networking-info

Please join me at the 7th Annual FedFocus Conference , November 5, 2009, at the Ritz Carlton in McLean, VA. This conference has been designed to provide crucial information on upcoming federal government procurement plans. I will be the morning keynote , speaking on the use of cloud computing technologies to increase government efficiency and transparency. The rest of the day's speakers include: Vish Sankaran ,Program Director, Federal Health Architecture, Officer of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology,U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ( featured here on June 22nd ) Jim Borland ,Special Advisor for Health IT,Office of the Commissioner, Social Security Administration ( featured here on June 25th ) Capt. Michael Weiner ,Medical Corps, U.S. Navy, Acting Deputy Program Manager and Chief Medical Officer, Defense Health Information Management System Bruce McConnell ,Cybersecurity Counselor to Deputy Under Secretary Philip Reitinger, National Protection a

Augmented Reality (AR) has seen a sudden buzz in the last few weeks. The announcements just keep coming; Layar announced a 3D API and Wikitude announced AR API . VentureBeat recently ranked the emerging start-ups in augmented reality . AR is still a nascent domain with many quirks and twists but it is for real and it is going to cause disruptions in many dimensions. This is how I see it would affect the enterprise software: No interface will be the interface The augmented reality uses the most natural interface, the reality, and layers information on top of it essentially eliminating the need to have an artificial interface. Users will prefer in-context user experience at the locations where they perform their primary task compared to unnatural static experience on their current devices. I also see the impact and potential for innovation in the MVC frameworks. The AR opens up a lot more opportunities for the developers and designers, who were constrained by the traditional technologi

I'm proud to announce that representatives from Lockheed Martin, SAIC, and Unisys will join me in a Tactical Cloud Computing "Power Panel" at SYS-CON's 1st Annual Government IT Conference & Expo in Washington DC on October 6, 2009. As Technical Chair of this conference, my goal has been to provide useful and actionable information to the conference attendees. While the industry has engaged in a rigorous discussion around "enterprise" cloud computing, information on tactical or deployable cloud computing possibilities has been scarce. To address this, I've asked Dataline partners to join me and share their views on this issue. Tactical Cloud Computing refers to the use of cloud computing technology and techniques for the support of localized and short-lived information access and processing requirements. Use cases could include: “Cloudbursting” to support cyclic data processing requirements Establishing a cloud-based collaboration environment in ord

Yesterday, during the NCOIC Cloud Computing Workshop, collaboration seemed to be the focus as Katie Lewin, GSA Cloud Computing Initiative Program manager, and Dan Risacher, DoD Cloud Computing Storefront project lead, both offered to collaborate on cloud computing with the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC). As the interim chairman of the NCOIC Cloud Computing Working Group (CCWG), I welcomed the offer and promised that the NCOIC will do it's part and serve as their "industry panel" in this quickly evolving space. In line with the NCOIC mission, the CCWG was chartered to collaborate and engage with other cloud activities to look at standards-based solutions specifically for government mission areas. The overarching goal is to ensure peer-to-peer cloud interoperability, improve usability/trust of the cloud and establish portability across clouds. In support of the established NCOIC Integrated Project Teams (IPTs), the CCWG will work to establishment clo

Last week's Apps.gov announcement was the latest steps in the government's "at the quick step" march into cloud computing. FederalNewsRadio , a Washington metro area media fixture, highlighted the event with an interview with GSA CIO Casey Coleman and the Associate Administrator for the GSA Office of Citizen Services, Dave McClure. "This is just the beginning of a long, multi-year process for the federal government to realize the promise of cloud computing," said Coleman. "The Cloud will help to operate at a lower cost, to operate in a more sustainable, more green fashion and be able to implement solutions more quickly and get to mission values more rapidly which will help to serve the tax payers better." McClure also explained that agencies will now have the option of buying a service. "It comes at a metered price based on usage, demand and capacity that you are shooting for. If you need more, you can buy more but you don't have to buy mo

GigaOM has a post " How Start-ups can win big with VCs " that muddies their point of view of having a clear value proposition with not doing something because no one may want this or someone else has already done it. I added the following comments to that post: I agree with the viewpoint about honing the pitch. However I have a different take on some of the start-ups. It’s one thing not to know what the value proposition is but it is other thing to believe in a BHAG . Many start-ups had huge success when people initially thought that they could live without that. Twitter is one of those examples. Also, there is nothing wrong in duplicating what someone else is doing. Presence of similar companies signal that there is a market. It is now up to the new entrant to beat the competition by solving the problem well. When Google announced Gmail it was one of the last (as of now) web-based email that was introduced. Google would not have released Gmail or even the sear

On Wednesday, 9 September 2009 the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) Technical Council formally approved the creation of a Cloud Computing Working Group (CCWG). Organizationally this new working group will operate as part of the Specialized Frameworks Functional Team. The initial CCWG charter provides the following direction to the group: Collaboration & engagement with government Cloud activities, standard bodies, vendors and NCOIC member companies to look at standards-based Cloud Computing to achieve capabilities such as peer-to-peer interoperability, improved usability and trust of the cloud, and portability across clouds. Document current state of best practices, architectures and blue prints for commercially-available implementations, including examining security implications and how to implement an internal cloud. - “In-Field”, Edge, and Enterprise Clouds - dynamic integration of capability, resource, and accepted configurations to s

Yes. That's what I said! A recent EDL Consulting article cites the rising popularity of smartphones and other advanced mobile devices as the driving force behind a skyrocketing mobile cloud computing market. According to ABI Research, the current figure for mobile cloud computing subscribers worldwide in 2008 was 42.8 million, representing 1.1 percent of all mobile subscribers. The 2014 figure of 998 million will represent almost 19 percent of all mobile subscribers. They also predicted that business productivity applications will take the lead in mobile cloud computing applications, including collaborative document sharing, scheduling, and sales force automation. "The major platform-as-a-service providers - Force.com, Google and Amazon - are expected to start "aggressively" marketing their mobile capabilities starting in 2010. An earlier study from ABI Research reported that mobile cloud computing will generate annual revenues of more than $20 billion by 2014.&quo

The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium will be holding an all day Cloud Computing Workshop on September 21, 2009 in Fairfax, VA. Open to the public, this workshop will focus on Net-Centric Standards and Best Practices for Cloud Storefronts and Cloud Computing Support for Tactical Networks. Invited speakers include: Katie Lewin from the General Services Administration with insight into the US Federal Cloud Computing Initiative Dan Risacher (OSD-NII) on the US Department of Defense cloud computing activities Peter Tseronis, Department of Energy Deputy CIO and Chair, Federal CIO Cloud Computing Working Group Craig Lee on the Cloud Standards Coordination Group Peter Mell of the National Institute of Standards and Technology John Willis co-author of the Cloud Use Cases Group's, Cloud Computing Use Cases White Paper Rob Vietmeyer of the Defense Information Systems Agency The NCOIC is a unique collaboration of premier leaders in the aerospace, defense, information technology