“Cash for Clunkers” Should Have Used the Cloud!

August 24, 2009 / G C Network /

Ambient Awareness. The cloud killer app?

By G C Network | September 10, 2008

Ambient Awareness: the ability to acquire, process, and act upon application specific contextual information, taking the current user preferences and state of mind into account. In the September 5th New…

The Cloud Wins in Minneapolis at the RNC!

By G C Network | September 9, 2008

Little did I know that while I was watching the Republicans cheer their standard bearer inside the Xcel Energy Center that the cloud infrastructure was outside defeating the forces of…

Cloud Computing vs. Virtualization

By G C Network | September 8, 2008

Yesterday, Reuven Cohen in ElasticVapor, provided an excellent post on the title subject. I’d like to “second his emotion” and, for my audience, add that cloud computing technologies and techniques…

Government Technology Cloud Recommendations

By G C Network | September 5, 2008

Recommendation on the cloud from Government Technology: No. 1: Educate your team about cloud computing. Don’t just ignore this topic as hype – the future is in this direction. Go…

Cloud Computing: A pay-by-consumption scalable service

By G C Network | September 4, 2008

John Edwards (not the Senator) of Computerworld sees cloud computing as a “…pay-by-consumption scalable service that’s usually free of long-term contracts and is typically application- and operating system-independent”. His recent…

Cloud Computing Dictionary

By G C Network | September 4, 2008

Geva Perry will be presenting at the October 8th SOA-R event. Before attending, you may want to visit his cloud computing dictionary to catch up on the current cloud computing…

Google Launches Chrome: Desktop-centric to Network-centric

By G C Network | September 3, 2008

According to Nicholas Carr, “Chrome is the first cloud browser”. If you’re not familiar with Chrome, this application is Google’s entry into the browser wars. In his blog, Mr. Carr…

Boeing Gives Up On Interoperable Modelling and SimulationNnetworks

By G C Network | September 3, 2008

Last week a Flightglobal article reported on the softening of Boeing’s stance on the need to establish standards for networking protocols across the US and global defence industry. Citing the…

Cisco: A Cloud Computing Company?

By G C Network | September 2, 2008

Yes Cisco ! Red Herring’s report on Cisco’s acquisition of PostPath last week presents a strong case for this. If finalized, PostPath would become Cisco’s fifteenth acquisition in less than…

Cloud Computing at top of Hype Cycle

By G C Network | August 29, 2008

Computerworld reports that Gartner see cloud computing as being at the top of the hype cycle. They have also settled on a definition: “a style of computing where massively scalable…

Rich Bruklis wrote an excellent essy on how the government missed a perfect opportunity to use cloud computing. In “Cloud Opportunity Missed” he writes:
“It appears that the voucher system set up to handle dealer claims was crushed by unusual high demand. Now ‘unusual high demand’ to me is synonymous with cloud computing.”
He also cited three drivers that caused the problem:
– The high popularity surprised the auto industry which forecasted that the program wouldn’t have a major effect on sales.
– The dealer sales people ‘pre-sold’ the program to customers causing an initial rush to the Cash for Clunkers web site and crashed the system.
– The Transportation Department officials were presented with just 30 days to get the program up and running.
As Rich also noted, it seems that the Government instictively relied on less automation, not more, by adding 700 more human claims processors to the original 300 midway through the program.
Why didn’t they consider cloud computing !! SCRATCH THAT!!

Update: Apparently they did use cloud computing !! According to a Washington Post article, Oracle OnDemand application was used:
“Administration officials said the On Demand program, produced by Oracle, allowed Cash for Clunkers to keep running even as consumer interest in it rose in the initial days by more than 10 times the government’s projections.”
( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS – KLJ )
Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson
Posted in

G C Network

3 Comments

  1. Rebecca on August 25, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    Kinda reminds me of the "Look before you leap" quote. Rushing into things just to get them done often leads to big mistakes which can be very costly.



  2. Venkat Girish CISSP on September 29, 2009 at 2:53 am

    This is a huge misnomer that the Government didn't use cloud. It used Oracle's OnDemand services – which essentially is a cloud based offering from Oracle – See vivek's acknowledgement of the same and how it saved the day for Cash for clunkers eventually by just googling "Washington post Vivek Cash for clunkers"



  3. Kevin L. Jackson on September 30, 2009 at 11:53 am

    Outstanding!! Thanks for clearing that up.



Cloud Computing

Cybersecurity