The Defense Department maintains an ongoing push toward cloud capabilities across the military, but a failure to establish a standard, comprehensive definition of cloud computing means the effectiveness of that push can’t be measured, according to DoD’s watchdog agency.
The DoD Inspector General last year set out to examine whether DoD components were performing cost-benefit analyses before buying cloud services and whether those services actually were saving the Pentagon money. But the IG could identify only a “limited number if cloud computing services contracts” because of the lack of a definition as well as an integrated repository with detailed cloud contract data.
“DoD cannot determine whether it achieves actual cost savings or benefits from adopting cloud-computing services,” a Dec. 28 audit report states. “In addition, without knowing what data DoD components place on the cloud, DoD may not effectively identify and monitor cloud computing security risks.”
