Skip to content

Federal Cloud Computing Summit

AMARC, www.amarcedu.org, is hosting our next Federal Cloud Computing Summit, http://www.cloudfedsummit.com/, December 17 at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington DC.

We will have panels on Innovation Today, Cloud Acquisition Solutions, Security Harmonization, and one I will moderate about Cloud Computing futures. In addition, we will have a presentation from Mitre of their Cloud Collaboration Sessions being held the afternoon before. They are looking at four government challenges:

  • Interoperability & Portability
  • End-to-End Service Delivery
  • Federal-Wide Standards for Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
  • Cyber Security

Federal Cloud Computing Summit

Federal Countdown – October 5th

Every now and again, I get invited to appear on the Federal Countdown, hosted by Francis Rose, Friday afternoons from 3pm to 4pm on WFED radio.

The focus of the show is to have two guests select their three most important stories about the Federal Government. The third most important article is discussed by each guest individually. Then both comment on the two selected second-most and first-most (first-most or just most?) important stories of the week.

Yesterday John Salamone, who is a managing consultant at Federal Management Partners, were the guests. I thought I would provide a brief summary of the three articles I brought in this entry.

The audio for the session is posted on the WFED web-site at:

http://www.federalnewsradio.com/156/3067288/Federal-News-Countdown-Big-data-sequestration-solutions-and-cloud-savings.

Federal Countdown – October 5th

Why FedRAMP Is Worth Caring About

Reposted from AOL Government, http://gov.aol.com/2011/12/12/why-fedramp-is-worth-caring-about/.

If you have been at a recent Washington Capitals hockey game when the opponent scores a goal, you know the crowd routinely shouts out “Who cares!”

Last week, Steven VanRoekel, Federal CIO, released the long awaited OMB plan for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP; which reminds me to be thankful for pronounceable acronyms. The purpose of FedRAMP per the implementing OMB memorandum, is to “provide a cost-effective, risk-based approach for the adoption and use of cloud services”.

This blog entry is my attempt to answer the question “Who cares!”

Why FedRAMP Is Worth Caring About

Cloud Computing Thoughts – Part II

In my previous entry regarding Cloud Computing, I discussed briefly one of the major reasons why organizations are turning to the cloud, saving costs. I pointed out some of the issues involved in achievable that goal.

While I also consider the possibility of cost savings associated with Cloud Computing important, I believe other implications are more important in the long-term. I discuss a second one today, and will touch on two more in the next few blog entries.

When we start thinking about moving applications to the cloud it leads us to reconsider how we develop applications. This change in thinking has, as a foundation, the move to object oriented design, and has been encouraged by  a change in conceptual ownership. I talk about both of these in this post.Cloud Computing Thoughts – Part II

Cloud Computing Thoughts – Part I

The Cloud Computing freight train roars on, if not with a lot of motion, at least with a lot of noise and tumult.

I have been part of a number of panels over the last few months which focused on the subject of Cloud Computing, the current state of the’art’, and as usual what barriers exist that need to be dealt with to make it easier to utilize. There certainly has been much written about it both pro and con and it remains a high-priority focus for the current Administrator and, in particular, Vivek Kundra, the Federal CIO.

For one of the graduate classes I am teaching this semester at the University of Maryland University College, the subject is touched upon as part of a broad look at technology changes and implications. The topic generated much comment by my students.

It seems to me that the subject starts from the wrong side of the discussion, the technology side. When the discussion turns to the impact, it starts at an important but not the most important concern, that of return-on-investment (ROI).

Today and in a number of future blog entries, I will talk about what I think are the current important issues associated with cloud computing. Today I start with what I perceive as a foundational issue, cost, but later in the week will move to what I believe are more important considerations and goals.

Note: I do not plan to rehash what cloud computing is, or is not, there are too many other write-ups that do this. Look at the National Institutes of Standards work on such definitions, I think it is pretty good.Cloud Computing Thoughts – Part I

Cloud Computing Panel at the Cloud Computing Summit

  • by

There was a joke that circulated years ago that if you wanted to get additional budget for IT you just said it was for ‘The Internet’. No one was quite clear as to what they would do, but they knew they wanted to be on, or in, or connected to it.

In the Pentagon that joke morphed. Whenever someone wanted to get additional budget, the reason was to ‘Deal With China’. Well, in fact, maybe that is still true.

In technology today, the current budget justification phrase is ‘Cloud Computing’. Except in this case, exactly what Cloud Computing is or what it can do is even less clear than normal. On the other hand, that lack of clarity means there are lots and lots of meetings, seminars, and conferences that deal with trying to define Cloud Computing and provide advice on what to do about it.

In that context, I was on a panel Monday, May 3, that discussed Cloud Computing and the kinds of new skills that would be needed to support Cloud initiatives, http://events.1105govinfo.com/Events/Cloud-Computing-Summit-2010/Sessions/Monday/CC4.aspx.
Cloud Computing Panel at the Cloud Computing Summit

Practical Experiences in Using Cloud Computing

There is an exchange in Through the Looking Glass between Humpty Dumpty and Alice:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.”

And thus it is with Cloud Computing. The question on the table is whether we are to be the master of the Cloud Computing concept and what it means to us as practitioners and/or users or whether we will treat it as magic providing whatever value we have need of during that moment in time.Practical Experiences in Using Cloud Computing

ELC Infrastructure and Cloud Computing Track

For those who came in late, ACT-IAC, http://www.actgov.org/Pages/default.aspx, one of the larger organizations enabling Government and Industry IT to be able to informally interact and learn from each other, holds an Executive Leadership Conference, ELC, each year.

This year ELC is being held October 25-27 in Williamsburg, VA, http://www.actgov.org/events/ExecutiveLeadership/ELC%202009/Pages/default.aspx.

On Monday, October 26, most of the day is taken up by panels organized into four tracks. I had the privilege to chair along with Eric Won of GSA, one of the tracks focused on Infrastructure and Cloud Computing.

This post will provide an overview of what we intended to accomplish during the course of the track and thus why we made the decisions we made in creating the panels. My discussion at the beginning of the track will in large part echo what I write here, subject to any suggestions made by my vast reading audience.

ELC Infrastructure and Cloud Computing Track