Defense Department CIO Terry Halvorsen is looking toward new options when it comes to faster adoption of commercial cloud services, including a new approach that could see commercial cloud providers operating within DoD facilities.
In a recent press briefing, Halvorsen said he’s evaluating the concept that could place “commercial data distribution centers” on military bases, serving both DoD and non-DoD customers. Doing so would provide military-grade security for data and applications belonging to DoD, as well as those of non-government entities – say, financial institutions.
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The on-base commercial cloud center could expand revenue options for commercial cloud providers, driving competition for such contracts and, in turn, better prices for DoD. Halvorsen said there’s already demonstrated interest in the community.
“I have received some proposals. I will tell you that, on the proposal basis, they look very attractive…we’re going to walk through those, almost like a war game of those proposals, to see how would we accomplish them,” Halvorsen said in a March 18 press conference. “Part of that war game would include some of the lawyers saying okay, if I wanted to do this and this is the way I operated, would that cause me any issues with legislation or law? So really, it is now taking some of those proposals, doing a war game through that to walk through what’s doable today – do the assumptions about cost hold? Do the assumptions about timelines hold? At the end of that war game, we’ll figure out how we go to a pilot type activity.”
The “war game” could help flag potential issues, such as regulatory snags. For example, currently there are legal limits on what goods and services can be sold from government installations. Also, the physical security that would be afforded to a commercial provider operating on a military base could give that vendor an unfair advantage in future contract competition – an issue that could require new legislation in the future, Halvorsen noted.
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