Cloud Musings by Kevin L. Jackson

NJVC® and Virtual Global Announce Release of PaaS White Paper: Paper Clarifies the Confusion Surrounding PaaS for Federal IT Buyers—Why It Is Important and How It Can Cut Development Costs by 50 Percent

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:51:00 +0000

VIENNA, Va., Jan. 23, 2012 —NJVC^®, one of the largest information technology solutions providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense, and Virtual Global, a premier provider of software and cloud computing platform solutions for a variety of industry and federal customers, announce the release of a joint white paper, “Platform as a Service (Paas): What Is It? Why Is It So Important?.”

The paper clarifies the confusion surrounding PaaS for IT decision makers in the federal government. The National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) suggests PaaS as a component of the Federal Cloud Computing Reference Architecture, but one major challenge exists: Most buyers do not understand what PaaS is, why it is important and how it can help federal agencies cut development costs by more than 50 percent.

“Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel said that platform as a service is the next major value set for federal cloud computing, and it also aligns closely with his Shared Services initiative to knock down stovepipe software and save money,” said Kevin Jackson, co-author and general manager, NJVC cloud services. “I hope that this whitepaper will help raise awareness of its importance in the federal marketplace.”
Many PaaS vendors require their customers to make long-term commitments to proprietary infrastructures. Some early adopters of PaaS unknowingly have already made casual, long-term commitments to infrastructure providers. “It's somewhat like buying gum at the counter, but needing to rent the store for 10 years,” said Cary Landis, co-author and Virtual Global senior platform architect and founder. “That is why NIST is stressing the importance of openness and portability. IT buyers must understand PaaS to make the right decisions early.”

PaaS makes it possible for software developers to participate in the cloud. Until recently, the cloud has been dominated by big email and infrastructure providers selling commodity services. “PaaS changes the landscape—it opens the playing field to hundreds of thousands of software developers and integrators, giving them a way to actively participate,” according to Jackson. “Whereas the first wave of cloud computing was about consolidating data centers, the PaaS wave is about consolidating applications. It will be a more complex ride, but the savings will be greater,” Landis said.

Download the white paper at no cost at http://www.slideshare.net/kvjacksn/njvcvirtual-global-paas-white-paper. NJVC and Virtual Global are team members on the GovCloud™ initiative.

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About NJVC

With a focus on information technology automation, NJVC specializes in supporting highly secure, complex IT enterprises in mission-critical environments, particularly for the intelligence and defense communities. We offer a wide breadth of IT and strategic solutions to our customers, ranging from strategic consulting to managed flexible services in five business areas: Cloud Services, Cyber Security, Data Center Services, IT Services and Print Solutions. Our global workforce includes dedicated and talented employees with 94 percent holding security clearances located at more than 170 customer sites. We partner with our customers to support their missions. To learn more, visit www.njvc.com.

About Virtual Global

Virtual Global is a premier provider of software and cloud computing platform solutions for a variety of industry and federal clients. The SaaS Maker™ family of platform products is open and modular, so that you can integrate with existing open source, legacy and 3rd-party web services. It is also portable across data centers. http://www.virtualglobal.com

Contact

Michelle Snyder, NJVC, 703.893.7609, michelle.snyder@njvc.com
Audra Capas, 5StarPR, 703.437.9301, audra@5starpr.com

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December 2011: GovCloud Moves From Policy to Law

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:32:00 +0000

Over the past years, government cloud computing has steadily moved forward from it's early beginnings as an interesting curiosity:

December 23, 2008 - Now really. Should the Obama administration use cloud computing?

Since Sunday's broadcast, I've been asked numerous times about my real answer to the question "Will 'Cloud Computing' Work In White House". Although I would never assume to be in a position to advise the President-elect, I'm more than happy, however, to add my voice to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the distinguished list of contributors that recently released the CSIS Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency.

I truly believe that cloud computing technology can be used to implement some of their recommendations. One in particular is their recommendation for a National Office for Cyberspace (NOC) and a new National Security Council Cybersecurity Directorate (NSCCD). Along with the relevant agencies, these organizations would:

"Assume expanded authorities, including revised Federal Information Security management Act (FISMA) authorities, oversight of the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative, responsibility for the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC) and acquisition reform, and the ability to require agencies to submit budget proposals relating to cyberspace to receive its approval prior to submission to OMB."

December 23, 2009 - 2009: The Government Discovers Cloud Computing

2009 was truly a watershed year for Federal information technology professionals. After inaugurating the first Cyber-President we saw the appointment of our first Federal CIO and the rapid adoption of cloud computing as the way forward for improved efficiencies at reduced cost. The theme continued throughout the year with the Federal Cloud Computing Initiative, the Open Government Directive and finally, as if to put an exclamation point on the rising importance of IT to national security the appointment of the nation's first Cybersecurity Coordinator.

Government cloud computing is a reality and as Peter Mell of NIST succinctly put it, "2010 will be the year of the cloud computing pilot." I look forward to continuing this exciting conversation with you all!

December 30, 2010 - GovCloud Predicitons for 2011

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 election will combine to accelerate adoption. The GSA IaaS groundwork has been laid and new policies are just about ready to be released !!

December 2011: And what did Santa bring this year!!

"MEMORANDUM FOR CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICERS FROM: Steven VanRoekel Federal Chief Information Officer

Each Executive department or agency shall:

i. Use FedRAMP when conducting risk assessments, security authorizations, and granting ATOs for all Executive department or agency use of cloud services;

ii. Use the FedRAMP PMO process and the JAB-approved FedRAMP security authorization requirements as a baseline when initiating, reviewing, granting and revoking security authorizations for cloud services;

iii. Ensure applicable contracts appropriately require CSPs to comply with FedRAMP
security authorization requirements;

2012 Defense Authorization Act

"PERFORMANCE PLAN FOR REDUCTION OF RESOURCES
REQUIRED FOR DATA SERVERS AND CENTERS.— ...

(2) DEFENSE-WIDE PLAN.—

(A) IN GENERAL.—Not later than April 1, 2012, the Chief Information Officer of the Department shall submit to the congressional defense committees a performance plan for a reduction in the resources required for data centers and information systems technologies Department-wide. The plan shall be based upon and incorporate appropriate elements of the plans submitted under paragraph (1).

(B) ELEMENTS.—The performance plan required under this paragraph shall include the following:

(ii) A Department-wide strategy for each of the following: ....

(II) Transitioning to cloud computing.

(III) Migration of Defense data and government-provided services from Department-owned and operated data centers to cloud computing services generally available within the private sector that provide a better capability at a lower cost with the same or greater degree of security.

(IV) Utilization of private sector-managed security services for data centers and cloud computing services."

Yes, Virginia, there is a GovCloud!!

Happy Holidays to All !!!

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

CloudMASTER & CloudGURU Certification Comes To Washington, DC

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 21:31:00 +0000

The National Cloud Technologist Association is bringing the CloudMASTER & CloudGURU certification classes to the Washington Metropolitan Area in 2012. First introduced in November at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in Newark, this continuing education program provides a solid technical background in modern web services deployment and administration. Students will learn concepts, principles, techniques, and practices needed to administer and secure a modern cloud-enabled business environment.

CloudMASTER is comprised of three levels. The foundation program includes all the basics required for understanding Cloud computing services and operational management. Each of the three training modules can be completed as a stand-alone course and representing its own credential, as follows:

1.) Cloud Technologies - Module One
2.) Cloud Architecture & Design - Module Two
3.) Cloud Operations Management - Module Three

Hands-on computer lab work is a mandatory part of each program. Each course also involves a mandatory online examination. Students who pass each examination are awarded a Certificate for Completion of that module, as well as admission to the next module. Those candidates who successfully complete all three courses are awarded the designation of CloudMASTER, and a crystal award with your name inscribed.

A CloudGURU Certification Program is designed to provide experienced IT professionals with the skills, knowledge and designation to be considered for employment within areas that include Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Holders of this certification are change agents within institutions and corporations that begin transitions from traditional infrastructure and legacy applications to innovative cloud models.

This advanced training module also involves 32 hours of classroom training, with hands-on computer lab work and a mandatory online examination. Students who pass the examination are awarded the designation of CloudGURU. Successful candidiates will also be listed in the National Cloud Guru Database, and have their own public page on the NCTA website. CloudGURU curriculum includes:

• Green field assessment of the enterprise’s current IT landscape.
• Strategy framework for cloud migration.
• Analysis of bottlenecks, pain points, and performance issues.
• Analysis of user needs and geographical distribution.
• Impact on all elements of the firm’s value chain.
• Strategy of migrating applications and data from legacy to the cloud.
• Calculating total cost of migration.
• Cloud service vendor-deliverables management.
• Cost optimization strategies

The Washington Area Open House will be held on Saturday, January,14, 2012 from 10:00am -12:00 noon. Registration is available online at http://www.thencta.com/mewaopho.html

Seating is limited for the Open House. Travel, parking and public transportation information will be sent upon registration. Refreshments will be served. For more information call (800) 401.7351 (Toll Free)

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

GovCloud.com !! The New Hub for Government Cloud Computing

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 03:49:00 +0000

It gives me great pleasure to announce the relaunch of GovCloud.com! GovCloud is the “go to” place for everything related to federal cloud computing. Our mission is to help federal organizations learn about, try and securely adopt cloud computing technologies. In full alignment with The Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, the Federal CIO’s 25-Point Federal IT Reform Plan and NIST’s Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap, this site will provide a community hub for information dissemination and GovCloud best practices. A great deal of personal thanks goes out to the GovCloud.com member companies (in alphabetical order):

Site highlights include:

GovCloud reference library
Training and education information from the National Cloud Technologist Association and Cloud Best Practices Network
Cloud assessment tools from Gravitant
SaaSmaker Platform-as-a-Service
Member company blogs and whitepapers
GovCloud World News
GSA IaaS and SaaS information
Community member company books and

As always, your comments, recommendations and suggestions are welcomed.. Your active participation is also invited. Just let me know how you would like to contribute.

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

Backupify Names Top 10 Cloud Computing Experts to Follow on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 03:15:00 +0000

THANK YOU BACKUPIFY!!!!

Thank you for the honor of being on your Top 10 List! Backupify is the leading backup provider for cloud based data, offering an all-in-one archiving, search and restore service for the most popular online services including Google Apps, Facebook, Twitter and more. With one account you get centralized access to all of your information, stored securely, easily searchable, and ready for restoration or transfer at a moment's notice.

Other honorees include:

. 1. Adria Richards

2. Susan Cline

3. Steven Peltzman

4. Ben Kepes

5. David Linthicum

6. Krishnan Subramanian

7. Matt Rosoff

8. Loraine Lawson

9. Om Malik

10. Kevin L. Jackson bringing up the rear.

Visit the Backupify Blog to read more about these outstanding Twitter leaders !!

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

NJVC® Cloud Computing Expert Kevin Jackson to Speak at NIST Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop IV on Nov. 3 in Gaithersburg, Md.

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:45:00 +0000

VIENNA, Va., Oct. 28, 2011 — NJVC^®, one of the largest information technology solutions providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) , is pleased to announce that Kevin Jackson, general manager, cloud services, will participate in the “Security Assumption Buster Panel” during the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop IV on Nov. 3 in Gaithersburg, Md.

Security Assumption Buster Panel

Date: Nov. 3, 2011

Time: 11:40 a.m. – 12:40 p.m.

Location: NIST, 100 Bureau Drive, Gaithersburg, Md.

Presenters:

Curt Barker, panel chair and chief cybersecurity advisor, NIST
Kevin Jackson, general manager, cloud services, NJVC
Bill Newhouse, scientific advisor, cybersecurity, research & development computer security division, NIST

This expert panel will address common fallacies and misconceptions about cloud computing security and also discuss the NIST approach to risk management as the federal government continues to transition IT operations to the cloud.

Between 500 and 700 participants are expected to participate in the Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop IV, which will take place on Nov. 2 – 4. This workshop will provide information on the U.S. Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap initiative and provide an update on NIST efforts to help develop open standards in cloud interoperability, portability and security.

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About NJVC

NJVC is one of the largest information technology solutions providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense. We provide innovative and high-quality IT solutions to the government and commercial organizations, and specialize in supporting highly secure IT enterprises, particularly for the intelligence and defense communities. To learn more, visit www.njvc.cm.

Contact

Michelle Snyder
703.893.7609
michelle.snyder@njvc.com

Dara Dirth
571.405.2741
dara.dirth@njvc.com

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

NJVC® General Manager, Cloud Services, Kevin Jackson to Moderate “Cloud Computing and the Intelligence Mission” Panel at GEOINT 2011 Symposium

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 02:22:00 +0000

Vienna, Va., Oct. 13, 2011 — NJVC® , one of the largest information technology (IT) solutions providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense, is pleased to announce that Kevin Jackson, General Manager, cloud services, will serve as the moderator for the GEOINT 2011 Symposium panel, “Cloud Computing and the Intelligence Mission,” on October 19 in San Antonio.

Event: “Cloud Computing and the Intelligence Mission” panel
Date: Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011
Time: 2 – 4 p.m. (central)
Location: Room 103, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, San Antonio

Panelists:

Don Cotter, CTO, Department of Homeland Security
Bob Gouley, Editor, CTOvision.com
Dr. Robert C. Norris, Director, Enterprise Architecture and Atandards, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Michele Weslander Quaid, Chief Technology Officer and Innovation Evangelist, Google Federal

Description:

Cloud computing, a new approach in the provisioning and consumption of IT, has been described as a means to cut federal IT budgets. This panel of esteemed intelligence community technologists will discuss the implementation of cloud solutions (private, public, community and hybrid) from public and private providers specific to intelligence community customers.

Jackson heads the new NJVC cloud services business unit, and joined the company in 2010. A prolific blogger and first-time book author on cloud computing, he was recently named one of the “Most Powerful Voices in Security” by SYS-CON MEDIA.

Visit the NJVC booth (#601) in the GEOINT 2011 Exhibit Hall, Oct. 16 – 19, 2011.

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About NJVC

Contact

Michelle Snyder
703.893.7609
michelle.snyder@njvc.com

Dara Dirth
571.405.2741
dara.dirth@njvc.com

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

NJVC® Spotlights Cyber Security and Automated IT at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo® 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 03:03:00 +0000

VIENNA, Va., Oct. 4, 2011 — NJVC^®, one of the largest information technology solutions providers supporting the Department of Defense, announces its lineup for the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo^®, Oct. 16 - 20 at the Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel in Orlando, Fla.
Visit the NJVC booth (#206) on the tradeshow floor to meet with company representatives and earn about NJVC’s extensive and proven portfolio of IT solutions for government and commercial customers. NJVC will provide the following live demonstrations for attendees:

Cyber Dashboard – Take a tour and learn how NJVC customers have benefited from this inexpensive yet highly effective cyber tool that provides customizable, real-time situational awareness visualization across an entire IT enterprise.
Streamlined NJVC Automation Products, Services and Solutions™ – SNAPSS™ is a suite of cost-effective solutions that automate and streamline IT enterprise services for customers no matter the location of their users.
- Persistent Desktop Instance™ – Discover NJVC’s new service—PDI™— a virtual desktop available from “thick” customers (desktops or laptops), thin/zero client devices and mobile devices. PDI provides users access to a single workstation containing their documents and installed software, regardless of the viewing client or location. PDI provides a “disconnect and resume” capability giving users agility of “computing on the go.”
- Provisioned Self Services™ – Learn about PSS™—an innovative, virtual storefront for an enterprise’s software library. PSS users can easily search out the software needed for a task and request it to be installed on their workstations. PSS puts the power in the hands of users to virtually request and receive the software applications necessary to do their jobs, while maintaining central configuration control of the enterprise.
- Agile Dashboard™ – Gain knowledge how the Agile Dashboard enables the visualization of core devices across an organization’s entire IT enterprise. This cost-effective tool allows real-time visualization to quickly resolve any issues without major impact to users and the enterprise.
- Self Help™ – Learn about the NJVC Self Help solution under SNAPPS: a live chat, problem resolution tool. Users can communicate with help desk personnel in real time, using screen sharing, video and/or audio.
More than 8,500 senior business and IT strategists, including more than 2,000 chief information officers, are expected to attend the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo.

( SNAPSS™, Persistent Desktop Instance™, Provisioned Self Services™, Agile Dashboard™ and Self Help™ services are available to support private cloud platforms or on the Federal Community Cloud through the GSA Infrastructure-as-a-Service blanket purchase agreement )

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About NJVC
NJVC is one of the largest information technology solutions providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense. We provide innovative and high-quality IT solutions to the government and commercial organizations, and specialize in supporting highly secure IT enterprises, particularly for the intelligence and defense communities. To learn more, visit www.njvc.com.

About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the IT industry's largest and most strategic conference, providing business leaders with a look at the future of IT. For more than 10,000 IT professionals from the world's leading enterprises, Gartner's annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of their annual planning efforts. Attendees rely on Gartner Symposium/ITxpo to gain insight into how their organizations can use technology to address business challenges and improve operational efficiency. For more information, please visit http://www.gartner.com/technology/symposium/orlando/index.jsp.

Contact
Michelle Snyder
703.893.7609
michelle.snyder@njvc.com

Dara Dirth
571.405.2741
dara.dirth@njvc.com

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

NJVC® to Demonstrate Enterprise Automation at GEOINT 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:36:00 +0000

VIENNA, Va., Oct. 6, 2011 — NJVC®, one of the largest information technology solutions (IT) providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), is pleased to offer live, compelling demonstrations on the company’s Streamlined NJVC Automation Products, Services and Solutions™ (SNAPSS™) at GEOINT 2011 Symposium—the largest intelligence event in the United States—on Oct. 16 – 19 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio.

Visit the NJVC booth (#601) on the expo floor to meet company experts and learn about NJVC’s extensive and proven portfolio of IT services, particularly geared for DoD and intelligence customers. Experience the following thought-provoking demonstrations:

SNAPSS™ – SNAPSS™ is a suite of cost-effective solutions that automate and streamline IT enterprise services for customers no matter the location of their users.
Persistent Desktop Instance™ – Discover NJVC’s new service—PDI™— a virtual desktop available from “thick” customers (desktops or laptops), thin/zero client devices and mobile devices. PDI provides users access to a single workstation containing their documents and installed software, regardless of the viewing client or location. PDI provides a “disconnect and resume” capability giving users agility of “computing on the go.”
Provisioned Self Services™ – Learn about PSS™—an innovative, virtual storefront for an enterprise’s software library. PSS users can easily search out the software needed for a task and request it to be installed on their workstations. PSS puts the power in the hands of users to virtually request and receive the software applications necessary to do their jobs, while maintaining central configuration control of the enterprise.
Agile Dashboard™ – Gain knowledge how the Agile Dashboard enables the visualization of core devices across an organization’s entire IT enterprise. This cost-effective tool allows real-time visualization to quickly resolve any issues without major impact to users and the enterprise.
Self Help™ – Learn about the NJVC Self Help solution under SNAPSS: a live chat, problem resolution tool. Users can communicate with help desk personnel in real time, using screen sharing, video and/or audio.
AV Room Automation – Investigate unified communications through an intuitive control interface. Explore the possibility of standardizing your enterprise with a catalog of pre-engineered solutions to fit every need.

More than 200 exhibitors will showcase their services and products at the GEOINT 2011 Symposium Exhibit Hall. Approximately 4,000 people are expected to attend the symposium, including the leadership of the intelligence, defense and homeland security communities.

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About NJVC

Dara Dirth
571.405.2741
dara.dirth@njvc.com

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

Mr. Jeffrey Kaplan Talks About The Cloud Channel

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:14:00 +0000

This afternoon I had a very interesting discussion with Mr. Jeffrey Kaplan, Managing Director of THINKstrategies and founder of the Cloud Computing Showplace. His firm is focused entirely on the business implications of the transition of the technology industry from product-centric to services-driven solutions, including Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing and Managed Services. Mr. Kaplan is also the Founder of the Cloud Computing Showplace (www.cloudshowplace.com), a vendor-independent, online directory and best practice resource center regarding SaaS, Platforms-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), including Managed Services with nearly 1,800 companies divided into over 90 categories.

Our conversation focused on the evolution of the system integrator within the public sector marketplace. One of his key goals was to dispel the myth that system integrators and their channel partners will be displaced by the rapidly growing list of cloud providers. In his view, system inegrator must quickly evolve their businesses to deliver cloud based solutions. Today's traditional information technology channel sales model will morph into a new cloud channel sales model.

If you're interested in learning more about this transition, you should consider attending the Cloud Channel Summit being held in Mountain View, Ca, November 7, 2011. the purpose of this conference is to:

Foster greater communication about the channel opportunities in the Cloud Computing market.
Give major Cloud vendors a venue where they can demonstrate that they are channel-friendly and discuss the business benefits of their channel programs.
Give channel companies an opportunity to learn about industry best practices and the channel programs being offered by the leading cloud vendors so they can capitalize on these new market opportunities; and
To provide an important networking opportunity for corporate executives and channel managers to interact and learn about what’s working and not in the rapidly evolving Cloud marketplace.

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

The Economic Benefit of Cloud Computing

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:32:00 +0000

(The following is the Executive Summary of a recent NJVC Executive Whitepaper. The full version is available at NJVC.com )

Cloud computing, as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is a model for enabling “… convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” NIST is implying the economies of scale that go with cloud computing when it refers to a pool of configurable computing resources.

Cloud computing is often referred to as a technology. However, it is actually a significant shift in the business and economic models for provisioning and consuming information technology (IT) that can lead to a significant cost savings. This cost savings can only be realized through the use of significant pooling of these “configurable computing resources” or resource pooling. According to NIST, this capability is an essential characteristic of cloud computing. Resource pooling is the ability of a cloud to serve multiple customers using a multi-tenant model with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to demand.

Cloud computing economics depends on four customer population metrics:

Number of Unique Customer Sets (n)
Customer Set Duty Cycles (λ,f)
Relative Duty Cycle Displacement (t)
Customer Set Load (L)

These metrics drive the cloud provider’s ability to use the minimum amount of physical IT resources to service a maximum level of IT resource demand. Properly balancing these factors across a well characterized user group can lead to approximately 30-percent savings in IT resources, and enables the near real-time modification of the underlying physical infrastructure required for the delivery of the desired “illusion of infinite resources” synonymous with a cloud computing user’s experience.

When implemented properly, the cloud computing economic model can drastically reduce the operations and maintenance cost of IT infrastructures. A 2009 Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) study concluded that a cloud computing approach could save 50 to 67 percent of the lifecycle cost for a 1,000-server deployment. Another Deloitte study confirmed that cloud deployments delivered greater investment returns with a shorter payback period when compared to the traditional on-premise delivery option.

In considering cloud computing for the Intelligence Community, security is an obvious concern. Given the legal and operational concerns, classified information should always be processed in properly protected and certified IC private or community clouds. If a secure cloud model can be designed, economic savings can certainly be realized.

When used to process unclassified information, sharing cloud computing resources can nominally provide the operational advantages of a private cloud with a cost closer to that of a public cloud due to the expected economies of scale from combined user communities.

The federal government is currently deploying a federal community cloud. Officially referred to as the General Services Administration Infrastructure as a Service Blanket Purchase Agreement (GSA IaaS BPA; item #4 in the White House CIO’s “25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology Management”), this Government Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) vehicle is designed to implement a community cloud economic model to support the federal government. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) expects this community to provide approximately $20 billion in cloud computing services to a community made up of more than 25 agencies.

Using the BAH study as a guide, and assuming that community cloud economies mimic those expected from a hybrid cloud, transitioning IT services from an agency-owned IT infrastructure to the GSA IaaS platform should deliver benefit cost ratios of approximately 7:1.

Cloud computing provides some strong benefits and economic incentives. Selecting a public, private, hybrid or community cloud implementation will depend on a customer’s specific application, performance, security and compliance requirements. Proper deployment can provide significant savings, better IT services and a higher level of reliability.

Lower Costs
Cap-Ex Free Computing
Deploy Projects Faster, Foster Innovation
Scale as Needed
Lower Maintenance Costs
Resiliency and Redundancy

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies: Part 4 - Cloud Computing for Defense and Intelligence

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:00:00 +0000

(This is part 4 of the series entitled "Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies". First published on Forbes.com, this series provides the content of a whitepaper I recently authored. A copy of the complete whitepaper will be available at NJVC.com starting September 7, 2011.)

The defense and intelligence communities are not immune to cloud computing. Arguably more than any other government agencies, their missions require a fabric of utility computing that scales on demand and enables self discovery and self-service access to secure, timely and relevant information in support of mission: individual or shared. The traditional IT model requires system engineering that binds most software to the hardware and does not provide an enterprise suite of functionality or allow for increased flexibility and a governed lifecycle of services. Designing software independence from the hardware allows an operating system, applications and data to “live” across the enterprise and is fundamental to the transformation of compute, storage and network functionality.

Defense is dealing with a $78 billion budget cut—the first since September 11, 2001—and another $100 billion in other cost-cutting measures over a five-year period commencing in FY 2012. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is directing that the budget be cut from agency administrative and structural areas (e.g., the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Network Intelligence and Information, the Business Transformation Agency, and the Joint Forces Command are in the process of being eliminated or disestablished with some essential functions transferred to other organizations with the Pentagon).

In an official statement on the proposed budget costs provided on January 6, 2011, Secretary Gates said: “First, reforming how the department uses information technology, which costs us about $37 billion a year. At this time all of our bases and headquarters have their own separate IT infrastructure and processes, which drive up costs and create cyber vulnerabilities. The department is planning to consolidate hundreds of data centers and move to a more secure enterprise system, which we estimate could save more than $1 billion a year.” Department of Defense Chief Information Officer Terry Takai also publically commented about the potential IT budget cuts at an April 21, 2011, INPUT event. Takai commented on DoD’s support of the move of some of its IT operations to the cloud—particularly data centers.

Cloud Computing and Mission Support

Information is often the decisive discriminator in modern conflict. Studies of recent mission failures highlighted this fact, finding that many of these failures were caused by:

Existence of data silos
Human-based document exploitation process
Reliance on “operationally proven” processes and filters typically used to address the lack of computational power or decision time

Also disturbing is that in most of these cases, the critical piece of information necessary for mission was in possession. The failure wasn’t in obtaining the information, but in locating and applying it to the mission at hand. Cloud computing uniquely addresses all of these important issues.

Data silos evolved from a system-centric IT proc urement policy and an almost reflexive reliance onrelational database technology. In developing early data processing systems, the high cost of memory and storage led to a premium being placed on the efficiency of application data access and retrieval. Relational database technology effectively addressed this need, which in turn led to its pervasive use across government. In modern IT system development, memory and storage are cheap—and getting cheaper—which has led to internet-scale storage and search paradigms that are the stuff of everyday use today. The world’s largest databases cannot, in fact, be searched quickly using a relational database management approach. Today’s ability to search multi-petabyte data stores in milliseconds virtually eliminates the need for data silos. This capability is realized in cloud-based storage. Documents are the persistent records of human activity. As such, they are used to provide insight into the societal structure and processes of our opponents. Conflict, however, is entity and event centric. The intelligence professional must, therefore, interpret documents and translate that data into operationally relevant entities and events. The time and resource intensive nature of this skillcraft is perfectly suited for the precision search and analytic capabilities of the modern compute cloud. The use of highly standardized and virtualized commodity infrastructure, not only make the automation of this function possible, but it enables real-time continuous processing of the now digital document flow of our adversaries. This commodity also removes the human from this tedious task, allowing intelligence professionals to apply higher order professional analysis and insight.

The human-based document exploitation process led directly to an institutional reliance on the aforementioned “operationally proven” processes and filters. Instantiated by the use of multi-page structure query language and the ubiquitous goal of obtaining an appropriate “working set” of data, these time-honored processes were born from the need to meet critical decision timelines within a computationally inadequate environment. Cloud techniques and technologies can now be used to work on all the data. And with an ability to leverage the power of a supercomputer at will, the working set requirement is now an anachronism and critical decision timelines can now be more easily met.

Cloud computing is unique in its ability to address these critical defense and intelligence mission needs. That’s why cloud computing is critical to our national defense. As a bonus, cloud computing offers defense and intelligence agencies the ability to increase efficiencies and incur marked cost savings during their lifecycles to alleviate some of the pressure of budget reductions. Moving IT operations to the cloud also will assist in enhanced collaboration.

http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1527

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Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies : Part 3 - Cloud Transition Lessons Learned

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:00:00 +0000

(This is part 3 of the series entitled "Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies". First published on Forbes.com, this series provides the content of a whitepaper I recently authored. A copy of the complete whitepaper will be available at NJVC.com starting September 7, 2011.)

While the benefits and value of the federal cloud computing policy can be debated, the world’s transition to cloud computing as an integral component of any IT infrastructure cannot be denied. The prudent government executive should, therefore, heed the lessons learned from the many private industry corporations that already have miles behind them on this journey.

When identifying a potential cloud computing project, one should always count on a multi-year transition. Organizations should always use a consistent cloud opportunity identification process to reduce the risk of project failure by leveraging data from successful cloud implementations. Clients need to determine set metrics (economic, operational and service) with direct linkage to specific mission requirement(s). Use of a gate-driven cloud adoption process designed to terminate failed projects early in the project lifecycle and deliver measurable capabilities within a quick timeframe (weeks—not years) is highly recommended.

A risk mitigation plan also must be formalized that addresses each of the following concerns:²

Loss of Governance. When moving to a cloud environment, clients relinquish control to the CP on a number of security-related issues. A gap in security defenses may also exist as service level agreements may not adequately address CP-related security requirements.
Portability. Issues related to provider lock in are outlined in the Challenges section of this white paper on page 5.
Isolation Failure. Multi-tenancy and collaboration are at the core of cloud computing. Resource isolation failure addresses mechanisms separating storage, memory, routing and reputation among different clients on the same cloud (e.g., guest-hopping attacks). However, it must be noted that attacks on these mechanisms are not as pervasive and much more difficult to attempt versus attacks on traditional operating systems.
Compliance Risks. Investments in certifications (e.g., industry standard or regulatory requirements) may be compromised or lost when moving to the cloud.
Management Interface Compromise. Security is an issue with client management interfaces with the public cloud provider. The reason? These services are provided via the internet and permit access to a larger set of resources than traditional operating systems. Security risk can dramatically increase when this is combined with remote access and web browser vulnerabilities.
Data Protection. It may be difficult for clients to effectively check the data-handling practices of their CPs to ensure critical and sensitive data is handled lawfully and ethically. This problem can be aggravated in cases of multiple transfers of data (e.g., between federated clouds). However, it must be noted that some CPs share information on their data-handling practices with clients and others offer certification summaries on their data processing and data security activities and their various security controls (e.g., Statement on Auditing Standards 70 Certification.
Insecure or Incomplete Data Deletion. As with most operating systems, when a request to remove a cloud resource is made, a true erase of data may not happen. Adequate or timely data deletion also may not be feasible (or undesirable from a client perspective) because extra copies of data are stored but not readily available or the disk to be destroyed also houses other data from other clients. When multi-tenancies and the reuse of hardware resources are added to the mix, this risk can increase.
Malicious Insider. Cloud architectures necessitate the creation of certain staff positions (e.g., CP system administrators and managed security service providers) that can be extremely high risk in terms of internal security threats.

Creating a Cloud Computing Roadmap for Federal Agencies First Steps

According to, GovCloud: Cloud Computing for the Business of Government, when a government agency is ready to undertake the implementation of a cloud-based solution, it must determine which IT services, business functions and processes to deploy in the cloud environment. A five-year roadmap should be created that includes the desired order to move each of the services to the cloud for each year during that time period.³ Requirements for each service to be deployed in the cloud should be developed and a cost/benefits analysis performed to establish the rationale why each targeted service should move to the cloud.

Implementation of a Low-Risk Test Case

A low-risk test case should be implemented prior to undertaking a wholesale transfer of services to the cloud.⁴ This is harder than it may sound as some IT services that may seem simple to deploy to the cloud are not so easy. Four questions should be asked (and answered) to decide which IT services are best suited to live in the cloud⁵:

Can compliance requirements be balanced with other IT prioirities?
Is this an IT function or service the agency has mastered?
Can the agency use a standardized service?
Is the test case easily implementable?

A misconception may exist that just because an application or service being deployed to the cloud isn’t mission critical, the process will be simple and straightforward. This is not always true. If the agency is new to the cloud and wishes to establish a private cloud it will take time to determine the appropriate split of responsibilities between the service provider and the agency’s IT team.⁶ Compliance and liability issues can also be tricky, as defining compliance conditions and establishing liability for intellectual property protection with cloud vendors reach well beyond the IT world—and, as such, with so many moving parts may take time to properly address and resolved.⁷ NIST has launched the U.S. Government Cloud Computing Business Case Working Group to assist agencies with the development of cloud-compatible user cases. Email, geospatial data exchange and services management are among the first user cases currently in development.

Additional Recommendations

The authors of GovCloud: Cloud Computing for the Business of Government also offer seven recommendations that must be considered during the development and implementation of an agency’s cloud roadmap:

Own the information, even if you own nothing else. An agency must claim its right to own the information even if it doesn’t own the infrastructure, application or service associated with that information. Any agency is liable for its information—regardless of where it lives—and some education will likely be needed about this fact among its IT team. While it may be unrealistic to prevent departments from provisioning their own cloud application, the agency must institute policies and procedures to ensure it can monitor how information deployed to the cloud is managed. As it is often hard to envision future uses of information, it also is recommended that agencies make sure cloud-dwelling data can be brought back into the enterprise if needed.
Don’t take terminology for granted. It is vital to ensure that important terminology is defined in the same way by the agency and the cloud service provider—room for different interpretation always exists. A review of information governance policies must take place to identify the areas of highest risk so authoritative definitions for vocabulary in these areas can be developed and adopted.
Hope for standards, but prepare to integrate. In short, the cloud is young and isn’t established enough to have developed standard specifications for platform interoperability and data exchange. Strategic groundwork for future data integration needs to be laid in the early stages of any movement to the cloud. Agencies must insist that their cloud service providers provide clear documentation on the data formats and schemas used for information storage in their systems.
Control cloud platform proliferation. Agencies should minimize the number of different cloud platforms that require support to limit information fragmentation and decrease the chance of a future huge integration effort. To the greatest extent possible, an agency’s IT team should help departments look for shared requirements in standardized business functions. The team can identify cloud platforms that meet these needs and consolidate the agency’s services on them, when possible. Not only will the ability to share information increase, this will result in greater leverage when negotiating contract terms and pricing.
Make the information “cloud ready.” Agencies that organize their data sets well enough for use across multiple platforms will be best positioned to take advantage of cloud services, and will be better able to deploy enterprise information to the cloud more easily.IT teams need to get into the habit of encrypting data into one common format (probably XML)—a process even more important if data moves through externally operated resources to the cloud.
Master solution integration. The shift to the cloud requires IT professionals to change their focus from owning and operating enterprise systems to becoming master information service integrators. In addition to linking legacy databases to SaaS, IT teams need to connect their private and public clouds to create a seamless technology environment that works like a single cloud custom-made for their specific enterprises.

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Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies : Part 2 - Challenges of Cloud Computing

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 11:43:00 +0000

(This is part 2 of the series entitled "Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies" that first appeared on Forbes.com. This series provides the content of a whitepaper I recently authored. A copy of the complete whitepaper will be available at NJVC.com starting September 7, 2011.)

Despite the myriad benefits of cloud computing solutions, several challenges still exist. Being a young industry, there are few tools, procedures or standard data formats or service interfaces in place to guarantee data, computer application and service portability. As evidenced with the recent situation involving the services failure of Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, outages can be a potential risk—and can have widespread implications for consumers of cloud services. This risk becomes even more severe if a mission-critical environment could be impacted.

A benefit as well as a challenge, security concerns have also slowed the widespread adoption of cloud computing. A variety of security concerns exist. According to the article, “Three Cloud Computing Risks to Consider,” in Information Security Magazine (June 2009), “the logging and auditing controls provided by some [cloud] vendors are not yet as robust as the logging providing within enterprises and enterprise applications,” which can put critical and sensitive data and information at risk. Security, of course, becomes increasingly critical in defense and intelligence IT environments.

For the government market, the lack of regulations and compliance standards are also cause for concern. Currently, no federal regulations are in place to govern cloud computing, and according to an April 2011 Information Systems Audit and Control Association survey of 1,800 Chief Information Officers (CIOs), compliance is a top risk. Approximately 30 percent of the CIOs surveyed said that “compliance projects are the biggest driver for IT risk-related projects”—particularly in public clouds. Specific to federal environments, data sovereignty is a challenge. According to a speech given by Federal CIO Vivek Kundra at an April 7, 2010, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) forum," [Data sovereignty] is not going to be a question of technology. [Data sovereignty] is going to be a question of international law, and treaties that we will need to engage in the coming years.” CIO Kundra later added: “We've got a very diverse interpretation and a very diverse perspective when it comes to privacy or international security, if you look at our neighbors—Canada or Mexico—versus what's happening in the European Union.”

Cloud Computing and the Federal Government

The Obama administration has identified cloud computing as a means to achieve savings in IT budgets across federal agencies—across the board—and to address various other challenges (e.g., delays to capabilities and other inefficiencies) that have negatively impacted IT implementations. In his Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 budget, President Barack Obama ordered a three-year freeze in spending for non-defense, intelligence and national security programs and the trimming of the budgets of some federal agencies by five percent. At a July 1, 2010, House subcommittee hearing, CIO Kundra testified: “To do more than less [in terms for federal spending], we need game changing technologies. Cloud computing is one such technology.” The federal government is in the early stages of a decade-long process to “move to the cloud,” but has taken definitive steps in its adoption. Several key milestones have been achieved during the past two years in support of this effort:

2009: Establishment of the General Services Administration (GSA) Cloud Computing Program Office to coordinate the government’s cloud computing efforts; assembly of a public-private sector Industry Summit to discuss the benefits and risks of cloud computing; and creation of Security and Standards Working Groups to encourage collaboration and discussion on cloud computing by federal agencies
2010: Commencement of the development of federal security certification and accreditation processes for cloud services; convening of a NIST-hosted, public-private sector “Cloud Computing Forum and Workshop” to collaboratively develop cloud standards; release of 25-point federal IT reform plan; announcement by GSA and Federal Chief Information Officers Council on the requirements for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, a standard approach for the federal government to access and authorize secure cloud-computing services and products
2011: Release of the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy (per the Obama administration’s 25-point IT reform plan) and award of 12 GSA IaaS blanket purchase agreements

The Obama administration adopted a “cloud-first” policy as part of its earlier referenced 25-point federal IT reform plan. This plan was developed after extensive review of federal IT projects with a particularly hard eye on 26 large-scale projects at risk due to being over budget and behind schedule. This policy is part of the 2012 budget process. One of the first steps in the “cloud-first” adoption is the requirement for every federal agency to develop and implement one cloud-based solution by December 2011 and three cloud-based solutions by June 2012. As of April 2011, agencies are making progress in this endeavor. During a special White House event, CIO Kundra said that CIOs from 15 agencies have already informed the Office of Management and Budget that they will evolve to cloud-based email solutions by the December 2011 deadline.

Cloud computing also has been identified by the Obama administration as a viable solution to the administration’s challenge to cut the federal budget via the consolidation of 800 of the government’s 2,094 data centers by 2015. CIO Kundra has specifically identified cloud computing as a central measure to reduce the costs and increase the efficiencies of federal data centers. Cost savings are already being achieved. At an April 12, 2011 Senate subcommittee hearing, Dave McClure, Associate Administrator, GSA Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, testified that the consolidation of just 12 data centers to three will save $2 million a year. Mr. McClure also testified that GSA’s move to a cloud-based email system will save $15 million over the next five years.

So, whether or not federal agency CIOs support cloud computing, the evolution to the cloud in their specific IT environments is not something to consider in the future: it is something to undertake today—and is mandated. Therefore, the way the federal government conceives of IT operations must change from traditional practices and operating systems to new enterprise resource controls, standards and business processes and operations. With the computing stacks functioning as a utility within the infrastructure as a platform and new business processes in place, highly automated resources provide the extensible platform needed to meet agency or mission needs.

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Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies : Part 1-Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:25:00 +0000

(This post first appeared on "Cloud Musings on Forbes". This series provides the content of a whitepaper I recently authored. A copy of the complete whitepaper is available at NJVC.com starting September 7, 2011.)

Introduction

Cloud computing is a new approach in the provisioning and consumption of information technology (IT). While technology is a crucial component, the real value of cloud computing lies in its ability to enable new capabilities or in the execution of current capabilities in more efficient and effective ways.

Although the current hype around cloud computing has focused on expected cost savings, the true value is really found in the mission and business enhancements these techniques can provide. When properly deployed, the cloud computing model provides greatly enhanced mission and business capability without a commensurate increase in resource (time, people or money) expenditures.

Cloud Computing: Changing the Game

The use of commodity components, coupled with highly automated controls, enable cloud computing.¹These characteristics also enable the economic model that makes it so disruptive to the status quo. As an example, the software-as-a-service cloud delivery model typically does not require any advance usage commitment or long-term contractual arrangements. SaaS not only changes the typical software vendor business model, but also radically changes the strategy, budgeting, buying and management options for the buyer. When Salesforce.com proved the viability of SaaS, the software subscription model was instantly endangered as a profitable business model. Amazon Web Services is similarly attacking data center hosting with its Virtual Private Datacenter Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering.

Looking at this phenomenon from another angle, different cloud computing deployment models are actually changing what it means to be an IT professional. Since the days of the first computer, IT workers have prided themselves in their ability to design, build, operate and fix the enterprise hardware and software components that comprise the IT lifeblood of organizations—both in the public and private sectors. These tightly knit teams worked hard to keep these custom-made platforms updated, patched and ready to meet daily business and mission requirements. In the cloud computing world, IT infrastructure that is not delivering differentiating value is viewed as worthless cost. Critical business applications like email, Customer Resource Management (CRM), Human Resource Management and Enterprise Resource Planning are being routed to more capable cloud providers of these same services. This transition puts the enterprise IT professional into a service management role, responsible for helping his or her internal customers better use externally provided IT services. The new enterprise IT department is more a services organization than the traditional delivery organization.

The new cloud economic model also radically changes the view of what’s actually possible. Traditional IT procurement and provisioning processes have historically driven timelines associated with the delivery or fielding of improved information and data processing capabilities. Multiple threads of development, test, training and maintenance can also tax an organization’s short- and long-term financial resources. IaaS and Platform as a Service options can not only eliminate or limit capital expenditures, but can reduce or eliminate the expectation of operations and sustainment costs. The time required to realize mission or business value also is substantially reduced. With these differences, the impossible can suddenly become not only possible, but often can lead to new mission capabilities or brand-new cloud-enabled, revenue-generating businesses.

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FedPlatform.org Focuses on a Government PaaS

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:58:00 +0000

With GSA now issuing ATOs and Amazon launching it's own government specific cloud, IaaS for government agencies is now a reality. This next step in this "Cloud First" march is a consistent platform on which agencies can securely develop their applications.

To focus on this requirement, FedPlatform.org has been formed as a collaborative initiative to help federal organizations safely learn about and evaluate PaaS technologies. The initiative supports the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy and the Federal CIO’s 25-Point Federal IT Reform Plan, which suggests that cloud technologies provide new efficiencies and substantial cost savings. The FedPlatform.org mission is to facilitate implementations that adhere to rapidly evolving cloud computing standards, with a heavy focus on interoperability, portability and security.

FedPlatform also aims to provide a common security model for federal software systems that leverages the platform. In doing so, it provides major security advantages over disparate stovepipe security models.
Platforms as a Service incorporate a common role-based access control (RBAC) engine for managing users, workshops, roles, privileges, and memberships. It supports timeouts, strong passwords, password expirations, appropriate encryptions, and RSA tokens. SSL is also available. The hosting can be fully managed on Amazon’s EC2, a GSA IaaS platform or even on an agency's own infrastructure. They are also making available a collection of tools and resources to help advance organizations from prototyping through production environments on private, community, hybrid or public clouds.

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On The Frontlines: GovCloud and Cybersecurity

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:12:00 +0000

My friends at Trezza Media recently published a couple of great online documents on GovCloud and Cyber. Your should especially check out the "Cloud Chopping Made Easy" by David McClure .....

and Jim Flyzik's viewpoint on building trust in cyberspace.

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GovCloud Is Now For Real !!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 15:40:00 +0000

On Friday July 1, Infrastructure-as-a-Services for the US federal government became a reality with Authority to Operate (ATO) approval for the following vendors:

Web Hosting

CGI Federal
Computer Literacy World
Eyak Technology
Computer Technologies Consultant
Savvis Federal Systems

Virtual Machine

Autonomic Resources
Carahsoft Technology Corp
CGI Federal
Computer Literacy World
AT&T
Eyak Technology
General Dynamics information Technology
Verizon Federal
Computer Technologies Consultant
Savvis Federal

Storage

Apptis
Computer Literacy World
AT&T
Eyak Technology
Insight Public Sector, Inc
Computer Technologies Consultant

Finally, after a nearly two year process, which I announced on Cloud Musings on July 31, 2009, Vivek Kundra's vision of government cloud computing will now be put to the test!!

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

The Economic Impact of GovCloud

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 16:30:00 +0000

What a month! June has really been busy!! Just now getting around to doing a post about CloudExpo 2011 in New York.With over 5000 delegates in attendance, it was just a massive gathering of Clouderatti. Due to another engagement I had at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC on June 7th ( FCN/CDW-G Making Cloud Achievable), I had to leave CloudExpo after the first day.

With my sincere apologies for being tardy, here is my presentation from that event.

The Economic Impact of GovCloud on IT

View more presentations from Kevin Jackson

I would also like to highlight a most insightful presentation by Jill Singer, NRO CIO, entitled "Is Cloud Computing for Real". Her view of cloud computing from the inside of the United States Intelligence Community shows the clear value of cloud computing, giving credence to it's continued importance in government information technology.

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

US Army Cloud Computing Class at Ft. Gordon, GA

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 02:53:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I had the distinct pleassue of teaching yet another US Army cloud computing class. This time the venue was Ft. Gordon, GA and the students definitely got it!! Below are presentations from the excellent projects they completed. Thank you all for your focus and energy. HOAH!!

Coming Soon

View more presentations from Kevin Jackson.

Team Thunder Cloud

View more presentations from Kevin Jackson

The East West connection

View more presentations from Kevin Jackson

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78 Agency Services Identified for Cloud Transition

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Sun, 29 May 2011 22:45:00 +0000

The Office of Management and Budget recently released a list of 78 projects slated for transition to cloud over the next year. The most common application, according to a FierceGovernmentIT, is email, with 14 agencies deciding to choose a cloud version. A close second is website hosting, with 10 agencies. The move is expected to esult in over $5B in budget savings. Vivek Kundra discussed the transition last week during an appearance in front of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

GSA also recently released a request for proposal for SaaS email. The RFP appears to be looking to leverage the earlier GSA IaaS procurement winners.

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NGA Sets GEOINT Strategic Direction with Earth Builder

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin L. Jackson) — Sun, 15 May 2011 13:50:00 +0000

Last month Google and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency started sharing details about their "GEOINT on Demand" collaboration. The project, named Earth Builder, was built specifically to enable NGA to directly use Google’s cloud-based geospatial processing power. this capability will enhance the agency's ability to provide timely, relevant and accurate geospatial intelligence to the DoD, Intelligence Community and the entire National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG).

For those not familiar, the NSG is a unified community of geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) experts, producers and users organized around the goal of integrating technology, policies, capabilities and doctrine to produce GEOINT in a multi-intelligence environment. NGA is the Functional Manager for the NSG, providing strategic thinking, guidance and direction to the community concerning all aspects of GEOINT, from its acquisition to its utilization.

This move is clearly in-line with the vision outlilined last November by NGA Director Letitia A. Long in her speech at the GEOINT 2010 Conference in New Orleans. In that presentation, she outlined her new vision that involves taking advantage of key location-based applications and trends that deliver intuitive and powerful apps for solving a multiple of GEOINT challenges, as well as the importance of empowering users to easily take advantage of this new frontier of GEOINT.

Video of Director Long's entire speech is available online.

Read more on Google's collaboration with the NGA on the Google Enterprise Blog.

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Cloud Musings by Kevin L. Jackson

NJVC® and Virtual Global Announce Release of PaaS White Paper: Paper Clarifies the Confusion Surrounding PaaS for Federal IT Buyers—Why It Is Important and How It Can Cut Development Costs by 50 Percent

About NJVC

About Virtual Global

Contact

December 2011: GovCloud Moves From Policy to Law

CloudMASTER & CloudGURU Certification Comes To Washington, DC

GovCloud.com !! The New Hub for Government Cloud Computing

Backupify Names Top 10 Cloud Computing Experts to Follow on Twitter

NJVC® Cloud Computing Expert Kevin Jackson to Speak at NIST Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop IV on Nov. 3 in Gaithersburg, Md.

About NJVC

Contact

NJVC® General Manager, Cloud Services, Kevin Jackson to Moderate “Cloud Computing and the Intelligence Mission” Panel at GEOINT 2011 Symposium

NJVC® Spotlights Cyber Security and Automated IT at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo® 2011

About NJVC

About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo

Contact

NJVC® to Demonstrate Enterprise Automation at GEOINT 2011

Mr. Jeffrey Kaplan Talks About The Cloud Channel

The Economic Benefit of Cloud Computing

Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies: Part 4 - Cloud Computing for Defense and Intelligence

Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies : Part 3 - Cloud Transition Lessons Learned

Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies : Part 2 - Challenges of Cloud Computing

Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies : Part 1-Introduction

FedPlatform.org Focuses on a Government PaaS

On The Frontlines: GovCloud and Cybersecurity

GovCloud Is Now For Real !!

The Economic Impact of GovCloud

US Army Cloud Computing Class at Ft. Gordon, GA

78 Agency Services Identified for Cloud Transition

NGA Sets GEOINT Strategic Direction with Earth Builder