By Bobbie Browning, Senior Vice President
Engaging customers, building relationships and encouraging return visitors are hallmarks of outstanding B2C websites. Leaders in this arena are Apple®, Amazon® and Wells Fargo®. In the age of 4G networks, personalized product updates and mobile shopping applications, we’ve come to expect highly-personalized and efficient online experiences. I can order the latest best seller on Amazon or pay my utility bill through online banking…all from my smart phone while sitting at my favorite coffee shop. This is all made possible through secure cloud computing services. Why shouldn’t I expect to get the same level of experience from government?
In the past few years, I’ve seen the advent of much technological advancement in the area of security, but none are more exciting than the advent of the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program – FedRAMP. Why? Because this has the potential to dramatically impact innovation, accelerate the adoption of cloud applications, substantially reduce IT spending and make government more effective and efficient.
FedRAMP, a joint authorization board among GSA, DoD, DHS and NIST, has two primary goals: aggregate cloud computing standards and centralize certification processes. According to the Brookings Institute’s Economic Gains of Cloud Computing, “Cloud computing services over the Internet have the potential to spur a significant increase in government efficiency and decrease technology costs, as well as to create incentives and online platforms for innovation. Adoption of cloud computing technologies could lead to new, efficient ways of governing.”
View Federal CIO Vivek Kundra’s Brookings Institute presentation on the Economic Gains of Cloud Computing.
At the helm of improving government effectiveness and efficiency is the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST is responsible for defining cloud computing standards for the entire federal government. A leader in its own right, NIST was one of the recent federal organizations to deploy enterprise-wide Software as a Service digital communication solution.
Utilizing secure digital communication tools ‘in the cloud,’ has reduced the cost of delivering services, enhanced transparency and improved citizen experience. I’d like to congratulate NIST on their recent “Excellence in Communications Award” for their innovative use of cloud computing to expand audience reach and drive public engagement.
It’s with great pleasure and pride that we recognize the federal government being a ‘game changer’ in changing the way government operates. Moving forward with a cloud computing certification process, establishing standards around interoperability, data portability and security will save taxpayers millions, offer a more personalized relationship with government, and provide more online government services.
