SSA issues request for info seeking software that might help automate the agency’s IT processes and create a self-service portal.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) desires to build an on-premises private cloud, and it’s trying to find software packages that may help the agency do a closer job of using its existing infrastructure and automate processes which are currently done manually. 

SSA has asked interested vendors to reply with products that meet its requirements in a request for info, posted on Jan. 14. The SSA said the responses provided by vendors would help the agency determine current market capabilities for building an individual cloud.

The “desired software” could be integrated into the SSA’s VMware server virtualization infrastructure to “create a self-service virtual machine (VM) provisioning portal, automate common administrative tasks like VM creation, recoup unused resources, and infrastructure maintenance tasks,” the agency said within the RFI.

The self-service portal would let users request and provision virtual resources, equivalent to virtual CPU, RAM, and storage, without the help of infrastructure administrators. In accordance with the SSA, the portal must be customizable to permit features to be added to it, as well as with the ability to limit functions in accordance with user, group, or role permissions.

[Agencies must meet a June 2014 deadline to certify their clouds. Read Cloud Providers Align With FedRAMP Security Standards.]

The SSA is also seeking the potential to regulate all of the lifecycle of the provisioned virtual machine, including power, console access, and resource management reminiscent of memory and storage. That very same software must maintain a total inventory of all physical and virtual resources, the SSA said.

Several federal agencies are making good progress toward cloud computing based on the Obama administration’s “cloud first” memo issued in 2010. The dep. of Interior might be the foremost significant example in federal government. The DOI plans to take a position up to $10 billion emigrate its IT operations to the cloud.

Cloud computing offers agencies many advantages, including cost-savings and agility. However the benefits are realized only when a company has the business model to support the dimensions of a cloud-computing platform, and when policies and culture drive using shared services throughout the cloud-computing environment, says Kevin Jackson, founding father of GovCloud Network, a social-networking platform inquisitive about the usage of cloud computing for presidency efficiency.

It’s equally important to have already got in place organizational governance able to managing a hybrid IT environment, reminiscent of private cloud, public cloud, and legacy IT infrastructure. With no hybrid IT strategy in place, the probability of successful deployment is significantly reduced. “If this private cloud procurement is solely a part of a broader, well-conceived IT strategy and governance plan, [the] SSA will do well. If not, the agency will probably encounter severe challenges to be able to prevent it from realizing any economic or operational advantages,” Jackson tells us.

Agency progress toward the administration’s cloud-computing goals continues to be uneven and is not a high priority in lots of cases. In response to a contemporary InformationWeek survey, only 27% of agencies are implementing or planning to implement private clouds, and eight% say an analogous about public cloud services. On the subject of setting priorities, lower than half (45%) say they’ve a strategic IT plan and follow it closely.

“Agencies tend to be approaching cloud computing procurements as just another IT buy. It is a huge mistake,” says Jackson. “Successful cloud computing deployments require close collaboration between IT and business/mission owners.”

Elena Malykhina has written for The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, Adweek, and Newsday. She covers the government, including NASA’s space missions, for InformationWeek.

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