5 August 2014

CIA’S AMAZON CLOUD JUST WENT LIVE

CIA’s Amazon Cloud Just Went Live
August 3, 2014 · 

Frank Konkel, had an article on the August 1, 2014 websited DefenseOne.com, with the title above. A watershed moment in the U.S. Intelligence Community has occurred, as he notes, “the CIA is now officially an Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud consumer. Less than 10 months after a U.S. Federal Court of Claims judge ended a public battle between AWS and IBM for the CIA’s commercial cloud contract valued at up to $600M, the AWS-built cloud for the Intelligence Community went online last week for the first time,” according to a source of DefenseOne, who was familiar with the deal.”

“The cloud,” notes Mr. Konkel, – [is] “best thought of as a public cloud computing environment, built on private premises — is yet far from its operational capabilities when it will provide the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies unprecedented access to an untold number of computers for various on-demand computing, analytic, storage, collaboration and other services.”

Mr. Konkel adds “the timing aligns with public comments made by CIA’s Chief Information Officer Douglas Wolfe in June,” he notes, “though neither the CIA, nor Amazon would confirm the cloud has come online.”

“Our goal is to make the IC’s cloud commercial services available to customers, beginning this summer [2014]; and, we’re on target to meet it,” a CIA spokesman told NetGov. “The services will be available to all Intelligence Community agencies, the spokesman added. Mr. Konkel equates the launch of AWS and its widespread availability and reach across the entire Intelligence Community, “akin to freight train beginning to accelerate down the tracks. The basic infrastructure is in tact,” he notes, “but, it will take time for the Intelligence Agencies to identify applications, information, and data transmission to the cloud platform.”

“In time, the [AWS] cloud’s full capabilities are expected to usher in a new era of intelligence sharing and cooperation; even as the IC collects ever-greater amounts of data from sensors, satellites, surveillance efforts, and other services,” Mr. Konkel noted.

“Importantly,” Mr. Konkel contends, “the IC cloud will be as safe as — or, safer, than security on its current data centers, having met IC standards that govern the handling of classified information. Each intelligence agency has a say in the accreditation process,” according to IC officials. “The IC always applies a rigorous process to determine the operational readiness of its IT systems; and all of the IC agencies have an opportunity to participate in these procedures,” and IC official told NetGov.

“It’s difficult to underestimate the cloud contract’s importance. In a recent public appearance, CIA Chief Information Officer, Douglas Wolfe, called it “one of the most important technology procurements in recent history,” — with ramifications far outside the realm of technology.” “It’s going to take a few months to bring this online in a robust way, but it’s coming.” Wolfe said. “And, I think it’s going to make a big difference for national security.”

“The Amazon-built cloud, will operate behind the IC’s firewall, or more simply: It’s a public cloud — built on private premises,” writes Mr. Konkel. “Intelligence agencies,” he says, “will be able to host applications, or order a variety of on-demand services, like storage, computing, and analytics. True to the National Institutes of Standards and Technology definition of cloud computing, the IC cloud scales up, or down, to meet the need. In that regard, customers will pay only for services they actually use, which is expected to generate massive savings for the IC.”

“We see this as a tremendous opportunity to sharpen our focus; and, to be very efficient,” Wolfe told an audience at AWS’ recent, annual nonprofit and government symposium in Washington. “We hope to get speed and scale out of the cloud, and a tremendous amount of efficiency in terms of folks traditionally using IT — now using it in a cost-recovery way.”

Mr. Konkel concludes, “whether or not the IC cloud serves as an example for the rest of the government, the CIA’s quest to buy innovation will loom large for years to come.”

My Two Cents

Much like an old fighter pilot wants to fly one more time, I would relish the chance to rejoin the IC analytical ranks — with AWS at my disposal. To be sure, this won’t result in an instantaneous leap-ahead in collection and analysis. But. this initiative and innovation has tremendous promise for great benefits to the entire IC, and the National Security establishment — and, perhaps government as a whole. Hopefully, analysts and collectors will be more interlinked — something which has been badly needed for sometime. The metadata tagging will enhance both domains (collection/analysis); and, also boost our counterintelligence capabilities to ferret out and hopefully discover the next Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden — before they can do the destructive actions that significantly undermine the IC’s ability to conduct the kind of sensitive intelligence collection operations that must be done to keep us safe.

Hopefully, this system will also allow “bread crumbs” to be ‘left’ when an analyst or collector is searching for everything relevant to a particular gnarly analytical or collection problem – and alert them that there is additional — and potentially highly valuable information — that is available in a special access program — that might be significant to their efforts. If so, then the analyst/collector at least will have an opportunity to either demonstrate a need-to-know and be granted access to this special access program — or, his or her boss would be.

All in all, a pretty exciting development; and one, that holds tremendous promise.

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