Cloud Computing News

Written by Jeff Kaplan

When most people talk about cloud computing, they typically discuss the ways this new model is transforming businesses that are leveraging a growing assortment of online, “on-demand” Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) alternatives to achieve their corporate objectives. However, few are paying enough attention to how this same trend is also changing the way the public sector operates.

This impression was certainly reinforced in a recent survey by government research firm MeriTalk, which found three out of four federal IT executives don’t believe their agencies will achieve a data center consolidation plan outlined earlier this year by the US Office of Management and Budget — with 86 percent citing the culture of government IT as the chief obstacle to enacting the plan.

Contrary to this view, I’m meeting a growing number of innovative IT leaders in the public sector who are driving important advances in the cloud computing market as a whole that could also fuel the industry’s maturation process.

I had the privilege of presenting my perspective regarding the rapidly evolving cloud computing marketplace at Everything Channel’s XChange Public Sector conference last week. I was impressed with the level of interest and involvement many attendees reported during the session.

Rather than reject the logic of cloud computing, as the MeriTalk survey would suggest, many echoed the predisposition of the Obama administration’s CIO/CTO, Vivek Kundra, who was quoted in The Wall Street Journal on March 9, 2009, as saying:

“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 SaaS first.”

 A panel of public sector IT executives at last week’s event included the following participants, who are all taking varying approaches to leverage cloud alternatives:

Conrad Cross of the City of Orlando, Fla., put it this way when he talked about how he’s responding to a series of significant budget cuts due to today’s tough economic climate: “I want to get out of the server business and into the services business.”

As a consequence, Orlando is increasingly relying on cloud computing alternatives. It started by swapping out its legacy email system with Google Apps. The switch took only two months and is resulting in more than 60 percent savings, according to Cross.

Mike Conroy of NASA pointed out that his agency is also changing its attitude about cloud computing, despite its unique and complex requirements — primarily in the form of private, internal cloud deployments.

The City of Los Angeles has received lots of attentionfor moving to Google Apps. This $7.25 million deal, serving 34,000 employees is one of the biggest deployments of Google Apps anywhere. It replaces an aging Novell GroupWise email system and includes a privacy provision providing the city with unlimited damages if its nondisclosure agreement (NDA) is breached by Google(Nasdaq: GOOG).

It is also interesting to note that the city’s deployment was administered, and is now supported, by Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC)(NYSE: CSC), demonstrating that there is plenty of room for traditional outsourcers, systems integrators, value-added resellers, and other channel partners to get involved in this transition process. This was the theme of my talk at last week’s XChange Public Sector conference in Jacksonville.

Even the most security-minded segments of the public sector are moving to the cloud. For instance, the Department of Defense’s (DOD) US Air Force Personnel Center (AFPC) and Medical Education and Training Campus (METC) have turned to RightNow, a SaaS customer relationship management (CRM) vendor, to help them improve their customer support operations. RightNow’s Secure Government Cloud also supports the US Department of Health and Human Services Agency’s Healthcare Research and Quality program.

Last year, Vivek Kundra and the Obama administration launched a SaaS marketplace and resource center, called Apps.gov. The site not only includes a widening assortment of on-demand apps for government agencies, it also includes valuable reference material, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) working paper on cloud computing and a summary report from Kundra’s office highlighting various federal agency cloud initiatives.

These initiatives are helping to do the following:

• Demonstrate the viability of cloud computing in various operational environments
• Dispel many of the classic concerns regarding the security, reliability, and costs of cloud computing
• Prove that there is plenty of room for traditional channel organizations to participate in the delivery of cloud computing services
• Show how to contract for cloud computing services to mitigate potential risks
• Generate new devotees to cloud-based alternatives  

 About Virtual Global:

Virtual Global, a West Virginia corporation, is a provider of cloud-enabled enterprise IT solutions, including the TeamHost™ cloud platform for building SaaS applications without programming; TeamLeader™, a project management 2.0 software for tracking and reporting on virtual teams in real-time; and cloudipedia.com, a website that brings cloud computing information to the masses. Since 1995, Virtual Global’s platform technologies have served commercial and federal customers worldwide with enterprise-class IT needs.