White House says Recovery.gov to move to the cloud

The White House announced on Thursday that the website that tracks the multibillion-dollar economic stimulus program is moving to a cloud platform.

The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board said it will place Recovery.gov into an environment in which hardware and services are shared, and not owned by the government. Recovery.gov is the first governmentwide system to move to the cloud, the White House announced.

Convincing federal agencies to move their networks to cloud computing has been one of the primary initiatives that the Office of Management and Budget has been pursuing. OMB officials say the practice can save the government billions of dollars. By transferring Recovery.gov to cloud services, OMB says the government will save $750,000 this budget cycle "and significantly more savings in the long-term."

Vivek Kundra, federal chief information officer at OMB, and Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, plan to hold a press conference at 1 pm on Thursday to discuss the move.