The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has agreed to a cloud computing contract with Amazon Web Services (AWS) worth up to $600 million over 10 years.
With the deal, Amazon is chosen over IBM to build the CIA a private cloud infrastructure that helps the agency keep up with emerging technologies like big data in a cost-effective manner that is not possible under the CIA's previous cloud efforts.
Historically, the CIA's cloud computing strategy centered on a number of smaller, but highly specific private clouds. And the deal with Amazon is bringing a public cloud computing environment inside the secure firewalls of the intelligence community, thereby negating concerns of classified data being hosted in any public environment.
Amazon officials would not confirm the existence of the contract, and a CIA spokesperson also declined to comment on the matter.
"As a general rule, the CIA does not publicly disclose details of our contracts, the identities of our contractors, the contract values, or the scope of work," said a CIA spokesperson.
But in later engagements, the CIA officials have hinted at significant changes to the way the agency procures software, how it uses big-data analytics and the ways in which it incorporates commercial-sector innovation.
Speaking to the Northern Virginia Technology Council Board of Directors, CIA's Chief Information Officer Jeanne Tisinger told the audience how the CIA is leveraging the commercial sector's innovation cycle, looking for cost efficiencies in commodity IT, and using software-as-a-service for common solutions.
Two audience members who asked not to be named, later explained that what Tisinger said the CIA was working, was "with companies like Amazon."
Later on, CIA Chief Technology Officer Gus Hunt said about Amazon in relation to software procurement during a conference organized by the Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association's Washington, D.C. chapter .
He was quoted by saying, "Think Amazon – that model really works," regarding the purchasing of software services on a "metered" basis for which Amazon is known for. Hunt has also spoken publicly in the past about the potential for leveraging public cloud infrastructure for non-classified information.