![]() ![]() The government was spending more money on information technology within the IC than ever before. “We decided we needed to buy innovation.”Īs one former intelligence official with knowledge of the Amazon deal told Government Executive, “It took a lot of wrangling, but it was easy to see the vision if you laid it all out.” The critical question was would the IC, led by the CIA, attempt to do cloud computing from within, or would it buy innovation? Money was a factor, according to the intelligence official, but not the leading one. In 2011, while private companies were consolidating data centers in favor of the cloud and some civilian agencies began flirting with cloud variants like email as a service, a sometimes contentious debate among the intelligence community’s leadership took place. Cloud computing is one of the core components of the strategy to help the IC discover, access and share critical information in an era of seemingly infinite data.įor the risk-averse intelligence community, the decision to go with a commercial cloud vendor is a radical departure from business as usual. ![]() The vision was first outlined in the Intelligence Community Information Technology Enterprise plan championed by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and IC Chief Information Officer Al Tarasiuk almost three years ago. What’s more, they’ll only pay for what they use. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.įor the first time, agencies within the intelligence community will be able to order a variety of on-demand computing and analytic services from the CIA and National Security Agency. If the technology plays out as officials envision, it will usher in a new era of cooperation and coordination, allowing agencies to share information and services much more easily and avoid the kind of intelligence gaps that preceded the Sept. This summer, a $600 million computing cloud developed by Amazon Web Services for the Central Intelligence Agency over the past year will begin servicing all 17 agencies that make up the intelligence community. The intelligence community is about to get the equivalent of an adrenaline shot to the chest.
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