networking-info

Following through on a much anticipated action, GSA released their Cloud Computing Request For Quotation (RFQ) today. Cloud computing is a major part of President Obama's reform effort and this RFQ focuses on IaaS service offerings available within a public cloud deployment model. The implementation is a Low Impact System as defined in National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Publication 199. According to that publication, the potential impact is low if the loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability could be expected to have a limited adverse effect on organizational operations, organizational assets, or individuals. A limited adverse effect means that, for example, the loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability might: cause a degradation in mission capability to an extent and duration that the organization is able to perform its primary functions, but the effectiveness of the functions is noticeably redu...

Craig Newmark , best known for being the founder of the Craigslist website, is working hard to get the word out on Gov2.0. Last week in FedScoop , he really laid out how technology is improving our American democracy. "Overall, what we’re talking about is reinventing government from the bottom up, where web workers and ordinary citizens engage via the Net in large scale online grassroots democracy.... Our Founders created a flawed representative democracy, but with improvements it serves us well. However, we’re complementing that system via the Net with grassroots efforts which will create new checks and balances and accountability. " As stated in his article, Mr. Newmark hopes to help accelerate this progress by laying out national goals and enumerating specific actions for our elected and appointed leaders. I urge you to read his post and take his point of view to heart. "This is what the new democracy is about- building upon existing structures with serious engageme...

The large scale software companies often deal with the tension between incremental and revolutionary innovation. They know that if they only keep listening to their customers' requests the very same customers will put them out of the business. Clayton Christensen has captured this phenomenon in The Innovator's Dilemma . Over a period of time these companies have managed to execute the incremental innovation really well to deliver the same software release after release and occasionally introduce new products. However most of these companies struggle to incubate revolutionary innovation inside the company since it is fundamentally a different beast. The executives are often torn between funding the revolutionary initiatives to ride the next big wave and funding the incremental innovation that the current customers and the market expects. It is absolutely imperative for the executive management to differentiate between these two equally important but very different types of inno...

Maria Spinola , a Strategic IT Marketing and Innovation Adviser and editor at www.Cloudviews.org , has recently published An " Essential Guide to Possibilities and Risk of Cloud Computing ". Her very pragmatic approach has provided "a realistic perspective of the possibilities, benefits and risks of Cloud Computing; what to look for, what to avoid, and also some tips and best practices on implementation, architecture and vendor management strategies." So why should you bother if you've already decide not to use cloud computing? Maria actually has a very succinct answer to that question: Its' likely that without your knowledge, some of your departments are already using Cloud Computing, You will need to define a Cloud Governance Program and make it available to all your internal customers. A department may decide to go to a Cloud Computing service provider and start using their services immediately, instead of waiting months to have an on premise system insta...

Tim Quinn, Chief Infrastructure Officer, US Department of Interior, sees IP convergence as a key part of DoI's future IT infrastructure. During the Federal News Radio Executive Forum , he also cited the need to deliver voice, video and 2-way radio over internet protocols as important to the provisioning of collaborative services. According to Mr. Quinn, his job is to "reduce the burden of infrastructure" in order to allow more focus on information. He also believes the department should be a leader in green IT. The title of this week's Executive Forum, July 22nd at 2pm, is "Building Government's Future Infrastructure - Progress & Best Practices" . The program will discuss: Progress Report on the Networx Contract & Transition in the Federal Government Progress & Best Practices on Navy NMCI & DHS ONE-NET Critical Issues on Optimizing Government's Infrastructure Lessons Learned A Vision for The Future Participants include: Karl Krumbh...

During the Federal News Radio Executive Forum , Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Acting CIO, Margie Graves provides a unique insight on the department. In her remarks, she described the challenges that currently face DHS as "dramatically cultural". This candid statement, however,was accompanied by a seemingly contradictory emphasis on the importance of maintaining the independent component cultures. According to Graves, component cultures are essential to mission accomplishment and is what an employee "feels" when they come to work in the morning. The title of this week's Executive Forum, July 22nd at 2pm, is "Building Government's Future Infrastructure - Progress & Best Practices" . The program will discuss: Progress Report on the Networx Contract & Transition in the Federal Government Progress & Best Practices on Navy NMCI & DHS ONE-NET Critical Issues on Optimizing Government's Infrastructure Lessons Learned A Vision f...

Forrester recently published a report on the security of cloud computing that grossly exaggerates the security threats. To point out few specific instances: "Users who have compliance requirements need to understand whether, and how, utilizing the cloud services might impact your compliance goals. Data privacy and business continuity are two big items for compliance. A number of privacy laws and government regulations have specific stipulation on data handling and BC planning. For instance, EU and Japan privacy laws demand that private data—email is a form of private data recognized by the EU—must be stored and handled in a data center located in EU (or Japan) territories" This is a data center design 101. One of the biggest misconceptions the organizations have about the cloud computing is that they don't have control over where their information is being stored. During my discussion with the Ron Markezich, corporate vice president of Microsoft Online, at the launch of ...