At-Risk Government IT Systems Require Immediate ActionAt-Risk Government IT Systems Require Immediate Action

The federal government's new "pro cloud" attitude is about to get its first test. Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag is warning that a government portal used for competitive grants is at "significant risk of failure" due to system overload. Can cloud computing save the day?The OMB has identified the Grants.gov site, where citizens can go to apply for more than a thousand grant programs, as being particularly vulnerable to a spike in traffic as people rush to file applications tied to the recently signed Recovery Act. According to a memo issued March 9 by Orszag, Grants.gov has experienced traffic over the past few months that "far exceeded" its anticipated workload, resulting in performance degradation. What's more, Grants.gov could be in for a 60% increase in application traffic in the months ahead.

The worry extends to other systems, as well. Orszag is directing all federal departments and agencies that handle grants to analyze risks and come up with solutions quickly. In fact, they have only until March 13 to come up with a plan. Orszag called for "immediate improvements designed to accommodate this expected volume increase."

Cloud computing seems an obvious short-term solution. In fact, we even have a phrase for such scenarios -- cloud bursting -- where on-demand servers are used to handle processing workloads that exceed the capacity of internal systems.

It's possible that OMB already is moving in this direction. Kevin Jackson, director of business development for Dataline, a systems integrator that works with government agencies, told me last month that OMB had issued an RFI specifically looking to move Grants.gov to a cloud environment. Jackson said sites such as Grants.gov are good candidates for cloud computing since they deal with public information, so cloud security isn't the issue that it is in some other areas.

Orszag seems determined to prevent disruptions to grant application processes. With only a few days to identify fixes, cloud bursting is a solution that affected agencies must be evaluating.