DISA looks to provide Pentagon cloud services

Friday, January 07, 2011

Signaling the government's commitment to deploy more cloud computing solutions throughout federal agencies, Defense Information Systems Agency chief technology officer Dave Mihelcic recently said he wants his organization to provide cloud computing services to the Pentagon.

In an interview with Nextgov, Mihelcic said his agency is "uniquely positioned" to provide the Department of Defense cloud computing services for both classified and unclassified information.

Mihelcic said the Pentagon will be able to reduce its required number of data centers and save money by utilizing DISA's cloud computing environment, which operates 14 data centers and can store up to 3.7 petabytes.

The CTO said the DISA is the "go to" shop for the Pentagon's cloud services. However, it is likely to face stiff competition from the private sector, as businesses make their own bids for military clouds.

In November, the Office of Management and Budget announced a "cloud-first" strategy, in which it is encouraging federal agencies to consider deploying cloud computing solutions as a way to boost reliability at affordable costs.