The CIO of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Richard Spires, discussed his four top goals for the department at the November 8 NVTC Board of Directors meeting.
Spires main points included:
- Rationalizing the DHS infrastructure, including shuttering 43 legacy data centers by FY 2015.
- Strengthening the DHS federal workforce to oversee program management and to run critical programs that cannot be outsourced.
- Integrating the department so that everyone can work off the same data sets.
- Rebalancing and building up the DHS workforce.
Spires also explained how DHS determines what information will go into private or public cloud offerings. This is based on the data’s confidentiality. He described DHS’ increased use of biometrics, including mobile devices, and how his office is responding to budget pressures in part by seeking savings in commodity IT.