Karen Petraska
Enterprise Management of Software as a Service (SaaS)

Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Building 3 Auditorium - 11:00 AM
(Coffee and cookies at 10:30 AM)

Cloud computing will play a very important role in NASA's ultimate long term data management strategy and offers opportunities for efficiencies in the mission lifecycle as well. The learning curve for cloud computing is steep---it is a MAJOR paradigm shift in how applications are developed to leverage different ways of deploying virtual hardware, and the IT security aspects are significantly different as well due to shared controls with various layers of cloud providers. In order to reap the benefits without paying the pioneering costs hundreds of times over within an enterprise, an enterprise managed approach is recommended by industry and by the NASA OIG to define the necessary integrations and governance and processes for an enterprise to utilize the capabilities of cloud efficiently. The Computing Services Office (CSSO) within the NASA Office of the CIO has been working to establish an enterprise managed cloud computing framework for NASA. Significant progress has been made in the deployment of a framework for managing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and the number of cloud adopters in the framework is growing rapidly. The next challenge, and the topic of this briefing, is to address is the enterprise management of Software as A Service (SaaS) and getting our arms around the thousands of SaaS products already in use on NASA networks and the risk they represent.

Karen Petraska is presently serving as the Service Executive for Computing Services in the NASA Office of the Chief Information Officer, leading NASA's response to the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative and spearheading the development of an enterprise approach to managing cloud computing at NASA. Karen has a Masters Degree in Computer Science and 25 years of experience between academia, industry and government. She has worked in several areas of enterprise IT infrastructure services including messaging, directories, authentication/authorization, networks, data centers and IT security and has a significant interest in the challenges of technology and policy integration in large organizations. Karen previously served as the NASA Service Executive for Authentication and Authentication where she led NASA's HSPD-12 implementation and delivered several key capabilities to ensure NASA's compliance. Prior to that, she served as the Chief Information Officer at NASA's Ames Research Center and before that, as the Chief of the Information Services and Technology Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
IS&T Colloquium Committee Host: Keith Keller

Sign language interpreter upon request: 301-286-7040