NASA’s cloud computing efforts “need strengthening”, says report

NASA’s roadmap towards utilising cloud computing needs a serious rethink, according to an official report from the space agency’s Office of Audits (OA).

In a 38-page report, the OA criticises NASA’s cloud strategy in terms of governance, risk management and security, concluding that “weaknesses...impeded the agency from fully realising the benefits of cloud computing and potentially placed at risk its information stored in the cloud.”

Currently, NASA spends about $10m of its annual IT budget on cloud services – a meagre sum given its overall budget is $1.5bn.

The agency appears to be reticent about going all-in for cloud however, predicting that with a legacy technology overhaul, “up to 40%” of its software could move to the cloud, adding that within five years, up to three quarters of new IT projects could be born in the cloud.

Regardless of the future, the report still damns the ...