New bill encourages Iowa agencies to move to the cloud

(The Center Square) – Iowa governmental agencies may be asked to move to cloud services with a bill whose predecessor passed in the House last year and died in the Senate.

Rep. Holly Brink, R-Oskaloosa, introduced the bill, HF651, earlier this week.

“The bill focuses on encouraging, but not requiring, state agencies to be forward-thinking and innovative in technology use by moving to cloud services,” Office of the Chief Information Officer Public Information Officer/Legislative Liaison Gloria Van Rees told The Center Square in an email. “It is worth noting that nearly every state agency is already utilizing cloud services to some degree, so in some ways the bill is following an existing trend.”

Van Rees said nearly all executive branch e-mail systems are cloud-based and the state is moving toward cloud-based HR and Financial Systems.

“Many of Iowa’s public-facing websites also reside in cloud services,” she said. “Today, state agencies routinely consider cloud services as part of planning activities for new systems.”

Under the bill, HF651, the office would be required to “when feasible” procure cloud computing solutions not hosted on premises by the state from service providers. The office would contract with multiple cloud computing service providers and retain control and ownership of state data stored with cloud computing service providers.

The Technology Association of Iowa was able to comment on SF29, a similar bill that has some differences, but had not yet adequately reviewed HF651, director of marketing Cassandra Kotek told The Center Square in an email.

The new bill, for instance, stipulates “the servers on which state data is stored shall not be under the control of a foreign government” and requires the office produce annual, rather than quarterly, reports. Brink said quarterly reports may become redundant.

The annual report would include the cost, security and capacity of the cloud computing solutions, the compatibility of the solutions with associated state information technology applications, the status of technology upgrades for state agencies, the percentage of information technology applications that are cloud-based, and the solutions’ compliance with state and federal laws.

“A significant benefit of taking a cloud-first approach is that these technologies typically provide greater data security, which is a concern for all Iowans,” The Technology Association of Iowa Director of Operations Mollie Ross told The Center Square via email.

Ross said the association expects SF 29 will provide greater transparency in decisions regarding state information technology infrastructure upgrades.

“We hope the bill will ensure a thorough assessment of technology solutions when upgrades are being considered, allowing for the best, most secure solutions to be selected,” Ross said. “Some of the points we found important were that while it encourages a cloud-first approach to upgrades and enhancements, it leaves the final decision up to the OCIO’s office and does not force anyone’s hand. Also, we think it is important that the bill’s language is technology and provider agnostic.”

Van Rees told The Center Square in a phone interview that the office would need to hire additional staff to fulfill the reporting requests, regardless of which bill passes.

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