Two Days with AWS Federal

June 18, 2009 / G C Network /

The Endpoint Imperative: In a Software World, Hardware Does Matter

By G C Network | January 9, 2018

Hardware matters. From productivity to security to innovation, make sure your machines can keep up. Intel’s Sarah Wieskus joins The End Point Imperative: A Podcast series from Intel to discuss…

IT Transformation with Watson

By G C Network | January 5, 2018

Credit: Shutterstock by Kevin Jackson & Dez Blanchfield   IBM recently launched an exciting new project in the form of a podcast series produced and hosted Dez Blanchfield, appropriately titled the…

The Endpoint Imperative: A Form Factor Renaissance

By G C Network | December 22, 2017

Workplace expectations are changing, and along with them, the devices we use to do our jobs. In this episode of “The End Point Imperative”, Intel’s Sarah Wieskus tells us about…

Cloud Storage 2.0 Set To Dominate Market

By G C Network | December 19, 2017

The enterprise data storage marketplace is poised to become a battlefield. No longer the quiet backwater of cloud computing services, the focus of this global transition is now going from…

Top “Cloud Musings” Posts For 2017

By G C Network | December 17, 2017

    ( This content is being syndicated through multiple channels. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of GovCloud Network, GovCloud…

The Endpoint Imperative: ID’ing and Overcoming the Stumbling Blocks to Digital Transformation

By G C Network | December 6, 2017

Digital Transformation is the No 1 priority for organizations large and small. It’s imperative that IT remove any obstacles to digital transformation success – including outdated PCs and mobile devices.…

Industry Verticals Tackle Unstructured Data

By G C Network | December 1, 2017

  Organizations around the world are struggling to cope with the current data explosion. A vital characteristic of this data is that it is unstructured and represents things like email,…

The Endpoint Imperative: The Perimeter is Dead; Long Live the Perimeter!

By G C Network | November 27, 2017

Cloud, mobility and the Internet of Things have obliterated the traditional perimeter that protected organizations. The result: Higher productivity, but bigger challenges for security, data protection, and mobile device management.…

The Data Storage Explosion

By G C Network | November 25, 2017

Cloud computing innovation will power enterprise transformation in 2018.  Cloud growth is also driving a rapid rise in the storage market, exacerbating the enterprise challenge around storage cost and complexity.…

Digital Transformation Drives Mainframe’s Future

By G C Network | November 15, 2017

  Digital Transformation is amplifying mainframe as mission critical to business growth more than ever before. With 70% of the world’s corporate data and over half of the world’s enterprise…

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
Posted in , , ,

G C Network

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



Cloud Computing

Cybersecurity