Feds Need Cloud Procurement Standards

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

Federal agencies looking to buy cloud services, just like the private sector, need to develop a common method for evaluating cloud providers, the services they offer, and the prices they charge. That’s the advice from TechAmerica Foundation, a nonprofit formed to advise government on cloud computing in its newly updated guide on how government agencies can adopt the cloud.

TechAmerica Foundation’s cloud computing initiative was formed three years ago to convey best practices in adopting the cloud to the federal and state governments. The new guide makes such common sense recommendations as mapping agency priorities, then finding a business case that fits them. The business case must define requirements, set performance objectives, and estimate costs, it said…

Government implementers of cloud must also understand their agency’s security requirements and match them to an available cloud service. "Develop a procurement/acquisition strategy appropriate for purchasing cloud computing," it advised, and take advantage of other government-agency cloud initiatives…

Read more from the source @ http://www.informationweek.com/government/cloud-computing/feds-need-cloud-procurement-standards/d/d-id/1269446