FAA moves away from owning data centers, to the Cloud

WASHINGTON, 28 Aug. 2015.Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials, wanting to benefit from advanced computing solutions in the Cloud, awarded a $108 million, 10-year contract to CSC Government Solutions, which will lead an overall integration effort to include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and other leading Cloud providers.

The contract enables the FAA to take advantage of Cloud technologies, such as Software As-A-Service, Platform As-A-Service, Infrastructure As-A-Service, and Colocation in a highly secure and resilient environment, officials say.

Being in the Cloud will give the FAA on-demand, pay-per-use computing and data storage over a secure FTI connection. The move away from FAA-owned data centers to outsourced locations will increase efficiencies and flexibility while saving time and money and simplify information-sharing.

The FAA can now purchase IT as-a-service rather than buying expensive facilities and hardware that quickly becomes outdated. The agency will be able to keep up with industry standards and innovate on a much larger scale, officials say.

The program will be rolled out in phases over the next year or so. Work will start immediately to assess all existing applications and determine which ones are suitable for the Cloud. Once the infrastructure is established, the FAA will start to migrate systems into the Cloud environment. When the agency is on the Cloud, users will be able to store and access information from any location at any time on approved devices with an Internet connection.

Data center image and Cloud computing image courtesy Shutterstock.