Maneuver Warfare in IT: A Cheerleading Pundit

NPR on Cloud Computing

By G C Network | August 29, 2008

You know it’s important when NPR covers it !! On the “All Things Consider” radio show, NPR took a look into cloud computing. I’m not sure if Computing In The…

Sun Federal Cloud Computing eBook

By G C Network | August 28, 2008

Sun Federal now has it’s ebook on cloud computing available for all. The website doesn’t really offer any new information, but it does highlight how Sun Federal is targeting the…

Amazon Elastic Block Store

By G C Network | August 27, 2008

Last week, with their announcement of Elastic Block Store, Amazon has made enterprise class storage in the cloud a reality. According to Dion Hinchcliffe of Ziff Davis,”Elastic Block Store finally…

HP CTO On the Future

By G C Network | August 26, 2008

In a recent Web Guild article, Shane Robinson, Chief Strategy & Technology Office for HP outilined his belief that we are in the early stages of a major shift. As…

Google serves as first line of defense during Russia’s invasion of Georgia (A plug for the cloud)

By G C Network | August 25, 2008

As reported by the Christian Science Monitor, “As Georgian troops retreated to defend their capital from Russian attack, the websites of their government, also under fire, retreated to Google. In…

Apptis and Servervault announce Fedcloud

By G C Network | August 22, 2008

On August 18th, Apptis announced a partnership with ServerVault to offer a trusted cloud computing environment to federal agencies. Called Fedcloud they are offering a federally compliant, on-demand infrastructure that…

SOA-R Educational Series Schedule Changes

By G C Network | August 21, 2008

Since launching the SOA-R series back in July, cloud computing has become a hot topic among national security professionals. Evidence of this high level of interest is obvious from the…

Comments from Mr. Robert Carey, DON CIO and Army COS General George W. Casey, Jr

By G C Network | August 20, 2008

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve had the distinct pleasure to listen to both Mr. Robert Carey, CIO, Department of the Navy, and General George W. Casey, Jr., Chief…

Akamai at SOA-R Session

By G C Network | August 19, 2008

Had another very enlightening SOA-R session last week. Of particular note to me was Akamai’s vision of cloud computing. As presented by Fran Trently, Sr. Director Public Sector, Akamai is…

Six Benefits of Cloud Computing

By G C Network | August 18, 2008

A Public CIO magazine article, to be published later this fall, will highlight six main benefits of cloud computing. Reduced Cost Increased Storage Highly Automated Flexibility More Mobility Allows IT…

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