Government in the Cloud

VMware lays out roadmap to the clouds.

By G C Network | June 10, 2008

Earlier this year, Diane Greene, VMware President and Co-Founder, described cloud computing as the final evolutionary step for virtualization. Reza Malekzadeh, Senior Director of Products and Marketing reinforced that view…

Mario Dal Canto at Virtualization Conference & Expo 2008 East

By G C Network | June 9, 2008

According to Mario Dal Canto, “Virtual Cloud Computing represents the next wave of virtualization and offers significant market opportunities by providing a new, simpler, and much more pervasive platform for…

Microsoft cloud fits and starts.

By G C Network | June 9, 2008

Microsoft’s dance with cloud comuting is very puzzling. Point 1: The June 5th Wall Street Journal article discusses the friction between Steve Ballmer and Bill Gagtes over NetDocs, described by…

Salesforce.com & Google

By G C Network | June 6, 2008

A short promotional video on Salesforce and the Google cloud. Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson

Gamers now have their own cloud.

By G C Network | June 5, 2008

Valve, a Bellevue, Washington based entertainment software and technology company, recently announced that they will use the cloud computing paradigm as their next major update. Called “Steam Cloud” the service…

Is IBM serious about cloud computing?

By G C Network | June 5, 2008

Last week in Eye on the Enterprise, Joe McKendrick, highlighted IBM VP Steve Mills’ apparently less than enthusiastic statement regarding cloud computing. In an April 30th interview with CNET’s Dan…

VMware and Cloud Computing

By G C Network | June 3, 2008

VMware President and Chief Executive Officer Diane Greene,in her keynote address at the JP Morgan Technology Conference in Boston, described cloud computing as the final evolutionary step for virtualization. In…

DISA Cloud Computing Plans

By G C Network | June 3, 2008

During last month’s Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Partnership Conference, cloud computing debuted as a “top priority” for senior leadership. Speakers described a future state when users would access computing…

The Cloud Computing Portal

By G C Network | May 30, 2008

The Cloud Computing Portal is a community edited database that makes the cloud vendor selection process easier, by helping you find a cloud provider who supports the environment you need.…

HP in the Cloud

By G C Network | May 29, 2008

In “HP weds cloud…” , Hewlett-Packard has apparently outlined their approach to cloud computing. They are merging their high-performance computing unit with the Web 2.0 and cloud computing infrastructure businesses.…

Back in mid-September, there was quite a thread in the Google Cloud Computing Group on the use of cloud computing by the federal government.  Some of the interesting comments were:
“Not an actual use case yet, but I see that electronic voting (e.g. US presidential elections) would be a good use case for cloud computing, given technology allows eliminate electoral fraud and provides reliable audit trail. “
(NOTE: Throughout the thread, many participants disgreed with this as a good use case)
“Another use case in my mind would be optimization of USPS, that might be beneficial for both government, businesses and cloud providers, but I’ll leave it here, until I’m ready with specifics.” 
“As the first U.S. E-Govt Administrator, I am very intrigued by applications of Cloud Computing to government.  The best use case for this would be electronic filings, especially quarterly Tax payments and annual Tax returns.  However, business gateways and citizen service portals that cut across levels of government would also be good. “
“Another one would be turbotax etc.” 
“At CNIPA (the Italian eGovernment-supporting technical body) we are just organizing a series of seminars on cloud computing with industry and consultancies. My understanding is that electronic voting will not be a viable use case for a number of reasons which have little to do with the infrastructure or the paradigm that might be used. Much better eGovernment use case could be a “my government” portal, where people could exchange official communications with the administration, update their filings and perform payments after being digitally identified. A cloud infrastructure could be the best choice to experiment with a “zero-latency government”, where back-office interactions are not visible to citizens. There are a lot of things that should be analysed and piloted before, including legislative and privacy issues. The effort could be extremely rewarding, though.”
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