Say what you will about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but the American spy shop is usually pretty concerned about security. So their endorsement of cloud computing is certainly of note.
According to a report from FCW, the CIA has inked a cloud computing contract with Amazon Web Services (AWS) worth as much as $600 million over 10 years. According to the report, which has not been confirmed by the CIA or Amazon, the contact would see AWS build a private cloud infrastructure to help the CIA utilize technologies such as big data.
Cloud computing has often raised security concerns among potential customers, slowing adoption, although a private cloud is the more secure way of going to the cloud. Still, if you’ve been holding off on a cloud implementation because of security concerns, hey, if it’s good enough for the CIA…