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Federal leaders recognize that now, more than ever, effective management and oversight for IT programs is vital for Federal mission success. The Federal IT Acquisition and Reform Act (FITARA) aims to give Federal CIOs more authority and greater responsibility for producing IT programs that deliver as promised. The challenge is that Federal IT has never been more decentralized – with mission owners scoping requirements and selecting solutions – sometimes without input from central IT. Cloud services make it easy. The result is lack of integration with enterprise systems (siloed data), compromised security (think e-mailgate), and enormous inefficiencies due to duplicating everything. Give the People What They Want What agencies really need is more and better alignment between central IT and the mission owners. But, with resources strangled by legacy systems – the opportunity for innovation, and progress – is challenging, and will require more than giving CIOs greater authority – although that’s a good first step. The CIO needs the ability to deliver commodity IT services efficiently, at the speed of the mission, and still have some time and money left over for creating new solutions. A Tale of Two Clouds As a Federal IT community, where do we go from here? Part of the solution has to be in the cloud. But, it does not have to be the cloud that delivers shadow IT, compromises security, and removes control. It can be a secure enterprise hybrid cloud that enables the CIO to deliver IT-as-a-Service, automate, and take as much pain out of the process as possible. This cloud gives mission owners the control to select what they need and implement as quickly as their mission demands. Additionally, the CIO retains control over the service offerings, the infrastructure, and security. FITARA is bringing much-needed attention to Federal IT reform. We all know why – but now need to give real thought to the “how.” Author information |
