Cybersecurity

The CIA’s Classified Cloud Is Reducing Tasks from Months to Minutes


The classified cloud computing infrastructure delivered two and a half years ago by Amazon Web Services to the CIA continues to pay dividends for the intelligence community. AWS’ newest service—a classified marketplace for applications—is exponentially reducing the time it takes to bring new software into the IC.

“This is a game-changer for us,” CIA Chief Information Officer John Edwards told Nextgov. “Things that used to take us months take us minutes.”

For the 17 agencies that comprise the IC, time is critical. Before AWS launched the IC Marketplace for the CIA in April, it could take “nine to 12 months to bring in a new application,” Edwards said.