The CIA has agreed to a $600 million cloud computing contract with Amazon.
In a move sure to send ripples through the federal IT community, FCW has learned that the CIA has agreed to a cloud computing contract with electronic commerce giant Amazon, worth up to $600 million over 10 years.
Amazon Web Services will help the intelligence agency build a private cloud infrastructure that helps the agency keep up with emerging technologies like big data in a cost-effective manner not possible under the CIA's previous cloud efforts, sources told FCW.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is Amazon’s remote computing and cloud computing platform offered online. Cloud Computing is a type of internet service that relies on sharing computing resources such as virtual servers, rather than having local servers or personal devices to handle applications.
CC can be done in a “private cloud” by using cloud computing technologies in a company’s own data center, or publicly by using public clouds that are in hosted facilities, where the hardware is shared with many users. Sharing the hardware saves money and time.
AWS is currently the largest public cloud provider. Amazon has its own “Virtual Private Cloud” that uses hardware hosted by Amazon, but it behaves more like a private data-center. Deal with CIA means AWS might create a ‘private cloud’ for CIA, which means entering into private clouding business.
Last year, Broadcom introduced an RFID chip to be installed in “many models of [Google’s] Android phones” that could locate the user within a few centimeters, vertically and horizontally, indoors and out. . . In theory, the new chip can even determine what floor of a building you’re on, thanks to its ability to integrate information from the atmospheric pressure sensor.”
Amazon officials would not confirm the existence of the contract, and a CIA spokesperson likewise declined to comment on the matter.
"As a general rule, the CIA does not publicly disclose details of our contracts, the identities of our contractors, the contract values, or the scope of work," a CIA spokesperson told FCW.
In recent speaking engagements, however, CIA officials have hinted at significant upcoming changes to the way the agency procures software, how it uses big-data analytics and the ways in which it incorporates commercial-sector innovation.
Speaking to the Northern Virginia Technology Council Board of Directors on March 12, Central Intelligence Agency Chief Information Officer Jeanne Tisinger told an audience of several dozen people how the CIA is leveraging the commercial sector's innovation cycle, looking for cost efficiencies in commodity IT, and using software-as-a-service for common solutions.
Two audience members who asked not to be named told FCW that Tisinger said the CIA was working "with companies like Amazon."
CIA Chief Technology Officer Gus Hunt would not respond to FCW's questions about the Amazon deal, but did drop the firm's name in relation to software procurement during a conference organized by the Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association's Washington, D.C. chapter in February. Hunt was quoted by Reuters as saying, "Think Amazon – that model really works," regarding the purchasing of software services on a "metered" basis for which Amazon is well-known for. Hunt has also spoken publicly in the past about the potential for leveraging public cloud infrastructure for non-classified information.
According to a document entitled, “2010 Federal Radionavigation Plan” (FRP), the Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Department of Transportation (DOT) will now rely on developments in RPS for future application. FRP will result in safer transportation, encourage commerce, and track individuals for the purposes of national defense.
The DoD and DOT will combine civil and military transportation for common-use to “eliminate duplication of services.” The use of GPS, and now RPS, will only serve the accuracy of the federal government with regard to military applications; even within civilian capacity.
http://fcw.com/Articles/2013/03/18/amazon-cia-cloud.aspx?Page=1
http://www.progressivepress.net/cia-and-amazons-600-million-cloud-business/