Bailey on the role of the CIO in innovation, PKI in cloud computing

Last week at the OASIS Identity Management Conference, Gregg “Skip” Bailey, director of technology integration for the federal practice at Deloitte, suggested that agencies looking to leverage the power and scale of cloud computing should use the Identity, Credential and Access Management Subcommittee’s (ICAM) framework.

Bailey says embracing that framework may solve some of the federated public key infrastructure (PKI) management challenges involved in securing personally identifiable information (PII). Bailey said that a useful resource, a cloud standards wiki for proposed and ratified cloud computing standards, is available at the (aptly entitled) Cloud-Standards.org.

Bailey, a former CIO at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, defined the role of a CIO simply in this context to conference attendees: “reduce the cost of commodity technologies and increase innovation in applying those technologies to mission goals.”

“Private clouds are the predominant focus in large enterprises,” said Bailey. “Single-purpose SaaS offerings are most widely adopted.” In his assessment, cloud computing “probably provides the ability to apply to both areas,” with “enterprise flexibility and time to value are significant drivers.”