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...