TSA Moves Away from Legacy IT Systems

The Transportation Security Administration has announced its intention to better manage data using cloud solutions. In the solicitation request entitled TSA’s Cloud Strategy 2.0, the agency described how they plan to “adopt and integrate cloud based services” to better achieve their mission.

The plan involves a “Cloud First” strategy for all new IT systems and a “Cloud Smart” strategy for improving existing technologies.

TSA plans to establish a Cloud Team that will act as the central point of contact for process development, direction, and communication for TSA’s cloud initiatives. According to the plan, in addition to developing relevant programmatic, architectural, and security processes, the cloud team will be responsible for the following:

• Project management

• Technical recommendations

• Application owner onboarding

• Technology training

• Risk and security recommendations

• Organizational change management and training

• Financial governance

• Operational services and governance

• Vendor management

The agency also plans to dedicate time to understanding the flaws and limitations of the current systems to prevent inefficiencies when building the new cloud system. The plan describes the goal of building a “culture of experimentation and innovation” to operationalize the new capabilities.

“TSA encourages our Industry partners to review this publication and consider the philosophies that are discussed herein when responding to future requirements that support the Agency's Cloud Strategy,” the solicitation notice explains.

TSA outlines three “fundamental requirements” for the computing system; compliance (security and architecture), flexibility (open architecture), and integration.