Maneuver Warfare in IT: A Cheerleading Pundit

Cloud Computing and the Process Integration Era

By G C Network | December 17, 2008

The Industry Advisory Council (IAC) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to fostering improved communications and understanding between government and industry. through its affiliation with the American Council for Technology…

The Tactical Cloud

By G C Network | December 16, 2008

When cloud computing first came in vogue, there was a rather serious discussion about the private cloud concept. The whole idea of cloud computing seemed to argue against implementing such…

“Cloud Musings” Now on SYS-CON Media “Cloud Computing Journal” !!

By G C Network | December 15, 2008

I’m happy to announce that a recent “Cloud Musings” article, “Commercial vs Federal Cloud Computing ” has been reposted on SYS-CON Media’s “Cloud Computing Journal“. Thank you SYS-CON for making…

How to make clouds interoperable and standard !!

By G C Network | December 12, 2008

This has been a huge part of my life over the past few weeks! This is my personal view. WARNING: DON’T EXPECT THE ANSWER TO BE FOUND BELOW !!! There…

The Tension between Public and Private Clouds

By G C Network | December 11, 2008

Last week, during discussion on cloud interoperability and standards in Israel, I saw for the first time a real dichotomy in the value of public (external) and private (internal) clouds.…

Cloud Computing for Continuity of Operations (COOP)

By G C Network | December 10, 2008

Recently, I’ve been focusing on cloud computing for COOP. The way I looked at it, many government agencies are already using commercial shared facilities as COOP sites and that the…

NCOIC Plenary Session

By G C Network | December 9, 2008

Hopping a plane to the west coast today to attend the NCOIC Plenary in Costa Mesa, California. First day “Cloud Computing for Net-Centric Operations” agenda includes: David Ryan, Chief Architect…

Dataline named “Top 100 Cloud Computing Company”

By G C Network | December 9, 2008

SYS-CON’s Cloud Computing Journal included Dataline in its expanded list of the most active players in the cloud ecosystem. In adding Dataline to the “Top 100” list, Jeremy Geelan noted…

Autoscaling into the cloud- Good or Bad?

By G C Network | December 8, 2008

I always thought saw the ability to autoscale into a cloud infrastructure as a good thing. George Reese presented a differing view on the O’Reilly blog recently. “Auto-scaling is the…

Cloudera must be reading the script!

By G C Network | December 4, 2008

“Cloud computing leapt out as the most obvious way to address enterprise large data problems” – Ken Pierce, IT Specialist, DIA-DS/C4ISR “We view Hadoop as the key enabler…[in] optimizing the…

The Twitter conversation between Christofer Hoff and I went like this:
Christofer – I haven’t formally blogged a resp. (yet) to @Kevin_Jackson on his ‘maneuver warfare in IT’ Not just a cultural shift but a huge tech. one
Kevin – @Beaker I’m looking forward to your comments.
Christofer –  @Kevin_Jackson I want them to be constructive, so I’ll do my best. I’m having trouble with the reality distortion field vs. unicorns 😉
Kevin – @Beaker LOL
I strongly recommend that you read his response titled “Cloud Computing Security: (Orchestral) Maneuvers In the Dark?”. It begins:
“I enjoyed Kevin’s piece but struggled with how I might respond: cheerleader or pundit.  I tried for a bit of both.”
The challenges he had with my article, include:
  • Mixing tenses in some key spots seemed to imply that out of the box today, Cloud Computing can deliver on the promises Kevin is describing now.  Given the audience, this can lead to unachievable expectations
  • The disconnect between the public, private and military sectors with an over-reliance on military analogies as a model representing an ideal state of security operations and strategy can be startling
  • Unrealistic portrayals of where we are with the maturity of Cloud/virtualization mobility, portability, interoperability and security capabilities
His last couple of paragraphs, however, really brings it home:
“It’s absolutely a cultural issue, but we must strive to be realistic about where we are with Cloud and security technology and capabilities as aligned.  As someone who’s spent the last 15 years in IT/Security, I can say that this is NOT the “…dawning of a new day in IT security,” rather it’s still dark out and will be for quite some time.  There is indeed opportunity to utilize Cloud and virtualization to react better, faster and more efficiently, but let’s not pretend we’re treating the problem when what we’re doing is making the symptoms less noticeable.
I am absolutely bullish on Cloud, but not Cloud Security as it stands, at least not until we make headway toward fundamentally fixing the foundational problems we have that allow the problems to occur in the first place.”
Please read his post and comment.  This is a GOOD conversation !!

Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson

G C Network