Category: Government
U.S. Feds: Ultimate Cloud Computing Cheerleader
Were there ever a near-ideal case study demonstrating the merits of cloud computing, the United States government would provide exhibit 1A. Since moving portions of the national data infrastructure to the cloud, federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra says the government has saved $3 billion in less than five months. This and other IT streamlining [...]
Cloud Enables Federal Government to Shut 100 Data Centers in 2011
The Obama administration unveiled plans to shut down more than 100 of its 2,094 data centers by December 2011. Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra told a Senate subcommittee today that this year the U.S. government could shut down 100 of the 800 data centers it intends to close by 2015. Mr. Kundra who is [...]
US Senate considers changes to Electronic Privacy Law
In 1986, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), with the admonition that “privacy protections must advance with technology, or privacy will gradually erode as technology advances.” The committee again met Wednesday to deliberate over updates to the aging law. Chairman of the committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), said that “while [...]
CA Acquires Base Technologies to Boost Government and Healthcare Business
CA Technologies April 6th announced it acquisition of Base Technologies, a government IT consulting firm. With this move, CA bolsters its virtualization and mainframe technology offerings as well as services to government agencies and healthcare providers. The move will also add consulting expertise in cloud computing and infrastructure engineering. Base has been a long-established supplier [...]
Ireland could create 8,600 jobs with cloud computing adoption
Thousands of IT jobs could be created in Ireland if the country takes advantage of the rise in cloud computing, according to a new report published by Microsoft. Around 8,600 new roles may be generated if Ireland acts now to be a part an industry that could be worth around 40 billion euros (£34.22 billion) [...]
IBM slated To Build Asia’s Largest Cloud Computing Data Center
International Business Machines’ ever-expanding cloud computing services will continue development in Asia. The company announced it is collaborating with Range Technology Development, out of China, to build a state of the art cloud computing data center in Langfang City in Hebei province. It will be the largest cloud computing center in Asia, says IBM. “This [...]
Cloud Computing: Is China a Friend or Foe?
The state visit to Washington DC by President Hu Jintao last week was the first by a Chinese leader since 1997, and closes a long loop that began almost 40 years ago–when President Richard Nixon visited Chairman Mao Tse-Tung-in a way that Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s 1997 meeting with President Bill Clinton did not. In [...]
Minnesota moves e-mail to Microsoft’s cloud
Minnesota said Tuesday that it is moving its messaging and collaboration services to Microsoft’s cloud computing platform in an effort to address multiple issues — including an aging workforce, increasing red ink and a desire for shared services. Approximately 33,000 state workers in Minnesota will be affected by the move, which could be one of [...]
Minnesota moves e-mail to Microsoft's cloud
Minnesota said Tuesday that it is moving its messaging and collaboration services to Microsoft’s cloud computing platform in an effort to address multiple issues — including an aging workforce, increasing red ink and a desire for shared services. Approximately 33,000 state workers in Minnesota will be affected by the move, which could be one of [...]
U.S. army takes cloud computing to Afghanistan
TAMPA — The U.S. military is taking cloud computing into rugged terrain in Afghanistan, where according to Lt. Gen. Richard Zahner, the basic hardware and software technology is being packed into mobile boxes that later this year will start to play a key role in networking for soldiers in the sky and on the ground. [...]
Asian Cloud Computing fueled by lack of legacy IT
Integrating Cloud Computing solutions with existing legacy enterprise systems is not a trivial challenge. The amount of legacy IT in the West presents an opportunity for China and other developing Asian countries to deploy Cloud Computing more aggressively, according to many discussions at a recent Cloud get-together in Shanghai that featured speakers and attendees from [...]
India’s cloud computing market worth $1 bn in five years
India’s cloud computing market worth $1 bn in five years NEW DELHI: The country’s nascent cloud computing market, a platform where software applications and related resources can be shared online, is expected to touch USD 1 billion in the next five years, says a survey. “India’s cloud computing market will be around USD 1 billion [...]
India's cloud computing market worth $1 bn in five years
India’s cloud computing market worth $1 bn in five years NEW DELHI: The country’s nascent cloud computing market, a platform where software applications and related resources can be shared online, is expected to touch USD 1 billion in the next five years, says a survey. “India’s cloud computing market will be around USD 1 billion [...]
Google cloud computing apps get certification for US government use
Google wants the federal government to use its e-mail. The company earned federal certification last week for its cloud-based e-mail, calendar and other collaboration applications after the General Services Administration determined they met moderate-level federal security requirements. It’s the first cloud-based suite to earn such accreditation and serves as an impetus for the Mountain View, [...]
Big Blue will work with governments and academia on “fundamentally new notion” of an interoperation hub.
IBM said it plans to collaborate with European researchers to develop a computing architecture that will allow businesses to more easily blend cloud services from multiple providers. The effort aims to overcome one of the largest obstacles to broad adoption of cloud computing—complex and expensive integration work. “Up until now, organizations have had to invest [...]
Big Blue will work with governments and academia on "fundamentally new notion" of an interoperation hub.
IBM said it plans to collaborate with European researchers to develop a computing architecture that will allow businesses to more easily blend cloud services from multiple providers. The effort aims to overcome one of the largest obstacles to broad adoption of cloud computing—complex and expensive integration work. “Up until now, organizations have had to invest [...]
Microsoft Cloud Computing Center opens in Taiwan
Microsoft opened a joint cloud computing center with Taiwan’s economics ministry on Thursday at the Computex electronics show, and announced a plan to work with two local companies on new designs for servers meant specifically for cloud computing, the growing trend towards decentralized, virtualized computing services. When the project was first announced last November, officials [...]
Cloud Computing in Moscow
I had the privilege of keynoting a data center conference in Moscow this week, speaking on the topic of what cloud computing means to the data center of the future. This is the largest data center conference in Russia, and attracts a mix of internal data center facilities executives as well as hosting providers. The [...]
Army Outlines Cloud Computing Strategy
The CIO of the Army has imposed a moratorium on server purchases across Army operations. The move is aimed at stopping the proliferation of single-purpose servers as the Army begins consolidating data centers and creating compute clouds in select data centers. A memo announcing the moratorium was issued last month by Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, [...]
Microsoft betting that India will lead the world in Cloud Computing
NEW DELHI: Microsoft Corp sees India as the global hub for cloud computing, the concept of renting computing power that has taken the technology world by storm and in the words of the NYT, what Silicon Valley cannot seem to get its head out of. “India will not only see a surge in cloud computing [...]
Google prepares the Government Cloud
Google has submitted final materials to get its cloud computing services certified for use by federal agencies, and is nearing release of its government-specific cloud, a top Google executive said Wednesday. While Google Enterprise president Dave Girouard admitted in an interview after his keynote at the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington, D.C., that the process [...]
Federal CIO Says Cloud Standards Needed For Government Adoption
The nation’s top technology chief called for standards around security, interoperability and data portability before the U.S. government can fully embrace cloud computing. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra, speaking Thursday at a Washington D.C. cloud computing workshop, said that for the cloud to truly take hold in the government the feds must develop standards to avoid [...]
Government IT advisor says privacy, security different for cloud
Interesting article about the government’s view on cloud computing… The government may have to make sacrifices in such treasured concepts as privacy and sovereignty, so that public sector organisations can take advantage of the “convenience” of the cloud, says a Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) project manager. Adam Stapleton is managing a project for DIA’s [...]
Air Force to establish cloud computing research center of excellence
U.S. Air Force researchers want to establish a research center of excellence in assured cloud computing, and they are looking to partner with a college or university to host and collaborate in assured cloud computing research. The Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate in Rome, N.Y., issued a broad agency announcement (BAA-10-10-RIKA) Friday, which seeks [...]
Recovery.gov Moved To Amazon Cloud
The federal government has moved Recovery.gov, the Web site people can use to track spending under last year’s $787 million economic stimulus package, to Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud infrastructure-as-a-service platform, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board announced Thursday. The move marks a milestone for the Obama administration’s cloud computing initiative. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra said [...]
Cloud Computing Expert Becomes Defense Information Systems Agency’s CIO
A Defense Information Systems Agency’s cloud computing expert, Henry Sienkiewicz, is the agency’s new chief information officer. Sienkiewicz had been serving as the technical program director for the DISA’s Computing Services Directorate and replaces Roberta Stempfley, who left the agency last month to become director of the National Cybersecurity Division at the Department of Homeland [...]
Cloud Computing Expert Becomes Defense Information Systems Agency's CIO
A Defense Information Systems Agency’s cloud computing expert, Henry Sienkiewicz, is the agency’s new chief information officer. Sienkiewicz had been serving as the technical program director for the DISA’s Computing Services Directorate and replaces Roberta Stempfley, who left the agency last month to become director of the National Cybersecurity Division at the Department of Homeland [...]
