networking-info

I spent half of today in downtown DC at the Navy Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) Industry Day.  In case you're not familiar with NGEN, this project will be the follow-on to the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) and represents the Navy's first step towards achieving a future vision of a fully integrated Naval Networking Environment (NNE). NMCI itself is the world's largest intranet 700,000 accounts. Among other things, not the least of which was a year-long program delay, RADM Bill Goodwin , NGEN Program manager, made it a point to highlight an interest in cloud computing.  While on the surface this may seem pretty benign, I see this statement as a strong indicator of how fast cloud computing has made itself part of the DoD's IT procurement lexicon. GO CLOUD !!

The designers have been designing tools, processes, and methods to support and not to change people's behavior. In contrast designing for sustainability would fundamentally require changing people's behavior. The behavior change to achieve the sustainability goals would mean offering different alternatives, encourage reduced consumption, make people conscious of their behavior, and leverage peer pressure and competition. The design that maintains status quo will not help to achieve sustainability goals. The design will have to be provocative and challenge user's assumptions in many ways. Design Thinking is about how you think and not what you know; it is about the journey and not the destination. For a problem of massive scale such as sustainability where we still know a little and the desired outcome may take years, following are some elements of design thinking that could help make world a better place to live for the generations to come. Ambidextrous-thinking: Sustainab...

This week I've had the pleasure of presenting at two fairly unique conferences. On Tuesday I was in San Diego at the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) Workshop. SISO is an international organization dedicated to the promotion of modeling and simulation (M&S) interoperability and reuse for the benefit of a broad range of M&S communities. SISO's Conference Committee organizes Simulation Interoperability Workshops (SIWs) in the US and Europe. SISO's Standards Activity Committee develops and supports simulation interoperability standards, both independently and in conjunction with other organizations. SISO is recognized as a Standards Development Organization (SDO) by NATO and as a Standards Sponsor by IEEE. On Wednesday I was in Los Angeles at the Ground System Architecture Workshop (GSAW). Hosted by the Aerospace Corporation , GSAW provides a forum for the world's spacecraft ground system experts to collaborate with other ground system use...

ServerVault , a long time provider of IT hosting services to the Federal government, has been discussing cloud computing quite a bit with their current (and future) customers.  The repetitive nature of the many varied conversations led John Curan , ServerVault EVP, COO and CTO, to put together a standard briefing on the subject. His " Federal Cloud Computing Roadmap " puts forth a possible answer to: "What set of actions by the cloud computing industry (and related parties) would allow Federal agencies to gain the benefits of cloud computing while maintaining compliance with Federal IT policy?" By referencing FISMA, OMB guidance and FIPS Publication 199, he clearly lays out the Federal CIO's dilemma when it comes to cloud computing.  It a good read and is probably very similar to the process that NIST is currently going through as they draft their Cloud Computing Security Publication. NIST's Perspectives on Cloud Computing and Standards should make your rea...

Now that cloud computing is seen as a viable technology for the government marketplace, management consulting leader Booz Allen Hamilton is now providing cloud transition guidance. In his article " Cloud Computing: A Transition Methodology ", BAH Principal Rod Fontecilla offers a two phased approach for those interested in exploring this option. Cloud Strategy and Planning phase (Phase 1) 1. Conduct a Strategic Diagnostic 2. Define a Cloud Strategy 3. Create an Implementation Plan Cloud Deployment phase (Phase 2) 1. Assess/Select the Cloud Provider(s) 2. Establish Service Level Agreements (SLAs) 3. Execute Transition 4. O&M and Help Desk BAH seems to have really embraced cloud computing as a viable strategy for their government customers. To me this seems to be yet another milepost on the road to widespread acceptance of cloud computing by the Federal government. If a trusted Federal advisor like BAH can see clear answers to all the "cloud computing risks" (i.e...

Today was strange. First Sun announces it's open cloud computing platform. Sun Unveils Open Cloud Computing Platform "Sun on Wednesday announced plans to offer its own Open Cloud Platform, starting with server and storage services aimed at developers who need an extended platform to produce a new application. Sun expects to have cloud servers and storage available to customers by "this summer," where customers will run applications under Windows, Solaris or Linux in Sun VirtualBox virtual machines. Open Cloud Platform will compete with Amazon(NSDQ: AMZN ).com's Elastic Compute Cloud and S3 storage services." Then ... IBM in Talks to Buy Sun in Bid to Add to Web Heft "International Business Machines Corp. is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems Inc., people familiar with the matter said, a combination that would bolster IBM's heft on the Internet, in software and in finance and telecommunications markets. The two companies have a common interest in th...

"We were the biggest and the best. And when you're the biggest and the best, there's a strong tendency to try to preserve that.....EBay has a storied past. But frankly, it's a past we've held onto too much." This is what the CEO of eBay, John Donahoe , told the analysts while explaining eBay's three-year revival plan to achieve low single digit growth. The outlined plan calls for continued investment into Skype, PayPal, and secondary-channels with an end goal to move eBay beyond an auction place to make it a one-stop e-commerce shop. Lack of explicit diversification plans to capture the fast growing e-commerce market (15% to 20% in the next five years) makes me wonder if eBay correctly assesses its core and context at this juncture and has the right infrastructure to support its strategy. eBay's application-led multi-generation platform strategy has supported its core business strategy really well but eBay is significantly under-invested in the cloud...

Last week, Mosso announced their new "Cloud Server" and "Cloud Sites" offerings. They also exited "Cloud Files" from beta, positioning themselves as a challenger to Amazon. With this as a background, I welcomed their invitation to speak with General Manager Emil Sayegh . Early in the conversation, I asked Emil to explain Mosso's advantage over Amazon's offerings. "The major advantage of Cloud Server over EC2 is that our server instances are persistent, not ephemeral." Mosso is generally well known as the cloud hosting division of Rackspace . Recently however, the division has embraced the Rackspace name in thier branding. According to Emil, this was done in order to signal that Mosso will be more aggressively leveraging dedicated hosting offerings with their cloud services. This dual approach was apparently key to the company's ability to offer a PCI compliant cloud service. PCI compliance is required in order to prcess redit cards....

The organizers of the Under The Radar Conference has listed me as "best bloggers and journalists who’ve distilled this foggy space down to a well-defined, understandable sector" in the category of the top cloud, virtualization, and SaaS blogs . Some of the other names include Nick Carr, Geva Perry, and MR Rangaswami. I have also been invited to the conference. I am looking forward to the event and the energy that all the early stage start-ups bring in!

Sorry if I missed you at FOSE this week. If you weren't there you missed a great show. The Cloud Pavillion was a hit! CloudCamp Federal @ FOSE had over 200 attendees !! If more proof on the viability of cloud computing in the Federal marketplace was needed, this was it.

Today at FOSE I tried my hand at balancing traditional IT, hybrid cloud offerings and commercial cloud offerings on a craps table. Just to set the scene, the Booz Allen Hamilton Cloud Computing Wargame pits multiple teams against each other in an effort to accumulate the most "mission value points". Each team, of about 5-7 people each, represents a government agency. During each round, the team builds a consensus on which IT capabilities should be built by using tokens that represent budget and staff investments. In each round, agency tasks are addressed by building multiple IT capabilities and throwing dice to determine how various events, good and bad, affect operations. Accomplishing task leads to the receipt of mission value points and additional budget. During FOSE, about 6 wargame sessions were held, with 30-50 people in each session divided into 4-6 agencies. In my session, I was teamed with representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Geospat...

Mr. Kundra's quote from the Wall Street Journal says it all: “I’m a big believer in disruptive technology. If I went to the coffee shop, I would have more computing power than the police department. Consumers had better technology than the government did. I’m all about the cloud computing notion. I look at my lifestyle, and I want access to information wherever I am. I am killing projects that don’t investigate software as a service first.” For some more insight, please read the excellent and timely interview by Bob Gourley

McKinsey has partnered with the World Economic Forum to create an “Innovation Heat Map" to identify innovation clusters based on the analysis of the variables that drive innovation. The clusters are plotted on a classic McKinsey 2x2 that measures the size of a cluster on momentum versus diversity. I would encourage you to read the detailed analysis and look at the innovation heat map . The clusters are classified as: Dynamic oceans: Large and vibrant innovation ecosystems with continuous creation and destruction of new businesses. Leading innovators and primary sectors change organically as the hub frequently reinvents itself through significant breakthrough innovations. Silent lakes: Slow-growing innovation ecosystems backed by a narrow range of very large established companies that operate in a handful of sectors. These clusters are frequently the source of a steady stream of “evolutionary” innovations and step-wise improvements. Shrinking pools: Innovation hubs that ar...

On April 28, 2009, Mitre will be holding its biannual SOA for E-Government Conference . This conference is one of the region's premier opportunity for federal managers and MITRE Subject Matter Experts to network with fellow technology and business leaders. This edition will focus on the development of practical approaches to initiating and utilizing SOA across the government. The agenda includes: Mr. John Shea, DoD Office of the CIO, IP&I - Title: SOA – Where is the Federal Government Now? Dave Mayo, IAC EA-SIG and Everware-CBDI - Title: Government Transformation: Service Oriented Government Ajay Budhraja, Deputy CIO, U.S. Department of Labor - Title: Enterprise SOA Strategy, Planning and Operations with Agile Techniques, Virtualization and Cloud Computing Teri Li Hoffman-Boswell (MITRE) and Dr. Glen White (DoD) Chief Engineer, Net-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES), DISA - Title: Delivering Core Enterprise Services to the DoD and IC Communities H. Kong and I. Chang (MITRE) -...

As I alluded to in an earlier post, a major cloud computing interoperability event will be held in conjunction with the Object Management Group (OMG) March Technical Meeting on March 23, 2009, Hyatt Regency Crystal City, Arlington, VA, USA. An all day workshop entitled "Strategies And Technologies for Cloud Computing Interoperability (SATCCI)" to be held in order to provide leaders in the Federal computing community with an overview of Cloud Interoperability/Portability issues and possible solutions. The Workshop will increase the attendees understanding of this area, will encourage ongoing participation from attendee organizations, and gather feedback on future requirements for open Cloud Computing deployments. This feedback can help guide future Cloud Computing standardization organization deliverables. Many groups working on cloud interoperability and portability have been invited to attend, including: Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum , Open Cloud Consortium , Open G...

Today marks the launch of a new electronic magazine dedicated to addressing cloud computing within the government space. Over the last year during my personal exploration of this marketspace, I've noticed a great need for focused dialog. As editor of Government Cloud Computing , my goal is to provide a platform for focused education and informed dialog. Our slogan, "Cloud Computing for Government Efficiency and Transparency", also represents our mission. Please help us in the execution of our mission by providing your comments, articles and suggestions. Please visit us at govcloud.ulitzer.com and join the conversation.

Last week, I had the pleasure of participating in the NCOIC Cloud Computing Working Group. Led by Cisco Systems Distinguished Engineer, Mr. Krishna Sankar of Cisco Systems, the meeting purpose was to decide if the NCOIC would officially organize a focus on cloud computing. As Terry Morgan , the current NCOIC Chairman would put it, a decision to organize would formalize an effort to define cloud computing's place in the netcentric ecosystem. I'm happy to report a decision to move forward with an Adhoc Working Group. The group would focus on the technical, operational and business requirements of a "federal-grade" cloud infrastructure. The initial draft charter outlines the following goals: Develop collateral on the current "state of the union" of the cloud computing domain, Document best practices, architectures and blueprints Explore the effect of the cloud computing paradigm to NCOIC deliverables (i.e. NIF, NCAT, et al) Work on pragmatic cloud projects th...