President Obama’s 2010 Budget Highlights Cloud Computing

DISA Chief Technologist States Plan for Cloud

By G C Network | September 23, 2008

In an interview reported on in this month’s Military Information Technology magazine, David Mihelcic, DISA Chief Technology Officer, has laid out his goal for the agency’s cloud computing initiative. As…

Google, GeoEye, Twitter. What a Combination!

By G C Network | September 23, 2008

On September 9th, Bob Lozano posted his kudos to GeoEye for a successful launch of GeoEye-1. (Hey Bob! Where’s that post on your “cloud failure” last week?) According to their…

RightScale goes Transcloud

By G C Network | September 22, 2008

Over the weekend, Maureen O’Gara of SYS-CON media reported that RightScale is now offering a “first in industry” capability to provide application management across multiple cloud infrastructures. It now offers…

A Bill to Outlaw Cloud Computing…..

By G C Network | September 19, 2008

… is what we may see if we don’t educate our lawmakers now! That seemed to be one of the main point at last week’s Google workshop in DC. Berin…

NCOIC and Cloud Computing

By G C Network | September 18, 2008

Yesterday the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) had a very good session on cloud computing during their plenary session in Falls Church, VA. Led by NCOIC’s Bob Marcus, speakers…

Military Information Technology Cloud Computing Collaboration

By G C Network | September 17, 2008

Today, we’re happy to announce what we believe to be an industry first. “Military Information Technology Magazine“, as the publication of record for the defense information technology community, is collaborating…

Is 99.999% reliability good enough?

By G C Network | September 16, 2008

According to Reuven Cohen in his recent post, Cloud Failure: The Myth of Nines , the whole concept of reliability may be meaningless. “In the case of a physical failure…

You Probably Use Cloud Computing Already.

By G C Network | September 15, 2008

56% of internet users use webmail services such as Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo! Mail. 34% store personal photos online. 29% use online applications such as Google Documents or Adobe Photoshop…

20 Real-Life Challenges of Cloud Computing

By G C Network | September 12, 2008

Nikita Ivanov of GridGain offers some excellent insight into the nuts and bolts of getting the cloud to work. Definitely worth a read. To summarize: Most likely you do NOT…

3Tera Announces Global Cloud Services

By G C Network | September 11, 2008

Last week, 3Tera has announced the availability of global cloud services, based on their AppLogic grid operating system. 3Tera is currently running data centers in seven countries (United States, Japan,…

President Obama’s 2010 Budget (pp. 157-158) has highlighted cloud computing as a key tool for improving innovation, efficiency and effectiveness in Federal IT.

” Cloud-computing is a convenient, on-demand model for network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. The cloud element of cloud-computing derives from a metaphor used for the Internet, from the way it is often depicted in computer network diagrams. Conceptually it refers to a model of scalable, real-time, internet-based information technology services and resources, satisfying the computing needs of users, without the users incurring the costs of maintaining the underlying infrastructure. Examples in the private sector involve providing common business applications online, which are accessed from a web browser, with software and data stored on the “cloud” provider’s servers.”

In addressing common concerns around security, the document takes this challenge on by appropriately charging agencies to have a proactive risk management plan.

“Implementing a cloud-computing platform incurs different risks than dedicated agency data centers. Risks associated with the implementation of a new technology service delivery model include policy changes, implementation of dynamic applications, and securing the dynamic environment. The mitigation plan for these risks depends on establishing a proactive program management office to implement industry best practices and government policies in the management of any program. In addition, the Federal community will need to actively put in place new security measures which will allow dynamic application use and information-sharing to be implemented in a secure fashion. In order to achieve these goals, pilot programs will provide a model for scaling across the Government. “

The administrations plans to transform the Federal IT infrastructure by “virtualizing data centers, consolidating data centers and operations, and ultimately adopting a cloud-computing business model”. The effort will include multiple pilots and a major new initiative led by the Federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, and supported by the Federal CIO council.

What a great day for Federal Cloud Computing !!

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

G C Network

1 Comments

  1. Anonymous on May 13, 2009 at 2:50 am

    There is more to securing “cloud computing” than a bunch of policies and directives. What is your disaster recovery and continutuity plan for when the cloud service suffers a failure? Since the data lives in the “cloud”, can you be assured that you know “where” it it? I guess the answers depend on your definition of “cloud”.

    http://www.rationalsurvivability.com/blog/?p=870