Agencies Seek Faster Cloud Adoption, Control Over IT Costs

Federal agencies are trying to shorten cloud adoption timelines, improve visibility into technology spending and automate security processes as AI adds new demands to IT environments.

Officials from the Department of the Navy, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Marine Corps and Filevine Federal described efforts to address those challenges at GovCIO Media & Research’s Federal Cloud & Data Forum last week in D.C.

At CMS, Kimberly Watson, deputy director in the Division of Technology Portfolio Management, said the agency developed new tools to help programs navigate an expanding cloud environment and better understand their costs. CMS oversees more than 1,800 cloud service provider accounts, more than 250 cloud-hosted applications and over $275 million in annual spending.

“The challenge there isn’t simply getting data,” Watson said. “We had tremendous data. But it was really about how do we turn that data into actionable intelligence.”

The agency’s new Cloud Fusion Toolkit includes Match, an AI-driven tool that recommends cloud providers based on a program’s requirements, and Lens, which provides spending forecasts, identifies anomalies and highlights potential savings.

Watson said CMS is also reviewing financial and technical signals weekly and working with application teams to identify opportunities for savings. The approach reflects the difficulty of forecasting costs as workloads change and AI introduces new variables into cloud consumption.

At the Navy, Cristina Genoese-Zerbi, director of the Neptune Cloud Management Office, said changes to cloud contracting have cut the time needed to establish cloud accounts. Under the Navy’s approach to the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract, four task orders cover cloud spending and services across major providers, allowing mission owners to apply funding without waiting for separate contracting actions.

“What that gives us is the opportunity to apply funds to a contract immediately and then enable onboarding at essentially a one week to two week timeline,” Zerbi said. “That means from when a mission owner decides to onboard into a cloud environment to the day that their account is created, we’ve shortened that from 45 to 60 days, which is what it was taking to issue task orders, to one to two weeks.”

Zerbi said agencies also face significant costs when migrating legacy systems because they must continue operating existing infrastructure while building and obtaining authorization for cloud replacements. She added that agencies should reconsider redundant approval requirements and encourage programs to use cloud-native services rather than reproduce older architectures.

Dave Raley, chief digital business officer for Operation Stormbreaker at the Marine Corps, said automating security checks can help agencies deliver software faster without sacrificing security.

The Stormbreaker platform incorporates security scanning and compliance controls into the software development process, allowing developers to identify problems during builds rather than relying exclusively on lengthy, document-based authorization reviews.

Raley said the platform can rebuild and reauthorize workloads nightly, giving security officials a more current picture of their risk.

“You cannot separate software from warfare anymore,” he said, describing accelerated software delivery as a national security imperative.

Industry contracting practices can also contribute to inefficiency, according to Will Erb, managing director at Filevine Federal. He said vendors can benefit financially from extensive customization and the ongoing labor required to maintain complex systems.

Erb said agencies should evaluate vendors based on how their solutions perform in practice, rather than relying on assurances that they meet requirements.

“What you really want to see is the functional execution of it within your environment and your problem set,” he said. “If they do that, we’re more likely to get to a real result, especially in today’s environment.”

Erb called for greater vendor accountability and stronger contractual provisions to give agencies leverage when suppliers fail to deliver. Zerbi, meanwhile, noted that streamlined contracting can benefit industry as well as government by reducing the administrative burden on both sides.