Two Days with AWS Federal

June 18, 2009 / G C Network /

Federal Cloud Computing Strategy Officially Launched

By G C Network | February 14, 2011

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra officially launched the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy today. While this is clearly not new news, the document does state the government’s position in a very succint manner.…

GEOINT’s Future is in the Cloud

By G C Network | January 31, 2011

Recently, Geospatial Intelligence Forum Magazine asked me for my thoughts on the role of cloud computing in the future of geospatial intelligence.My response was recently published in their December 2010…

eTechSuccess: Patterns of Success – Kevin Jackson

By G C Network | January 27, 2011

 My sincere appreciation to John Baker for the eTechSuccess: Patterns of Success interview. John and I worked together IBM as part of the Wireless Emerging Business Organization. His team and…

USBE&IT Winter Issue Focuses on Cyber Security

By G C Network | January 19, 2011

Thank You USBE&IT Publisher Mr Tyrone Taborn for such an inspiring issue and my sincere appreciation to Mr. Frank McCoy for my inclusion in his list of Cyber visionaries! The Homeland…

Global GovCloud with Cisco and VCE

By G C Network | January 18, 2011

Last week I had the awesome experience of participating in a global telepresence conference on government cloud computing. Joining me as presenters were Blake Salle, Senior Vice President of VCE,…

NIST Cloud Computing Collaboration Twiki Launches

By G C Network | December 30, 2010

Today I received my credentials for the NIST Cloud Computing Collaboration Site. “The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been designated by Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra…

GovCloud Predicitons for 2011

By G C Network | December 30, 2010

Happy New Year All!! 2011 will be the breakout year for GovCloud! Pressure to reduce budget, pressure to manage I resources better and the political pressure of the next presidential…

Vivek Kundra Unveils 25-Point IT Management Reform Program

By G C Network | December 10, 2010

Yesterday the US Federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, unveiled an ambitious 25-point implementation plan for delivering more value to the American taxpayer. This plan focuses on execution and is designedto establish…

GSA and Unisys/Google Marks GovCloud Watershed

By G C Network | December 4, 2010

As widely reported this week, the United States General Services Administration (GSA) has awarded a contract to Unisys to create a secure cloud-based email and collaboration platform. The solution will…

NIST Moves Forward on Cloud Computing

By G C Network | November 8, 2010

Last week the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) held their second Cloud Computing Forum and Workshop. Skillfully shepherded by Ms. Dawn Leaf, the agency’s senior executive of cloud computing,…

Today, I start two days of training with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Federal. If that’s the first time you’ve ever heard about an AWS Federal division, your not alone. Held in downtown Washington, DC the course was invite-only and attendance was IT services firms that had demonstrated a clear track record of success in the Federal market. The companies invited to this inaugural session were:
o Abacus Technology Corp (https://www.abacustech.com)
o Acumen Solutions, Inc. (https://www.acumensolutions.com)
o Foxhole Technology (https://www.foxholetechnology.com)
o Information Concepts (https://www.infoconcepts.com)
o Touchstone Consulting Group (https://www.touchstone.com)
o Turner Consulting Group (https://www.tcg.com)
From the AWS point of view, the stated objectives were to provide a high level overview of AWS, share their technology roadmap, develop joint sales/marketing strategy with key partners and to build stronger relationships within the Federal marketplace.
Personally, this was the first time I had ever heard the seminal AWS question: Do we have to start from 1st principles every time? In retrospect, this view really makes sense. AWS focuses on the “undifferentiated heavy lifting” letting their customers focus on their business – “differentiated value creation”. This was also the first time I had heard of the “70/30 switch”. Traditionally, up to 70% of an organization’s IT resources are dedicated to necessary and mundane grunt work:
  • hardware management
  • software management
  • maintenance
  • load balancing
  • scaling
  • utilization
  • idle machines
  • bandwidth management
AWS optimizes the grunt work and enables the switch, allowing their customers to focus that 70% on value creation.
The morning session focused on describing the various AWS services. Some key points included:
  • Nothing on the AWS platform is language or technology dependant. Strings and HTTP seem to be the basis of everything
  • AWS offers application and operating system level visibility allowing customers to use their own application and/or operating system level monitor and scale solutions
  • Licensing software on AWS is dependant on the software provider. Microsoft won’t let you bring your company’s licenses into the cloud. Oracle and IBM, on the other hand, will let you put all your licenses on the cloud platform.
  • Software that binds itself to specific hardware can still be a problem.
  • Stay tuned for some exciting innovations around developer account capabilities (Account and subaccount availability)
The afternoon session did a deep dive on security. Yes, their system is secure. In the end, technology is not an issue. Within the Federal space the question is policy on the government side and a valid business case on the Amazon side.
(6/19 Update: In response to reader comments, security depends on the metrics an organization is required to meet. My statements on AWS security is not valid for all potential implementations.)
I would like to thank Carl Moses, Eric Lee and Kevin Kelly for today’s welcomed and insightful session. The (unofficial) existence of AWS Federal is exciting news. I can’t wait to learn more tomorrow.

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

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

  1. andy on June 18, 2009 at 8:32 pm

    I always enjoy learning how other people employ Amazon S3 online storage. I am wondering if you can check out my very own tool CloudBerry Explorer that helps to manage S3 on Windows . It is a freeware.
    With CloudBerry Explorer PRO you can even connect to FTP accounts



  2. Blogking on June 22, 2009 at 2:43 pm

    On the subject of load balancing, why not get the highest availability while not getting caught in high prices? Kemp’s got some great load balancers that are low priced and high in quality:

    http://www.kemptechnologies.com/?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=pv&utm_content=zs&utm_campaign=home



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