Life Finds a Way – NASA’s Audit On Internal Use of Cloud Services

I hope I can get you into a nostalgic mood with the famous scene of Dr Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park: “If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh… well, there it is.“

NASA recently conducted an internal cloud audit. The report concluded that cloud computing, purchased from various cloud vendors including Microsoft and Amazon grew organically among employees and departments without considering IT governance, procurement and security controls. It may be shocking to imagine what sort of information could “break free” without tight controls and what are the implications … but the report doesn’t mention one single instance of data actually breaking free. No actual issues other than data MIGHT BE running out of control of the authorities. It’s great news to cloud computing technology … phew …

In my post about a year ago, I mentioned instances where employees had to sneak in cloud costs through their expense reports. The ease of access to enormous cloud capacities changes the dynamics of the world that we know today. The NASA report is an example of how IT’s role is changing in an organization of researchers and engineers. I sense that we’re slowly but surely arriving to a stage where people, intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs or the impatient general public gets a tool that they can use to generate real impact. The tool is called the cloud – packaged in a style of a DIY hardware. I wish that IT will find their new role and create a way to make this acquisition (or in its new name: “shopping”) experience smooth, painless and safe. Otherwise, life will keep finding new ways to survive and perfect. Happy evolution everyone!

David Szabo, Intrapreneur at Microsoft, startup-addict and LEGO SERIOUSPLAY facilitator. Follow me on Twitter!