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!
Starting December 2, 2009, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) will be putting on a two-day cyberspace conference. Titled "Cyberspace at the Cross Roads: The Intersection of Cyber, National and Economic Security", speakers, panelists and attendees will further the dialogue between government and the private sector on key policy and technology barriers currently limiting our ability to combat the threat effectively. This program focuses on furthering the understanding of the cyber security operating environment, helping to focus the community on current cyber policy and technology initiatives, and highlighting the long term vision for improving our cyber security posture.
On Thursday, December 3rd, from 10:30a-12:n EST, I'm honored to be participating in a panel that asks the question "How do we improve cyber security at the edge?". This session will address ideas and innovations for extending cyber security beyond the classic Defense in Depth paradigm. Presenters from industry, academia, and government will discuss innovative approaches to extend cyber security to the edge of the network. Among other things, I plan to address the concept of using cloud computing to implement "maneuver warfare" for cyber defense. (See "Cloud Computing: The Dawn of Maneuver Warfare in IT Security" and "Expanding Maneuver Warfare in IT").
Moderated by Dr. J. Greg Hanson, Executive Vice President for Defense Homeland Security, Criterion Systems, other members of the panel are:
Mr. Bob Carlson, Executive Vice President, Criterion Systems;
Last month as part of the Navy’s annual Trident Warrior exercise,Dataline, LLC successfully demonstrated that a standard shipboard communications infrastructure could be used to manage a commercial cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform. Presented during the fall Trident Warrior ’10 (TW ’10) lab period,Dataline’s Secure Cloud Computing experimentused a simulated shipboard infrastructure to demonstrate secure access to selected collaboration and geospatial information service (GIS) applications.The purpose was to validate the ability of a commercial Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform to support Department of the Navy (DON) requirements for global connectivity, server failover and application access. For this portion of the exercise, Dataline used the Amazon EC2 IaaS platform. The experiment also used SecureParser® as part of theUnisys Stealth architecture to provide “data-in-motion” security. Applications used included Oracle Beehive, ERDAS Apollo and the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) developed Transverse collaboration suite. LCDR Caroline Lahman, Officer-in-Charge Navy FORCEnet San Diego, was pleased with the results noting a desire to continue these cloud computing experiments as part of the spring lab period.
During a recent interview,Robert Carey, Navy Chief Information Officer, also stated that cloud computing offered real value to the Navy. Citing that both the Navy Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) and Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) programs will leverage cloud computing, he envisioned a future day when “Grey clouds” within a ship’s hull would eventually transition to clouds within the battle group. The increased IT efficiency delivered through cloud computing would also enhance mission accomplishment by making more resources available for investment into naval mission platforms (ships and planes). Mr. Carey sees ready access to authoritative data from the cloud as an important enabler to a real-time/near real-time decision making process, saying that the cloud delivers the ability to have a ubiquitous computing environment and interoperability. After observing the experiment, SPAWAR representatives showed similar sentiments, saying that the Navy was actively considering the use of cloud computing technologies as part of itsNaval Networks Enterprise-2016strategy
Trident Warrior ’10 is scheduled to continue with a second lab period in the spring 2010 and an at sea demonstration period after that.
For further information on the Trident Warrior lab based experiments, please contact LCDR Caroline Lahman (caroline.lahman@navy.mil ).
As part of a continuing Government Cloud computing education program, Dataline, LLC has released a Government Cloud Computing Value Survey. This online resource has been designed as an aid to help Federal agencies explore the value of cloud computing. Through a 15 minute interactive session, this survey will:
Provide a high level cloud computing tutorial;
Explain the Federal Cloud Computing Initiative;
Give an overview of Apps.gov cloud computing solutions; and
Present possible cloud computing business value statements.
Calculator results provide only a representative example of the economic business case for cloud computing. The results should not be used for actual budget planning. The model used is derived from summary results of a Booz Allen Hamilton life-cycle cost (LCC) estimate of public, private, and hybrid clouds. That analysis assumes a 3-year transition period from a status quo (SQ) described as a 1000-server, unvirtualized datacenter. For each scenario, investment costs are incurred from FY10 to FY12 and includes (depending on the scenario) hardware procurement and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software license fees; contractor labor required for installation, configuration, and testing; and technical and planning support (i.e., system engineering and program management costs) before and during the cloud migration.
Henry Sienkiewcz, DISA Computer Services Technical Director, credits the cloud computing "hyper-standardized" environment for the improvement they have been able to deliver through their cloud computing initiative. During remarks at this week's Federal Executive Forum taping, he specified faster service delivery, higher quality, lower cost and increased security as important cloud computing benefits.
Joining him on the program was:
Robert Carey - Navy Chief Information Officer; and
Mike Krieger- Army Deputy Chief Information Officer, Office of the Secretary of the Army
The panel discussed the progress of Cloud Computing in the Federal Government, best practices including the DISA RACE program, challenges still ahead, lessons learned, and the vision for the future. The complete show will be webcast on November 10, 2009 at 2:00 pm.
This week's Federal Executive Forum taping highlighted collaboration between DISA and the Army on the service's transition to cloud computing. Army Deputy Chief Information Officer Mike Krieger called it a partnership, important to the support of Department of Defense Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) activities.
Joining him on the program was:
Robert Carey - Navy Chief Information Officer; and
Henry Sienkiewcz- Technical Program Director, Computer Services, Defense Information Systems Agency
The panel discussed the progress of Cloud Computing in the Federal Government, best practices including the DISA RACE program, challenges still ahead, lessons learned, and the vision for the future. The complete show will be webcast on November 10, 2009 at 2:00 pm.
During this week's Federal Executive Forum taping, Navy CIO Robert Carey discussed his views on cloud computing. Stating that the NGEN and CANES (Navy Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services) programs will both leverage cloud computing, he also describes a future of "grey clouds" on each ship.
Joining him on the program was:
Mike Krieger- Army Deputy Chief Information Officer, Office of the Secretary of the Army
Henry Sienkiewcz- Technical Program Director, Computer Services, Defense Information Systems Agency
The panel discussed the progress of Cloud Computing in the Federal Government, best practices including the DISA RACE program, challenges still ahead, lessons learned, and the vision for the future.
The complete show will be webcast on November 10, 2009 at 2:00 pm.
During this week's Federal Executive Forum, key decision makers from DoD, DHS and FBI highlighted identity management interoperability as their key priority for 2010. Panelist included:
Robert Mocny, Acting Director, US-VISIT Program Department of Homeland Security;
Stephen Morris, Criminal Justice Information Services Division, FBI; and
Thomas Dee, Director, Defense Biometrics, Office of the Secretary of Defense
In fulfilling his responsibility for provide policy and programmatic oversight on DoD biometric programs, Mr. Dee indicated that his priority was to institutionalize proven identity management capabilities honed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Morris' top priority is to establish interoperability among DoD, FBI and DHS biometric databases even though information is already shared daily during millions of transactions.
Citing the 10-finger print match capability with the FBI as a major improvement, Mr. Mocny echoed the other panelist adding that the next priority is to get a hardwire between the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS), the DHS Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) and the DoD Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS).
Congratulations to Pierre-Jose Billotte for the successful launch of EuroCloud !!
Established as a pan European network, EuroCloud are communities that represent a knowledgeable network of companies engaged local and European activities related to SaaS and cloud computing. The network is organized in two tiers with a national level (France, Spain, England, Belgium, etc.) and a European level. The national level focuses on local topics while the European level addresses European topics,under the EuroCloud brand (or another if appropriate in a national setting). Only companies who have an interest in Cloud Computing and participate in the Cloud ecosystem can be members of the network. EuroCloud goals include:
Building relationships with the European authorities (Commission and Parliament) to help recognise the Cloud Computing industry as the future of IT in Europe and to promote a stimulating environment for development and growth of the industry;
Promote business relationships between members throughout Europe and internationally with counterparts such as SIIA; and
Promote technological relationships between members throughout Europe and internationally.
Companies listed below support the EuroCloud initiative, combining their expertise, experience and insight of the SaaS ecosystem to lead to better solutions for our customers.
