Thursday, January 26, 2012

NJVC® and Virtual Global Announce Release of PaaS White Paper: Paper Clarifies the Confusion Surrounding PaaS for Federal IT Buyers—Why It Is Important and How It Can Cut Development Costs by 50 Percent

VIENNA, Va., Jan. 23, 2012 —NJVC®, one of the largest information technology solutions providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense, and Virtual Global, a premier provider of software and cloud computing platform solutions for a variety of industry and federal customers, announce the release of a joint white paper, “Platform as a Service (Paas): What Is It? Why Is It So Important?.” 
 
The paper clarifies the confusion surrounding PaaS for IT decision makers in the federal government. The National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) suggests PaaS as a component of the Federal Cloud Computing Reference Architecture, but one major challenge exists: Most buyers do not understand what PaaS is, why it is important and how it can help federal agencies cut development costs by more than 50 percent.

Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel said that platform as a service is the next major value set for federal cloud computing, and it also aligns closely with his Shared Services initiative to knock down stovepipe software and save money,” said Kevin Jackson, co-author and general manager, NJVC cloud services. “I hope that this whitepaper will help raise awareness of its importance in the federal marketplace.”
Many PaaS vendors require their customers to make long-term commitments to proprietary infrastructures. Some early adopters of PaaS unknowingly have already made casual, long-term commitments to infrastructure providers. “It's somewhat like buying gum at the counter, but needing to rent the store for 10 years,” said Cary Landis, co-author and Virtual Global senior platform architect and founder. “That is why NIST is stressing the importance of openness and portability. IT buyers must understand PaaS to make the right decisions early.”

PaaS makes it possible for software developers to participate in the cloud. Until recently, the cloud has been dominated by big email and infrastructure providers selling commodity services.  “PaaS changes the landscape—it opens the playing field to hundreds of thousands of software developers and integrators, giving them a way to actively participate,” according to Jackson. “Whereas the first wave of cloud computing was about consolidating data centers, the PaaS wave is about consolidating applications. It will be a more complex ride, but the savings will be greater,” Landis said.

Download the white paper at no cost at http://www.slideshare.net/kvjacksn/njvcvirtual-global-paas-white-paper. NJVC and Virtual Global are team members on the GovCloud™ initiative.


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About NJVC

With a focus on information technology automation, NJVC specializes in supporting highly secure, complex IT enterprises in mission-critical environments, particularly for the intelligence and defense communities. We offer a wide breadth of IT and strategic solutions to our customers, ranging from strategic consulting to managed flexible services in five business areas:  Cloud Services, Cyber Security, Data Center Services, IT Services and Print Solutions.  Our global workforce includes dedicated and talented employees with 94 percent holding security clearances located at more than 170 customer sites. We partner with our customers to support their missions. To learn more, visit www.njvc.com.


About Virtual Global

Virtual Global is a premier provider of software and cloud computing platform solutions for a variety of industry and federal clients. The SaaS Maker™ family of platform products is open and modular, so that you can integrate with existing open source, legacy and 3rd-party web services. It is also portable across data centers. http://www.virtualglobal.com


Contact

Michelle Snyder, NJVC, 703.893.7609, michelle.snyder@njvc.com
Audra Capas, 5StarPR, 703.437.9301, audra@5starpr.com


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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

December 2011: GovCloud Moves From Policy to Law

Over the past years, government cloud computing has steadily moved forward from it's early beginnings as an interesting curiosity:


Since Sunday's broadcast, I've been asked numerous times about my real answer to the question "Will 'Cloud Computing' Work In White House". Although I would never assume to be in a position to advise the President-elect, I'm more than happy, however, to add my voice to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the distinguished list of contributors that recently released the CSIS Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency.

I truly believe that cloud computing technology can be used to implement some of their recommendations. One in particular is their recommendation for a National Office for Cyberspace (NOC) and a new National Security Council Cybersecurity Directorate (NSCCD). Along with the relevant agencies, these organizations would:

"Assume expanded authorities, including revised Federal Information Security management Act (FISMA) authorities, oversight of the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative, responsibility for the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC) and acquisition reform, and the ability to require agencies to submit budget proposals relating to cyberspace to receive its approval prior to submission to OMB."


2009 was truly a watershed year for Federal information technology professionals. After inaugurating the first Cyber-President we saw the appointment of our first Federal CIO and the rapid adoption of cloud computing as the way forward for improved efficiencies at reduced cost. The theme continued throughout the year with the Federal Cloud Computing Initiative, the Open Government Directive and finally, as if to put an exclamation point on the rising importance of IT to national security the appointment of the nation's first Cybersecurity Coordinator.

Government cloud computing is a reality and as Peter Mell of NIST succinctly put it, "2010 will be the year of the cloud computing pilot." I look forward to continuing this exciting conversation with you all!



2011 will be the breakout year for GovCloud! Pressure to reduce budget, pressure to manage I resources better and the political pressure of the next presidential election will combine to accelerate adoption. The GSA IaaS groundwork has been laid and new policies are just about ready to be released !!


December 2011: And what did Santa bring this year!!



Each Executive department or agency shall:

i. Use FedRAMP when conducting risk assessments, security authorizations, and granting ATOs for all Executive department or agency use of cloud services;

ii. Use the FedRAMP PMO process and the JAB-approved FedRAMP security authorization requirements as a baseline when initiating, reviewing, granting and revoking security authorizations for cloud services;

iii. Ensure applicable contracts appropriately require CSPs to comply with FedRAMP
security authorization requirements;


"PERFORMANCE PLAN FOR REDUCTION OF RESOURCES
REQUIRED FOR DATA SERVERS AND CENTERS.— ...

(2) DEFENSE-WIDE PLAN.—

(A) IN GENERAL.—Not later than April 1, 2012, the Chief Information Officer of the Department shall submit to the congressional defense committees a performance plan for a reduction in the resources required for data centers and information systems technologies Department-wide. The plan shall be based upon and incorporate appropriate elements of the plans submitted under paragraph (1).

(B) ELEMENTS.—The performance plan required under this paragraph shall include the following:

(ii) A Department-wide strategy for each of the following: ....

(II) Transitioning to cloud computing.

(III) Migration of Defense data and government-provided services from Department-owned and operated data centers to cloud computing services generally available within the private sector that provide a better capability at a lower cost with the same or greater degree of security.

(IV) Utilization of private sector-managed security services for data centers and cloud computing services."


Yes, Virginia, there is a GovCloud!!

Happy Holidays to All !!!





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