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Records Management: NARA Warns Agencies About Cloud Computing
NARA has issued federal agencies guidelines and warnings about the use of cloud computing for managing their record keeping. The Obama administration has encouraged agencies to consider adoption of cloud-computing. In response, NARA has presented their perspective of how agencies should approach cloud computing.
While the FAQ recognizes many of the benefits that can be achieved by moving to a cloud-based computing model, such as:
- “Pay-as-you-go” can offer cost advantages
- Ability to easily scale up or down computing resources, as needed
But NARA also points out a number of other considerations that should cause agencies to pause before adopting cloud-based services. The issues that NARA brings up include:
- Cloud vendors need to be able to demonstrate security and privacy of data
- The agency may lose control of data residing on remote infrastructure
- Potential problems integrating cloud-based data with data residing on other systems
- Cloud vendors need to be able to guarantee 24/7 access to the data and services
- Vendors needs to be able to comply with Federal regulations
- Vendors need to be able to comply with federal records management requirements foudn in 36 CFR 1236.1ff
- Vendors must retain links between records and metadata
- Cloud software must be able to transfer archival records to NARA or delete records according to NARA retention schedules
- Long-term trustworthiness and sustainability of data should be carefully considered
- Portability standards should be considered to ensure that records could be easily transitioned elsewhere, if needed
So while the Federal CIO and the Obama Administration is advocating cloud computing, it seems clear that NARA has concerns that cloud computing may still be a bit premature for handing federal records of importance.
