Special Bulletin Review: Enterprise Cloud Conversations

As technology has figuratively led to a shrinking of the Earth, the State Department has embraced cloud technology to streamline and organize its IT organization, the Bureau of Information Resource Management.

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Federal agencies are some dozen years into concerted efforts at cloud computing adoption. Policy has evolved from the initial cloud first to the current cloud smart. And the commercial cloud services industry has also come a long way, as providers have grown from simply infrastructure hosts.

Among the reasons federal agencies should pursue multiple cloud computing strategies is simply this: Commercial clouds are not identical. They not only have varying technical offerings, they also have varying degrees of maturity and therefore suitability for what a government agency might be trying to accomplish.

The Army Corps of Engineers operates in both the military and civilian realms, whether dredging bases to maintain warship access to bases or looking after the health of dams and levees that protect cities. Its information needs match the diversity of its missions.