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One AWESOME Week of Cloud Computing
We just finished up five AWESOME days of cloud computing training with USAREUR in Schwetzingen, Germany ! CHECK IT OUT !! Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com. Sure we…
NGA Exploring “Community Cloud” With NCOIC
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is looking to leverage industry expertise through collaboration with the Network Centic Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC). NGA provides timely, relevant and accurate geospatial intelligence in…
DoD, NASA and GSA Address Secure Cloud Computing
On Thursday, May 26th, the Federal Executive Forum featured three important Federal cloud computing leaders: David McClure- Associate Administrator, GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications Col. Kevin Foster- Office of…
Cloud Computing Day at DoDIIS
I’m declaring Monday, May 24th, as Cloud Computing Day at DoDIIS. Lieutenant General Richard Zahner, Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G2, seemed to get things going with his video that…
Vivek Kundra – State of Public Sector Cloud Computing
Last week Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra release his report on the “State of Public Sector Cloud Computing”. The report not only details Federal budget guidance issued to agencies…
Cloud Computing at DoDIIS
Next week in Phoenix, AZ, the Defense Intelligence Agency will host the 2010 Department of Defense Intelligence Information Systems (DoDIIS) Worldwide Conference. The theme of this event is “Mission Powered…
Open Group Publishes Guidelines on Cloud Computing ROI
In an important industry contribution, The Open Group has published a white paper on how to build and measure cloud computing return on investment (ROI). Produced by the Cloud Business…
The Army’s iPhone Story
Sandra Erwin of National Defense magazine just published an excellent article on the Army’s foray into developing soldier-friendly smartphone applications. Giving credit to Army CIO Lt. Gen, Jeffrey Sorenson and…
Vivek Kundra Steps Up to Cloud Computing’s Next Challenge
” [C]loud customers must be able to easily store, access, and process data across multiple clouds; weave together a mesh of different services to meet their needs; and have a…
Cloud Computing’s Next Challenge
Earlier this month, Melvin Greer and I teamed up on a Military Information Technology piece. Melvin is a senior research engineer and cloud computing chief architect at Lockheed Martin, and…
A couple of weeks ago, I was offered a chance to meet Mr. Vivek Kundra at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in downtown Washington, DC. Needless to say, I was honored to be given the opportunity. Although I was clear on my own views of how the Federal government could use cloud computing, the Obama administration’s plans were, at that time, anything but certain. What a difference a week makes !!
As has been widely reported, the President’s 2010 Budget submission has firmly set cloud computing as a “key tool for improving innovation, efficiency and effectiveness in Federal IT. The GSA has emphasized this edict by releasing a request for information (RFI) for Infrastructure as a Service offerings. This rapid and fairly decisive course change to the way Federal IT will be procured in the future can potentially change an entire industry. Looking at what has happened in the financial and automotive industries, this could also be seen as the administration flexing its muscle yet again in order to set the direction of a crucial component of the US economic system.
So now, with a little over a week before my meeting with Mr. Kundra, what do I talk about? Since the administrations direction has now been set, there’s clearly no need to discuss cloud computing as the right direction for Federal IT. Not being a political pundit or economic advisor, I will definitely stay away from the debates around government influence over the commercial sector. So as a technologist, I will stick to my knitting and discuss what technologies the coming GovCloud implementation will be able to leverage going forward.
If you have any suggestions for me, I would be happy to hear about them. The only thing I ask is for your recommendations to be focused on general technologies, industry standards or open source approaches. Please, no specific commercial products or specific technology implementations.
Of particular interest to me will be those technologies, standards or approaches that are “shovel ready”, and available for pilot implementations today! As outlined in the budget, “… pilot projects will be implemented to offer an opportunity to utilize more fully and broadly departmental and agency architectures to identify enterprise-wide common services and solutions, with a new emphasis on cloud-computing. The pilots will test a variety of services and delivery modes, provisioning approaches, options, and opportunities that cloud computing brings to Federal Government. Additionally, the multiple approaches will focus on measuring service, cost, and performance; refining and scaling pilots to full capabilities; and providing financial support to accelerate migration”.
I look forward to your assistance on this!
Kevin Jackson
[email protected]
3 Comments
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Kevin – good luck with the meeting. I like your idea of crowd-sourcing suggestions for the meeting! Others will likely have more valuable ideas than mine, so let me just suggest a little thing I’d like Vivek to keep in mind as a guiding principle for open government: Choice.
What do I mean? Government agencies, as they modernize to approach the agility and performance of great commercial IT shops, will be looking to cloud-solution (and other) providers for “business value and choice in a mixed-source world,” in the words of Microsoft’s Teresa Carlson. The agency CIOs and CTOs whom Vivek leads need the flexibility to choose the best tools to accomplish their mission regardless of platform. I’d hate to see a “one-size-fits-all” prescribed solution (even if it were based on Microsoft products!), and I think we’ll all benefit from a balanced approach with appropriate choice and flexibility reserved for smart CIOs.
Good luck and I’m looking forward to reading your report of the meeting! -lewis
Thank you very much for your comments. I agree with your thoughts and personally think that cloud portability will be a huge challenge.
Kevin, that is an awesome opportunity to be able to be part of shaping the future of IT for our Govt. This obviously comes with some great responsibility as well.
I think in order for the govt to adopt such a broad technology there needs to be standards set for interoperability and security first. We all know that standards boards tend to lag behind real world implementations. But in this case the consequences of not going forward with agreed upon security and interop standards is very dangerous.
What has worked with other technologies is lighting a torch underneath the vendors to get together and provide a set of standards before any govt contracts are let. Sometimes providing that carrot (big carrot) is essential to get everyone in the same room. Good luck with your meeting, very cool!