.”

1 0 B ES T P RA C T I CE S FOR C L OUD A D OPTI O N Sure, challenges exist, but so do strategies for overcoming them.

Our experts and survey participants provided the 10 best practices to conquer cloud adoption obstacles.

1. Start small, think big. Run a small pilot test and then scale up as needed. “One piece of advice is to start small and think big,” Celeste said. “Agencies need to explore the future of what is possible and then pick an application area and pilot a cloud solution. Use the information gained from the pilot test to fully define

the requirements, then identify the policy and security adaptations for success.”

2. Assess and prepare the network. Our experts noted that agencies often dive right into the cloud without properly assessing their networks or knowing how to prepare their networks’ architecture. “Assessing the network as well as the overall IT infrastructure is extremely important,” said a senior IT auditor from Garland, Texas. “Do an in-depth risk assessment over your whole environment before making decisions,” they continued. This applies to any kind of technology adoption, but it is especially relevant to cloud.

3. Challenge the status quo.

Focus on collaboration and look to experts within your field for advice and guidance. By connecting with peers, you can learn from their experience and they can help steer you in the right direction.

Also, don’t be afraid to push limits and challenge your agency to do more and seek new opportunities with cloud. By setting a vision for

your agency, you will play an essential role in shaping the future of your agency. “Agencies need to start by looking at how others, both inside and outside government, are using cloud,” Celeste said. “They need to look beyond their current incumbent IT infrastructure suppliers. Agencies need to look at and draw on the experience of new innovative IT suppliers challenging the status quo.

Agencies should get involved in the Federal CIO Council and industry cloud working groups to better understand what is possible and to help ensure government requirements are addressed.”

4. Work with industry. By working with industry, government employees can gain a better understanding of available services and opportunities with cloud. Additionally, by communicating openly with industry experts, government agencies can write stronger and more competitive requests for proposals, which will improve services in the long run. “Agencies can get started by talking to cloud service providers about the require-

CLOUD CASE ST UDY: POWERI N G E FFICIE NT E -MAIL SE RVI CES Each bureau and agency of the Agriculture Department previously operated its own e-mail systems, creating much inefficiency.

As a solution, USDA created an enterprisewide e-mail system powered by the cloud. Benefits of moving to the cloud included: • A reduction in e-mail messaging costs to less than $8 a month per user.

• An expected savings of $6 million per year once fully operational as compared to legacy system costs.

• Greater control over e-mail settings departmentwide, which enabled a heightened security posture and better records management capabilities.

LEARN MORE HERE: USDA CLOUD SUCCESS STORY C L O U D C O M P U T I N G 12.

ments and methods for moving applications to the cloud,” Wallo said. “They can discuss their intentions and current business model so that an appropriate [servicelevel agreement] can be defined.

Understanding what is expected, what you have and how to get there will make the transition not only better for the end users but less intrusive for the implementers and more apt to be completed on time and within budget.”

5. Know which tool is right.

Identifying which cloud solution is right for your agency involves meeting with core stakeholders and end users and making sure your investment matches user need. Open and effective communication will be your keys to successfully identifying the right tool.

“Best practices include finding tools that provide visibility into what applications and resources can and should be moved into a cloud model,” Wallo said. “Adherence to open standards also helps ensure that interoperability with cloud service providers can be achieved with less redesign and forklift upgrades.”

6. Think proactively about security. “Security is a concern, but two-factor authentication and other methods can be deployed to mitigate risks,” said a survey respondent who works for Ann Arbor’s IT services department.

Isaiah Jones, an IT specialist at the Defense Department’s U.S Navy Civil Service, added, “Use a hybrid approach for your public-facing, FOIA-required systems, but for all business-sensitive and classified information, do a self-hosted private cloud.”

7. Review your SLA. Reviewing your SLAs is essential. “After adopting cloud, invest in requirements, service-level agreements, architecture, planning and specifically security boundaries and controls upfront,” said Wende Wiles, director of IT project management at the Energy Department’s Office of the CIO. “All of these focus areas are worth the investment later.”

8. Standardize your product.

“Ensure that you standardize on

CLOUD C A S E S T U DY: C R EAT I N G N EW PR O D U C T I V I T Y A PP LI C ATI O N S The Treasury Department was using an outdated system to measure vulnerabilities. To upgrade systems, the department migrated to a cloud solution, increasing efficiencies, improving security and decreasing costs. Other benefits of moving to the cloud include: • Reduced cost per scan from $99.34 to $13.66.

• Remediated 6,454 vulnerabilities within the first 90 days of deployment.

• Eliminated three hardware and software platforms, reducing number of scanners to one.

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LEARN MORE HERE: TREASURY DEPARTMENT CLOUD SUCCESS STORY. AGENCY OF THE FUTURE

a product, such as file storage or backup, to leverage pricing and provide consistent support,” said Phil Martin, IT director for Montgomery County, Va. “Even though the app is in the cloud, [it] doesn’t mean that IT doesn’t still have to manage the app.”

9. Have a contingency plan. You should always have a contingency plan if you must leave a vendor.

“There are enough vendors out there not to get locked into one,” a survey respondent said. “The long and short of it is to test drive everything. Vendors will often let you test their products so you can choose what is right for your mission.”

10. Know your total cost of ownership. “Do a comprehensive total cost-benefit analysis,” another respondent said. “Don’t just look at the costs of the technology.

Consider the increased operational efficiency, greater productivity and the way that increased citizen satisfaction lessens the pressure and expenses to an agency.”

A N I NS EPA RA BL E PA I R : C LO U D A N D TH E A G EN C Y O F TH E F U TU R E

“OVER THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS, GOVERNMENT AGENCIES WILL ENHANCE POLICIES AND SECURITY REQUIREMENTS

The next few years will be essential for your agency to build a foundation for future technology innovations. In the short term, we will witness a rapid advancement in IT and technology, and your agency must be prepared.

“Over the next three to five years, government agencies will enhance policies and security requirements as well as acquisition models to take advantage of cloud technologies,” Celeste said. “Agencies will implement a host of IT-based solutions leveraging cloud technologies, resulting in far greater efficiencies and new services being provided for the same cost or less.”

Government is challenged like never before. In times of deep budget uncertainty and increasing demands for modernization, the cloud holds great promise to cut costs and allow agencies to improve services.

AS WELL AS ACQUISITION MODELS T O TA K E A D VA N TA G E O F C L O U D TECHNOLOGIES,”

CLOUD CASE ST UDY: CR AFT ING IMPR OVE D W E B SE RVICE S AT BE NE FIT S.GOV Benefits.gov has made use of a hybrid cloud to meet the new demands and traffic surges that often occur after natural disasters and related events. The website now uses a hybrid cloud to help manage traffic, control costs and take a modular approach to web development. Benefits of moving to the cloud include: • Greater scalability to accommodate more than 500,000 monthly visits.

• Service availability 99.99 percent of the time and daily backups.

• Resolution of outages within 48 hours.

•Maintenance of archives for three months with the ability to extend to a year.

LEARN MORE HERE: BENEFITS.GOV CLOUD SUCCESS STORY.

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CLOUD COMPUTING CHEAT SHEET YOUR CLOUD COMPUTING GLOSSARY

H e r e ’s a quick-hit guide to what you need to know about cloud computing as it relates to government agencies.

Research firm Gartner defines cloud computing as “a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service using Internet technologies.” But what does that mean for your agency?

That’s where this cheat sheet comes into play.

The following terms are defined in The Cloud Times. For a full listing of cloud terms, check out http://cloudtimes.org/glossary/.

CLOUD BROKER: An entity that creates and maintains relationships with multiple cloud service providers. The broker acts as a liaison between cloud services customers and cloud service providers, selecting the best provider for each customer and monitoring the services.

HYBRID CLOUD: A networking environment that includes multiple integrated internal and/or external providers. Hybrid clouds combine aspects of both public and private clouds.

INFRASTRUCTURE AS A SERVICE (IAAS): Cloud infrastructure services, or “infrastructure as a service (IaaS),” deliver computer infrastructure, typically a platform virtualization environment, as a service. Rather than purchasing servers, software, data center space or network equipment, clients instead buy those resources as a fully outsourced service. The service is typically billed on a utility computing basis and amount of resources consumed (and therefore the cost) will typically reflect the level of activity. It is an evolution of web hosting and virtual private server offerings.

MIDDLEWARE: Software that sits between applications and operating systems, consisting of a set of services that enable interoperability in support of distributed architectures by passing data between applications. So, for example, the data in one database can be accessed through another database.

PAY AS YOU GO: A cost model for cloud services that encompasses both subscription-based and consumption-based models, in contrast to the traditional IT cost model that requires upfront capital expenditures for hardware and software.

PLATFORM AS A SERVICE (PAAS): Cloud platform services, whereby the computing platform (operating system and associated services), is delivered as a service over the Internet by the provider. The PaaS layer offers black-box services with which developers can build applications on top of the compute infrastructure. This might include developer tools that are offered as a service to build services or data access and database services or billing services.

PRIVATE CLOUDS: Private clouds virtualize cloud data centers inside your company’s firewall. They may also be a private space dedicated to your company within a cloud provider’s data center. In short, private clouds are an internal cloud behind the organization’s firewall. The company’s IT department provides software and hardware as a service to its customers — the people who work for the company.

PUBLIC CLOUD: Services offered over the public Internet and available to anyone who wants to purchase them.

SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE (SAAS): Cloud application services, whereby the provider delivers applications over the Internet, so that the applications don’t have to be purchased, installed and run on the customer’s computers. SaaS providers were previously referred to as application service providers. In the SaaS layer, the service provider hosts the software so you don’t need to install it, manage it or buy hardware for it. All you have to do is connect and use it. SaaS examples include customer relationship management as a service.

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10 QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE IMPLEMENTING CLOUD COMPUTING 1.Will the cloud solution support our current platform and run necessary customer applications?

2. Is there any way we can share cloud services with other departments or agencies?

3. What kind of service model do we require: infrastructure as a service, platform as a service or software as a service?

4. Should we invest in a public, private or hybrid cloud?

5. How do we engage with each business unit?

6. How is our data protected?

7. How is the data storage facility protected?

8. What is our backup plan if the system goes down?

TOP 10 CLOUD BENEFITS We’ve talked a lot about what cloud can do in this report.

Here’s your quick reference. With cloud, you can: 1. Quickly scale as demand increases.

2. Have access anywhere, anytime to your desktop, applications or data.

3. Decrease energy and infrastructure costs.

4. Improve staff productivity.

5. Improve security.

6. Enhance collaboration.

7. Achieve greater transparency with citizens.

8. Save on costs.

9. Increase efficiency.

10. Retain and recruit talented employees.

9. Can we monitor in real time?

10. What’s our exit strategy?

KEY GOVERNMENT RESOURCES TO VIEW

QUICK FACTS:

CLOUD BENEFITS ACCORDING TO OUR GOVLOOP SURVEY 78% cited information sharing

“25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Information Technology Management”

70% cited cost reduction

“Federal Cloud Computing Strategy”

70% cited increased efficiencies

“NIST Definition of Cloud Computing”

57% cited personnel efficiency

“Federal IT Shared Services Strategy”

53% cited ease to scale

Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program information

44% cited licensing and

CLOUD CASE STUDY:

INCREASED RELIABILITY FOR MUNICIPAL OPERATIONS Cloud computing is affecting government at all levels. Local governments have seen cloud improve the way they deliver services to citizens. Below we have highlighted the city of Casselberry, Fla., as a local government case study. Casselberry is one of the fastest growing areas of Greater Orlando, and it needed a stable and reliable network for municipal operations.

Learn more here: The city of Casselberry’s cloud success story.

software downloads

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The GovLoop team is thankful to all of those who contributed to this report. We thank everyone for their active community engagement, input and knowledge shared while developing this report. This guide would not have been possible without your assistance and from the support of our sponsor, Brocade.

LEAD AUTHOR: Patrick Fiorenza, Senior Research Analyst CO-AUTHOR: Kathryn David, GovLoop Research Fellow EDITORS: Steve Ressler, GovLoop Founder and President and Andrew Krzmarzick, Director of Community Engagement DESIGNER: Russell Yerkes, GovLoop Design Fellow For more information about this report, please contact Patrick Fiorenza, Senior Research Analyst at pat@ govloop.com or @pjfiorenza.

ABOUT GOVLOOP GovLoop’s mission is to connect government to improve government. We aim to inspire public sector professionals by acting as the knowledge network for government. The GovLoop community has over 125,000 members working to foster collaboration, solve problems and share resources across government.

The GovLoop community has been widely recognized across multiple sectors. GovLoop members come from across the public sector. Our membership includes federal, state, and local public servants, industry experts and professionals grounded in academic research. Today, GovLoop is the leading site for addressing public sector issues.

GovLoop works with top industry partners to provide resources and tools to the government community.

GovLoop has developed a variety of guides, infographics, online training and educational events, all to help public sector professionals become more efficient Civil Servants.

LOCATION GovLoop is headquartered in Washington, D.C., where a team of dedicated professionals shares a common commitment to connect and improve government.

1101 15th St NW, Suite 900 Washington, DC 20005 Phone: (202) 407-7421 Fax: (202) 407-7501

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AGENCY OF THE FUTURE

1101 15th St NW, Suite 900 Washington, DC 20005 Phone: (202) 407-7421 Fax: (202) 407-7501

CLOUD COMPUTING

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