The Department of Defense's new cloud procurement policy — orignally promised for mid-November — is now slated to be released in December, according to a spokesperson from the DoD Office of the Chief Information Officer.
In an effort to speed the department's move to cloud computing, the new policy will divest authority from the Defense Information System Agency to the contracting officers at each branch and agency within DoD. Before issuing the policy, a memo has been circulating among the component agencies for review, a process that is still ongoing.
Despite minor delays, the policy should be signed and released in early December, sooner than later, according to the DoD representative.
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Stakeholders eagerly awaiting the new policy are curious about the ultimate role of DISA and the DoD OCIO, both of which will have some authority to review cloud purchases for security and interoperability, though their specific functions have yet to be defined publicly.
Acting director of strategic planning and information at DISA, Alfred Rivera, gave some indication of what to expect from the new policy.
"DISA is going to be moving away from participation as cloud broker and in cloud services, with more focus on providing security guidelines to include security reference models, the basis in determining costs and the types of applications that are candidates for cloud services," Rivera said, quoted in an earlier article. "I think we're going to continue to play a very big role from the cloud broker perspective in that respect as cloud server provider, [and] also be a vehicle for network access to cloud service providers [that are] available, secure and reliable. Those two elements are still going to be germane to DISA's responsibility."
Aaron Boyd is an awarding-winning journalist currently serving as editor of Federal Times — a Washington, D.C. institution covering federal workforce and contracting for more than 50 years — and Fifth Domain — a news and information hub focused on cybersecurity and cyberwar from a civilian, military and international perspective.
