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Microsoft exec talks cloud computing and government

Luke Fretwell — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:00:43 +0000

Microsoft Senior VP & General Counsel Brad Smith discusses the future of cloud computing in government on C-SPAN’s The Communicators. Smith addresses citizen privacy rights, cost-savings, service provider challenges, consumer awareness, data portability and other cloud computing related issues.

Why is the Grateful Dead like USSOUTHCOM when it comes to open government?

Rob Pinkerton — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:30:42 +0000

Despite contemporary wisdom that traditional journalism is in decline, the 150+ year-old publication known as The Atlantic hasn’t lost its edge for writing substantive and thoughtful news commentary. I love this month’s article, Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead, where Joshua Green argues that the Grateful Dead pioneered Internet business models before there was an Internet.

If you are interested in understanding how open and collaborative communities form across distances, look to the legions of Deadheads who connected, followed and enabled one of the most culturally and financially successful bands in history. The Grateful Dead gave their music away for free and it elevated demand, innovation and participation.

This same phenomenon is what the Obama Administration is striving for with open government – give the data away freely and allow innovation and participation to follow.

What I liked best about the Grateful Dead analogy and its application to open government is the concept of ‘strategic improvisation.’ The Dead thrived and survived for decades by constantly improvising on their strategy, which they could do because their openness enabled a unique flexibility. They were responsive to their fans and changing business conditions in the same way we hope government can be responsive to citizens and changing agency mission conditions. Strategic improvisation is a critical concept to embrace. The Grateful Dead contradicted industry practice and forfeited major revenue streams by allowing their loyal fan base to tape live performances, but it generated even greater success through community adoption.

So what does this have to do with the U.S. Military’s Southern Command? USSOUTHCOM certainly doesn’t come to mind when thinking about the Grateful Dead or open government … or disaster relief for that matter. But recently United States Southern Command contradicted strict interpretation of mission strategy when it decided to re-purpose its cloud based Defense Connect Online system as a local emergency response platform within hours after the Haiti earthquake. USSOUTHCOM’s collaborative and adaptive response harnessed critical resources and expertise to the region more quickly than anyone thought possible.

Aneesh Chopra described the inspirational response as “a function of commonwealth that is the foundation of open government.” He made these remarks during his keynote at the State of the Union for Technology event Tuesday, coincidentally hosted by the Atlantic (and not so coincidentally sponsored by Adobe). Aneesh did not use the term strategic improvisation or cite the Grateful Dead, but the significance of the behavior is the same. USSOUTHCOM is not trained for earthquake response, they provide force protection and logistics support in the southern region of the globe. But the community and technology they have developed to support their core mission made them well suited to adapt to the changing mission requirements of the region.

When government agencies begin to view their community as an improvisational amplifier of their mission strategy, great things can happen. I doubt USSOUTHCOM or Chopra would expect to find parity with the Grateful Dead, but if the traditionally conservative management consultants are finding value there, then why not? To borrow from the title of the Grateful Dead’s popular album, open government through strategic improvisation could become an American Beauty.

You can read more about Defense Connect Online here. I recorded a brief video of my thoughts on Chopra’s keynote at the Atlantic event here:

Gov 2.0 guide to cloud computing

Gretchen Curtis — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:30:06 +0000

Cloud computing is a computing model that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. It enables convenient, on-demand access to a shared pool of computing resources, which may include networks, servers, storage or software applications.

These resources can be rapidly self-provisioned online with no service provider interaction. The service is fully managed by the provider, freeing users from the finer details of system maintenance.

Services are sold on-demand and provisioned on a pay-per-use or metered-use basis, similar to a utility. Services are also elastic, meaning they will automatically scale to meet fluctuations in demand so a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time.

Cloud services typically fall into three broad categories:

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software services can include anything from Web-based email to specialized inventory control and database processing software. The user interacts with the software product through a front-end portal and because the service provider hosts both the application and the data, the end user is free to use the service from anywhere.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Platform as a Service provides a set of software and product development tools hosted on the service provider’s infrastructure. Developers can create custom software applications on the provider’s platform over the Internet. Service providers may use APIs, website portals or gateway software installed on the user’s computer to enable interoperability with other systems. (*note: There are currently no standards for interoperability or data portability in the cloud)

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Sometimes referred to as utility computing, Infrastructure as a Service provides virtual server instances with unique IP addresses and blocks of on-demand storage. Users can start, stop, access and configure their virtual servers and storage via the provider’s application program interface (API). Users pay for only as much capacity as is needed, and the cloud provides more capacity automatically as soon as it is required.

Advantages of cloud computing for the federal government

Cloud computing offers a cost-effective and service-oriented approach for sharing computing resources across the government. Being able to access a powerful pool of common infrastructure, applications, information, and solutions greatly improves communication and collaboration across government in addition to providing incredible cost savings. The overall objective is to create a more agile federal enterprise, where services can be provisioned and reused on demand to meet changing business needs.

How cloud computing enables government transparency

Cloud computing is an excellent tool for fast, easy, secure and economical data sharing. By using a hybrid cloud environment, a government agency can easily port data sets into a secure computing environment and that data can be safely accessed by outside parties via open data APIs or commercial cloud services such as Amazon EC2 or Goggle App Engine.

Government clouds underway

Federal cloud bodies

Cloud Computing Advisory Council
Cloud Computing Executive Steering Committee

Videos

The Benefits of Government Cloud Computing

Technology, Innovation and Government

Vivek Kundra introduces apps.gov

Aneesh Chopra, Federal CTO discusses Cloud Computing

Linda Cureton, NASA CIO discusses Cloud Computing

Popular private-sector clouds

Minds in the Cloud: Government gets its head right

Luke Fretwell — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:25:58 +0000

FedScoop has launched Minds in the Cloud, a new cloud computing video series featuring ‘technologists from the government, non-profit, and private sectors discussing their views on the importance of the cloud.’ Initial interviews include U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra and NASA CIO Linda Cureton. The series will run once a week for 25 weeks and is sponsored by Intel and Microsoft.

U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra:

NASA CIO Linda Cureton:

NASA Nebula sends government to the cloud

Alexis James — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:47:09 +0000

GovFreshTV talked with NASA Nebula CIO Chris C. Kemp about Nebula’s role in cloud computing.