The director of national intelligence expects initial operational capability (IOC) for an intelligence community cloud computing and storage architecture by March.
James Clapper also said recently during a speech at the GEOINT 2012 conference in Orlando, Fla., the CIA and NSA are leading the cloud development and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as a partner, is developing the common desktop service for the architecture, called Intelligence Community Information Technology Enterprise (ICITE).
“The goal is that by 2018, the target architecture should be in place and in use,” Clapper added.
Clapper described ICITE as a plan centered on cloud computing, cloud storage and attendant security enhancements. He also described the move to ICITE as a transition from individual agency-centric IT, and what he “charitably” called a confederation, to an enterprise model that shares resources and data. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) spokesman Mike Birmingham said recently said ICITE is an internal effort and no contracts were awarded to industry.
“If we execute this right, we’ll save a lot of money,” Clapper said. “But maybe even more importantly, the intelligence community will be able to take intelligence integration to the next level.”
The intelligence community, like other federal departments and agencies, are moving IT service to the cloud environment to improve efficiencies and respond to budget austerity.