CLOUD2 Commission Releases Federal Cloud Computing Roadmap

July 26, 2011

Tools

Attain Chairman and CEO Greg Baroni, with Chief Architect Andy Gastwirth Contribute to Recommendations on Federal Adoption of the Cloud and American Leadership in Driving Innovation

VIENNA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- TechAmerica Foundation, with leading public sector professional services company Attain, LLC, today unveil the recommendations of the Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in U.S. Deployment of the Cloud (CLOUD²).

Formed in March 2011, the CLOUD² Commission’s 71 experts from industry and academia collaborated to identify how government should deploy cloud technologies and address policies that could hinder U.S. leadership in commercial cloud innovation. The Commission’s resulting report presents a roadmap to achieve widespread Federal cloud adoption and to attain America’s leadership position in driving innovation.

“Innovation is America’s competitive edge in the global economy,” said Attain Chairman and CEO Greg Baroni. “CLOUD² not only provides strategic and tactical recommendations that can help the Federal government achieve the financial and operational benefits of cloud-based technologies, but also offers a guide to successfully paving our nation’s path forward as a leader in cloud.”

The report’s recommendations comprise four categories: Trust, Transformation, Transparency, and Transformational Data Flow, with government recommendations presented to Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, and commercial recommendations shared with Secretary Gary Locke and Commerce Under Secretary Pat Gallagher.

CLOUD² determined that a lack of trust is the primary impediment to cloud adoption. Providing firsthand insight and lessons learned from successfully implementing a trusted, department-wide cloud computing environment at a Federal agency that supports 120,000 end-users, Attain served in a leadership role as part of the Security, Transparency and Accountability working group. With this expertise, Attain’s Chief Architect Andrew Gastwirth and Chairman and CEO Greg Baroni were integral in defining decision roadmaps, developing metrics of trust, and establishing key findings and recommendations for the Transparency and Accountability portion of the Commission’s report.

The commission is co-chaired by Michael Capellas, Chairman and CEO, VCE; Dr. Michael Nelson, Communication, Culture and Technology Program, Georgetown University; and Dr. John Mallery, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT. Jim Sheaffer, President of North America Public Sector at CSC and Dr. Dan Reed, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Technology Policy Group serve as vice co-chairs focused on government cloud adoption and commercial cloud computing, respectively.

“Cloud computing is the latest example of how American innovation sets the pace for the world. This report examines the steps that the U.S. government must take as a buyer and as a policymaker to ensure that we keep setting the pace,” said Phil Bond, president and CEO of TechAmerica and member of the TechAmerica Foundation board. “An increasingly competitive world is right on our heels looking for an opportunity to pass the U.S. in this new deployment. I’m betting on America.”

About Attain

Based in Vienna, Va., Attain is a professional services company comprised of innovative problem solvers who deliver tangible results to address today’s complex public sector, health, and higher education challenges. Attain delivers strategic, operational support, healthcare solutions, IT security and application services to more than 125 customers in the Federal, state and local government markets, as well as the higher education and academic medical center communities.

About TechAmerica Foundation

TechAmerica Foundation educates industry executives, policy makers and opinion leaders on the promise of technological innovation to advance prosperity, security and the general welfare. Launched in 1981, the Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan affiliate of TechAmerica, the leading voice and resource for the U.S. technology industry. The Foundation disseminates award-winning industry, policy and market research covering topics such as U.S. competitiveness in a global economy, innovation in government, and other areas of national interest. It also organizes conferences and seminars to explore pertinent issues with government and industry representatives and to share the Foundation’s findings.