(Find us on\u00a0Facebook)<\/a><\/p>\nIn 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\u2019s leadership took\u00a0place.<\/p>\n
As one former intelligence official with knowledge of the Amazon deal told\u00a0Government Executive,<\/em>\u00a0\u201cIt took a lot of wrangling, but it was easy to see the vision if you laid it all\u00a0out.\u201d<\/p>\nThe critical question was would the\u00a0IC<\/span>, led by the\u00a0CIA<\/span>, attempt to do cloud computing from within, or would it buy\u00a0innovation?<\/p>\nMoney was a factor, according to the intelligence official, but not the leading one.\u00a0 The government was spending more money on information technology within the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0than ever before.\u00a0IT<\/span>\u00a0spending reached $8 billion in 2013, according to budget documents leaked by former\u00a0NSA<\/span>\u00a0contractor Edward Snowden. The\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0and other agencies feasibly could have spent billions of dollars standing up their own cloud infrastructure without raising many eyebrows in Congress, but the decision to purchase a single commercial solution came down primarily to two\u00a0factors.<\/p>\n\u201cWhat we were really looking at was time to mission and innovation,\u201d the former intelligence official said. \u201cThe goal was, \u2018Can we act like a large enterprise in the corporate world and buy the thing that we don\u2019t have, can we catch up to the commercial cycle? Anybody can build a data center, but could we purchase something\u00a0more?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided we needed to buy innovation,\u201d the former intelligence official\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
A Groundbreaking\u00a0Deal<\/h2>\n
The\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u2019s first request for proposals from industry in mid-2012 was met with bid protests to the Government Accountability Office from Microsoft and\u00a0AT<\/span>&T, two early contenders for the contract. Those protests focused on the narrow specifications called for by the\u00a0RFP<\/span>.\u00a0GAO<\/span>\u00a0did not issue a decision in either protest because the\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0reworked its request to address the companies\u2019\u00a0complaint.<\/p>\nIn early 2013, after weighing bids from Amazon Web Services,\u00a0IBM<\/span>\u00a0and an unnamed third vendor, the\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0awarded a contract to\u00a0AWS<\/span>\u00a0worth up to $600 million over a period of up to 10 years. The deal, handled in secret, was first reported by\u00a0FCW<\/span>\u00a0<\/em>in March 2013, sending ripples through the tech\u00a0industry.<\/p>\nA month after the deal became public,\u00a0IBM<\/span>\u00a0filed a bid protest with\u00a0GAO<\/span>\u00a0that the watchdog eventually upheld in June, forcing the\u00a0CIA<\/span>to reopen bids to both companies for the contract. A legal struggle between Amazon and Big Blue ensued, and\u00a0AWS<\/span>\u00a0filed a lawsuit against the federal government in July 2013, claiming the\u00a0GAO<\/span>sustainment was a \u201cflawed\u201d\u00a0decision.<\/p>\nIn October,\u00a0U.S.<\/span>\u00a0Court of Federal Claims Judge Thomas Wheeler sided with Amazon and overturned\u00a0GAO<\/span>\u2019s decision to force the\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0to rebid the contract. Big Blue went home,\u00a0AWS<\/span>\u00a0claimed victory under the deal\u2019s original financial specs, and nearly 18 months after the procurement was first released, the\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0and Amazon went to\u00a0work.<\/p>\nIt is difficult to underestimate the cloud contract\u2019s importance. In a recent public appearance,\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0Chief Information Officer Douglas Wolfe called it \u201cone of the most important technology procurements in recent history,\u201d with ramifications far outside the realm of\u00a0technology.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s going to take a few months to bring this online in a robust way, but it\u2019s coming,\u201d Wolfe said.\u00a0 \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s going to make a big difference for national\u00a0security.\u201d<\/p>\n
Securing New\u00a0Capabilities<\/h2>\n
The Amazon-built cloud will operate behind the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u2019s firewall, or more simply: It\u2019s a public cloud built on private\u00a0premises.<\/p>\nIntelligence agencies will be able to host applications or order a variety of on-demand services like storage, computing and analytics. True to the National Institute of Standards and Technology definition of cloud computing, the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud scales up or down to meet the\u00a0need.<\/p>\nIn that regard, customers will pay only for services they actually use, which is expected to generate massive savings for the\u00a0IC<\/span>.<\/p>\n\u201cWe see this as a tremendous opportunity to sharpen our focus and to be very efficient,\u201d Wolfe told an audience at\u00a0AWS<\/span>\u2019 annual nonprofit and government symposium in Washington. \u201cWe hope to get speed and scale out of the cloud, and a tremendous amount of efficiency in terms of folks traditionally using\u00a0IT<\/span>\u00a0now using it in a cost-recovery\u00a0way.\u201d<\/p>\nMany agencies within the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0already have identified applications to move to the cloud. In a recent report, National Reconnaissance Office Chief Information Officer Donna Hansen said her agency had picked five applications, including its enterprise resource planning software, to migrate to the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud.<\/p>\nAs with public clouds, the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud will maximize automation and require standardized information, which will be shared through application programming interfaces, known as APIs. Amazon engineers will oversee the hardware because\u00a0AWS<\/span>\u00a0owns the hardware and is responsible for maintaining it just as they do in the company\u2019s public data\u00a0centers.<\/p>\nWhenever Amazon introduces a new innovation or improvement in cloud services, the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud will evolve. Company officials say\u00a0AWS<\/span>\u00a0made more than 200 such incremental improvements last year, ensuring a sort of built-in innovation to the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud that will help the intelligence community keep pace with commercial advances. Wolfe said\u00a0AWS<\/span>\u2019 capacity to bring commercial innovation from places like Silicon Valley to the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0is one of the contract\u2019s greatest benefits. Whenever\u00a0AWS<\/span>\u00a0introduces new products, the\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0will be able to implement them.<\/p>\n\u201cThe biggest thing we were trying to do\u2014the visionary folks a couple years ago\u2014was answer the question, \u2018How do we keep up?\u2019\u201d Wolfe said. \u201cThe mission we have is important. The pace and complexity is really not [diminishing], in fact, it may be increasing. We feel it is very important to deliver the best\u00a0IT<\/span>\u00a0and best products and services we can to our customers in the\u00a0IC<\/span>.\u201d<\/p>\nWhat of the data, though? Intelligence agencies are drowning in it, collecting and analyzing an amalgamation of information from sensors, satellites, surveillance efforts, open data repositories and human intelligence, among other sources. Is that data really secure in the\u00a0cloud?<\/p>\n
The\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0is convinced it\u00a0is.<\/p>\nThe\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud \u201cwill be accredited and compliant with\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0standards,\u201d says a senior\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0official familiar with the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud. It will, for example, be able to handle Sensitive Compartmented Information, a type of classified information. \u201cSecurity in the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud will be as safe as or safer than security on our current data centers,\u201d the senior\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0official\u00a0says.<\/p>\nBecause the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud will serve multiple tenants\u2014the 17 agencies that comprise the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u2014administrators will be able to restrict access to information based on the identity of the individual seeking it. The idea is to foster collaboration without compromising security. Visually, the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud can be thought of as a workspace hanging off the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u2019s shared network\u2014a place where data can be loaded for a variety of tasks like computing or sharing. The\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud gives agencies additional means to share information in an environment where automated security isn\u2019t a barrier to the sharing itself. This could prove vital in situations reminiscent of 9\/11, in which national security is an immediate concern.<\/p>\nCloud vendors, including Amazon, have argued that cloud infrastructures can be more secure than traditional data centers because there are fewer points of entry, but the leaks by Snowden illustrate the potential threat from inside an organization. Snowden was able to access and download classified information intelligence officials said he shouldn\u2019t have been able to\u00a0access.<\/p>\n
To access information within the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud, analysts must have the proper permissions. In addition, the standardized environment and automation means all activity within the cloud is logged and can be analyzed in near\u00a0real-time.<\/p>\nSome government officials view cloud computing as inherently less secure than computing on locally controlled servers, but the\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u2019s acceptance of commercially developed cloud technology \u201chas been a wake-up call\u201d to those who balk at it, according to John Pirc, a former\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0cybersecurity researcher who is now chief technology officer at\u00a0NSS<\/span>\u00a0Labs, a security research\u00a0firm.<\/p>\n\u201cYou hear so many people on the fence about cloud, and then to see the\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0gobble it up and do something so highly disruptive, it\u2019s kind of cool,\u201d says Pirc. \u201cTo me, this removes the clouded judgment that cloud isn\u2019t secure. Their moving forward with this should send a message to the rest of the industry that cloud is something you shouldn\u2019t be afraid\u00a0of.\u201d<\/p>\nPirc is no stranger to disruptive technologies. At the\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u2019s research labs in the early 2000s, he recalls virtualization\u2014a technology that allows multiple operating systems to run simultaneously on the same servers, allowing for far more efficient computing\u2014before it became an integral component of many\u00a0IT<\/span>enterprises.\u00a0 Intelligence agencies use commercial off-the-shelf technology all the time, but to Pirc, the importance of the cloud capabilities the\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0gets through leveraging Amazon Web Services\u2019 horsepower is best exemplified in computing intelligence data. Scalable computing is critical for fostering shared services and enhanced collaboration between disparate intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n\u201cWhat it allows them to do is spin up servers and add more [computing power] fast, and when you\u2019re computing intelligence data, the more compute power you have, the faster you can react,\u201d Pirc says. \u201cIn the private sector, compute is all about money and profit, but from my viewpoint when I worked for the agency, you\u2019re working with extremely time-sensitive information. Being able to have that compute power, something that might have taken a couple of hours might instead take a few seconds. Profits aren\u2019t lost when you make mistakes in the intelligence community\u2014people die when you make\u00a0mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n
A test scenario described by\u00a0GAO<\/span>\u00a0in its June 2013 bid protest opinion suggests the\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0sought to compare how the solutions presented by\u00a0IBM<\/span>\u00a0and Amazon Web Services could crunch massive data sets, commonly referred to as big\u00a0data.<\/p>\nSolutions had to provide a \u201chosting environment for applications which process vast amounts of information in parallel on large clusters (thousands of nodes) of commodity hardware\u201d using a platform called MapReduce. Through MapReduce, clusters were provisioned for computation and segmentation. Test runs assumed clusters were large enough to process 100 terabytes of raw input data.\u00a0AWS<\/span>\u2019 solution received superior marks from\u00a0CIA<\/span>procurement officials, according to\u00a0GAO<\/span>\u00a0documentation, and was one of the chief reasons the agency selected\u00a0Amazon.<\/p>\nLimited\u00a0Details<\/h2>\n
The\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0declined to comment when\u00a0Government Executive<\/em>\u00a0asked about the extent of the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud\u2019s capabilities or that of the National Security Agency\u2019s cloud. Amazon also declined to describe the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud\u2019s technical\u00a0capabilities.<\/p>\nIt is a good bet, though, that the\u00a0AWS<\/span>-built cloud for the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0will have capabilities at least equal to existing capabilities Amazon has already implemented across\u00a0government.<\/p>\nFor example, the company provides the cloud bandwidth for the Securities and Exchange Commission\u2019s collection of more than 1 billion trade records and more than a terabyte of new data per day through its Market Information Data Analytics System. This example may be prescient given that now-public surveillance efforts indicate the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0collects billions and perhaps trillions of pieces of metadata, phone and Internet records, and other various bits of information on an annual basis. The potential exists for the\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u00a0to become one of\u00a0AWS<\/span>\u2019 largest customers.<\/p>\nWithin the intelligence community, examples abound where the cloud\u2019s capabilities could significantly boost the\u00a0mission.<\/p>\n
As the geospatial hub of the community, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ingests, analyzes, metatags and reports all geo-intelligence and multisource content in its flagship program called Map of the World. Geospatial data\u2019s importance to the\u00a0IC<\/span>has increased in recent years, as evidenced by\u00a0NGA<\/span>\u2019s nearly $5 billion budget and its staff nearly doubling in size since 2004. For intensive applications like ingesting or analyzing geospatial data, scalable computing could have a significant impact on mission performance. The cloud also could improve the way the agency shares its large data\u00a0sets.<\/p>\nWhat the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0has done with cloud is not easily replicable, according to American Council for Technology President Rick Holgate, but it is worth paying attention\u00a0to.<\/p>\n\u201cThe\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0has a model other agencies should look to and aspire to in terms of transforming the way they think about delivering services across a large enterprise,\u201d Holgate says. \u201cThey are looking to common platforms and service delivery models across an entire enterprise, and not just gaining cost efficiencies, but to provide foundational capabilities to really allow it to\u00a0operate.\u201d<\/p>\nWhether or not the\u00a0IC<\/span>\u00a0cloud serves as an example for the rest of government, the\u00a0CIA<\/span>\u2019s quest to buy innovation will loom large for years to\u00a0come.<\/p>\n___
\nhttps:\/\/www.defenseone.com\/technology\/2014\/07\/how-cia-partnered-amazon-and-changed-intelligence\/88555\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOW THE CIA PARTNERED WITH AMAZON AND CHANGED INTELLIGENCE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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