At first blush, it sounds like a mystic’s riddle, somewhere in the vicinity of the sound of one hand clapping. But in reality, it’s a setup that makes perfect sense: Rackspace runs its OpenStack cloud in another OpenStack cloud.
“We’re running our cloud inside of a cloud,” John Engates, chief technology officer at Rackspace, recently told Wired.com. “All of the control nodes that are necessary to serve the customers on our cloud are running in another OpenStack cloud.”
The arrangement is only natural. “It’s a better way of doing things,” Engates said. “We’re merely eating our own dog food. The application we’re offering to customers is running on that same application.”
OpenStack is a way of pooling resources from a vast collection of machines, including processing power and storage space. Rather than running your software application on a particular server, you run it on OpenStack, a platform that spans hundreds of servers, and this platform can grab you as much processing power as you need, whenever you need it. This makes it easier to launch applications, but it also makes it easier to expand or “scale” them – to reach more users with more servers. And when a server fails, the platform is smart enough to move the machine’s work to a new one.
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When the Cloud Is Run on a Cloud
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HP’s Moonshot Could Lower Cloud Computing Costs
Hewlett-Packard doesn't shy away from taking a few cheap shots every now and again, and its latest line of servers, called Moonshot, proves it.
HP has introduced a new line of servers that could be considered a major game changer in terms of power consumption and the cloud.
HP's new servers consume 89 percent less power and cost 77 percent less to purchase than comparable HP servers. The new line of servers, called Moonshoot, could help CIOs uncover greater savings from cloud computing, according to an article on PCMag.com.
“Finding more cost-efficient servers is key and vital to how we serve up our applications.” said Brent Juelich, vice president of application services for cloud computing provider Savvis.
He has run Hadoop and other analytics software on the new Moonshot servers and said they perform well compared to traditional HP servers. He said he expects Moonshot could help Savvis pass along savings from power, heating and cooling costs to customers.
The HP Moonshot 1500 box delivers a "compelling new infrastructure economics by using up to 89 percent less energy, 80 percent less space, and costing 77 percent less, compared to traditional servers," according to the company.
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Lisbon Bound: NATO Network Enabled Capability Conference 2013
This week I will have the honor of attending the 2013 NNEC Conference at the Corinthia Hotel in Lisbon, Portugal. The NNEC conference is an annual event which has been sponsored by HQ Supreme Allied Command Transformation (HQ SACT) since 2004. The conference is a major driver to promote NNEC within NATO, the nations, industry and other stakeholders in the civilian and military environment. This annual conference draws international attention as seen during the 2012 event held in Vienna, Austria with registration from more than 35 countries and 415 attendees. During this year's event Major General Eric Vollmecke from the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) will be presenting information on its Geospatial Community Cloud (GCC) Demonstration.
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IBM Debate Series - What’s Next in IT?
Next week I will be participating in the inaugural session of What’s Next in IT Debate Series, a new program of authentic debates and conversations on key technology topics. Sponsored by IBM, The Debate Series is an ongoing series of social video debates, held on Spreecast.com (a browser based social video site much like Google hangouts). The first What’s Next in IT debate will be a stimulating discussion on just when and why infrastructure really matters when it comes to building and managing clouds.
Frank Degilio - Enterprise architect with an understanding of end to end infrastructure. Provides architectures for businesses worldwide that can tie mainframes, distributed systems and specialty appliances in a cohesive end to end solution. Can apply latest technologies to current business problems to increase IT efficiency.·
Frank Scavo - President of Computer Economics. With over 30 years of experience, he has led or participated in business strategy, IT strategy, and business improvement projects for organizations in a broad range of industries, including medical devices, pharmaceuticals, foods, consumer products, wholesale and retail distribution, high tech electronics, and information services.
To attend, just go to http://ibm.co/17sZlL8 to register, then click the link in the email you will receive on April 29
to attend at 1pm EDT on April 30.
Join
us April 30 at 1pm EDT, 10am PDT.
Register now at ibm.co/17sZlL8
( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2012)
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Global Interoperability Consortium's Cloud Computing Project
Managing and disseminating the rapidly increasing amount of geospatial data will be a huge challenge for governments and civilians responding to the world's next big disaster, Eric Vollmecke of the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) told 350 global leaders at the NATO Network Enabled Capability conference held in Lisbon, Portugal, April 23-25.
"From an operational perspective, there is an insatiable appetite for overhead imagery to build situational awareness. Currently, platforms keep growing to collect and disseminate the necessary information. This information is not timely in its response, it's unwieldy in its deployment and it lacks the flexibility to enable cross-domain interoperability," said Vollmecke. "Unless we get our arms around all of this, the amount of data will be overwhelming and we will miss precious days trying to get the right information to the right international stakeholders so they can do their work and not sit waiting on the sidelines."
"From an operational perspective, there is an insatiable appetite for overhead imagery to build situational awareness. Currently, platforms keep growing to collect and disseminate the necessary information. This information is not timely in its response, it's unwieldy in its deployment and it lacks the flexibility to enable cross-domain interoperability," said Vollmecke. "Unless we get our arms around all of this, the amount of data will be overwhelming and we will miss precious days trying to get the right information to the right international stakeholders so they can do their work and not sit waiting on the sidelines."
Vollmecke said the use of a cloud computing environment will improve the ability to quickly share critical information between nations and non-governmental organizations. He described the Cloud Concept and Demonstration project that NCOIC is working on for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
The NGA project is a collaborative effort by NCOIC and its member-companies to show the interoperability and movement of data in an open cloud-based infrastructure. NGA is providing unclassified data that supports a scenario depicting the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The project builds on a series of successful lab interoperability demonstrations based on Haiti that NCOIC conducted in 2010.
"In Haiti, we collected a huge amount of data compared to the Tasmanian tsunami of 2004. Tomorrow the amount of data could be 100 fold and one organization alone will not be able to manage the inputs," said Vollmecke, who is also a major general in the U.S. Air National Guard and, while on active duty, commanded two airlift wings during the 2010 Haitian crisis. "With the NGA community cloud project, NCOIC is testing a collaborative, real-time environment that has both suppliers and consumers of data at different security levels."
Information technology solutions provider NJVC is serving as team leader of the NGA project and participants include Boeing, The Aerospace Corporation and Open Geospatial Consortium. "NCOIC has assembled a team you would not normally see on a government-led project," Vollmecke told the NATO audience. "Using a consortium is the most rapid and effective way to facilitate the advancement and deployment of technology. The parties can set aside their traditional roles and aren't subject to the contractual and legal walls that typically are put up between government and contractors. The exchange of information and ideas is more free-flowing."
Vollmecke, who is NCOIC program director, reported that Cycle One of the NGA project is complete and the cloud infrastructure has been defined and built, with the team establishing standards and processes, utilizing best practices, and addressing potential problems such as ownership, bandwidth, latency, availability, access and security.
In Cycle Two, set to begin in May, NCOIC member-companies will test out the infrastructure. They will function as "actors" -- information consumers and providers like police, firefighters, rescue workers, medical personnel, etc. -- who plug into the clouds and use the geospatial data to activate unique, sometimes proprietary, applications that demonstrate end-user capabilities.
"The key is to have a core or resident capability in the cloud that can be rapidly expanded on demand, when there is an event or disaster," said Vollmecke. "This will free up intelligence analysts to work their problems, while putting geospatial information into the hands of other users. Cloud technology can improve everyone's capability and effectiveness, while reducing cost, time and risk."
About NCOIC
The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium's core capability is enabling cross-domain interoperability among and between such areas as aerospace, civil and military operations, air traffic management, health care and more. NCOIC is a global not-for-profit organization with more than 60 members representing 12 countries. It has an eight-year history of developing net-centric skills and tools that help its members and customers to operate effectively across diverse global market sectors and domains. For more information, visit www.ncoic.org
SOURCE Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium
/Web site: www.ncoic.org
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Eric Vollmecke of the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium reports
the proliferation of geospatial information will pose problems for disaster
responders and describes a project designed to move critical data more
efficiently using an open cloud-based infrastructure
WASHINGTON, April 30, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Managing and disseminating the rapidly increasing amount of geospatial data will be a huge challenge for governments and civilians responding to the world's next big disaster, Eric Vollmecke of the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) told 350 global leaders at the NATO Network Enabled Capability conference held in Lisbon, Portugal, April 23-25.
"From an operational perspective, there is an insatiable appetite for overhead imagery to build situational awareness. Currently, platforms keep growing to collect and disseminate the necessary information. This information is not timely in its response, it's unwieldy in its deployment and it lacks the flexibility to enable cross-domain interoperability," said Vollmecke. "Unless we get our arms around all of this, the amount of data will be overwhelming and we will miss precious days trying to get the right information to the right international stakeholders so they can do their work and not sit waiting on the sidelines."
Vollmecke said the use of a cloud computing environment will improve the ability to quickly share critical information between nations and non-governmental organizations. He described the Cloud Concept and Demonstration project that NCOIC is working on for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
The NGA project is a collaborative effort by NCOIC and its member-companies to show the interoperability and movement of data in an open cloud-based infrastructure. NGA is providing unclassified data that supports a scenario depicting the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The project builds on a series of successful lab interoperability demonstrations based on Haiti that NCOIC conducted in 2010.
"In Haiti, we collected a huge amount of data compared to the Tasmanian tsunami of 2004. Tomorrow the amount of data could be 100 fold and one organization alone will not be able to manage the inputs," said Vollmecke, who is also a major general in the U.S. Air National Guard and, while on active duty, commanded two airlift wings during the 2010 Haitian crisis. "With the NGA community cloud project, NCOIC is testing a collaborative, real-time environment that has both suppliers and consumers of data at different security levels."
Information technology solutions provider NJVC is serving as team leader of the NGA project and participants include Boeing, The Aerospace Corporation and Open Geospatial Consortium. "NCOIC has assembled a team you would not normally see on a government-led project," Vollmecke told the NATO audience. "Using a consortium is the most rapid and effective way to facilitate the advancement and deployment of technology. The parties can set aside their traditional roles and aren't subject to the contractual and legal walls that typically are put up between government and contractors. The exchange of information and ideas is more free-flowing."
Vollmecke, who is NCOIC program director, reported that Cycle One of the NGA project is complete and the cloud infrastructure has been defined and built, with the team establishing standards and processes, utilizing best practices, and addressing potential problems such as ownership, bandwidth, latency, availability, access and security.
In Cycle Two, set to begin in May, NCOIC member-companies will test out the infrastructure. They will function as "actors" -- information consumers and providers like police, firefighters, rescue workers, medical personnel, etc. -- who plug into the clouds and use the geospatial data to activate unique, sometimes proprietary, applications that demonstrate end-user capabilities.
"The key is to have a core or resident capability in the cloud that can be rapidly expanded on demand, when there is an event or disaster," said Vollmecke. "This will free up intelligence analysts to work their problems, while putting geospatial information into the hands of other users. Cloud technology can improve everyone's capability and effectiveness, while reducing cost, time and risk."
About NCOIC
The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium's core capability is enabling cross-domain interoperability among and between such areas as aerospace, civil and military operations, air traffic management, health care and more. NCOIC is a global not-for-profit organization with more than 60 members representing 12 countries. It has an eight-year history of developing net-centric skills and tools that help its members and customers to operate effectively across diverse global market sectors and domains. For more information, visit www.ncoic.org
SOURCE Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium
/Web site: www.ncoic.org
( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2012)
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Why Cloud Computing Is Booming
That boom you hear? That's the cloud.
Cloud computing is experiencing serious growth – even the Department of Defense is joining the party. However, some people are a little concerned about giving up hard copies and going completely virtual. Getting on this bandwagon is a great idea that can save money and time (assuming the cloud server chosen has a solid reputation). Here are some reasons, posted on an article on HuffingtonPost.com, cloud computing is gaining in popularity.
It Saves Money (and the Environment)
Keeping paper copies, updating them, making more copies to distribute, shredding them, ordering more paper and ink – it's a vicious cycle. Many companies waste serious cash on this process, not to mention the leg work of employees whose sole responsibility is to keep up with the filing. Switching to cloud computing can save a lot of money and trees, which is why many companies are going green and upping the bottom line at the same time.
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Fusion-io Co-Founders Quit; Ex-HP M&A Guy Now CEO
Fusion-io’s two co-founders, CEO David Flynn and chief marketing officer Rick White, up and quit Wednesday sending the company’s stock into a nosedive, down better than 26% to $13.29 at noon, a record low.
They are off to turn early-stage investors.
Fusion board member, Shane Robinson, 59, the former chief strategy and technology officer of Hewlett-Packard, blamed, among others, for its disastrous acquisition of UK search company Autonomy, has been named CEO, president and chairman, effective immediately.
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Cloudant Gets First Real Money
Boston-based Cloudant and its NoSQL distributed Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS), which have gone to the VC trough four times since the company was started in 2008, have gotten what appears to be their first real money to grow on: a $12 million B round led by Devonshire Investors, the private equity arm of Fidelity Investments, which was joined by Rackspace, Samsung Ventures and Toba Capital, former Quest Software CEO Vinny Smith’s new venture fund.
The start-up, which says it’s targeting profitability in the first half of next year, recently got a secret amount of money from the CIA’s venture arm In-Q-Tel and Samsung and brought in a reported $4 million before that.
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Five Years of Cloud Musings!!
Hello World ! - April 18, 2008
I've been toying with the idea of doing a blog for about six months now. Initially I didn't see how any of my contributions to the blogosphere would matter to the world. The importance of this view, however, waned as I became more and more absorbed by the power of Web 2.0. As my participation in these technologies (Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, wikis, etc.) increased, I began to understand the uniqueness of my personal interactions. This made the idea of doing a blog important on a personal level. As my on-line network grew, I then realized that a blog is not really for the rest world. It is really a most effective means for conversing with you own personal, on-line network. So today, I start my blog and in so doing, I start my public conversation in earnest."
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Cloud Computing for the Health of It
Cloud computing must have been brushing up on its bedside manner.
HIPAA requirements now stipulate everyone in the health-care industry must begin migrating patient records and other data to cloud computing. By 2015, all medical professionals with access to patient records must utilize electronic medical and health records (EMR and EHR), or face penalties.
A recent study by MarketsandMarkets revealed the health-care cloud computing market, which is only currently about 4% of the industry, is expected to grow to nearly $5.4 billion by 2017. The cloud migration process, however, can be daunting for health-care organizations since they have to move an incredible amount of data, according to an article on Forbes.com.
Cloud service providers are now offering a variety of new ways to access information via cloud applications and microsites designed for mobile devices. To specifically address the needs of the health-care industry, cloud service providers continue to improve technology platforms to improve lab order entry, pharmacy records management, medical billing, imaging service requests and more.
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Join Me at the Gartner IT Infrastructure & Operations Management Summit
Please join me at the Gartner IT Infrastructure & Operations Management Summit in Orlando, Florida, June 18-20, 2013, where my session topic will be "Cloud Service Integration: Increasing Business Value and IT Operational Excellence".
Gartner IT Infrastructure & Operations Management Summit 2013 will help I&O leaders apply authoritative thinking, leading-edge strategies and tactical best practices to their enterprise I&O planning and initiatives. This informative session will explore how Cloud computing can deliver substantial benefits and operational technology efficiencies to an organization. Through the use of several recent multi-cloud services integration case studies, we will examine how secure command and control of hybrid technology infrastructure delivers IT operational excellence and better business agility and value. This presentation will give you new insight about how to create and execute a practical strategy for cloud computing adoption across your enterprise. Registration is available online.
See you there!
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Gartner IT Infrastructure & Operations Management Summit 2013 will help I&O leaders apply authoritative thinking, leading-edge strategies and tactical best practices to their enterprise I&O planning and initiatives. This informative session will explore how Cloud computing can deliver substantial benefits and operational technology efficiencies to an organization. Through the use of several recent multi-cloud services integration case studies, we will examine how secure command and control of hybrid technology infrastructure delivers IT operational excellence and better business agility and value. This presentation will give you new insight about how to create and execute a practical strategy for cloud computing adoption across your enterprise. Registration is available online.
See you there!
( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2012)
--> --> -->
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Guest Blog: Sequestration and the Cloud
(This post was provided by Praveen Asthana, Chief Marketing Office of Gravitant, a cloud service brokerage and management company)
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Sequestration burst out of obscurity and entered our
household vocabulary in 2013. It got our
attention because the impact of it is $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts
from the Federal budget over the next ten years. About $85B of these cuts will occur by
September of 2013 - and these cuts are being disproportionately applied: Once you exempt the sacred programs, what’s less
sacred (like Federal I.T. spending) is going to get hit hard. Forrester Research analyst Andrew Bartels
expects that the Federal budget cuts will shave at least $12B out of 2013 U.S.
tech spending (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237240/The_sequester_will_hurt_tech_nationally).
So what’s to be done? Computerworld points out that “Dale Luddeke, chair
of the Industry Advisory Council (IAC), an IT industry group expects to see a
shift in government to things with cost savings attributes, such as open
source, and agile development and cloud technology.”
Federal agency CIOs are already there: At this year’s Cloud Computing for DoD and
Government Summit held in Washington D.C. on Feb 26, Richard Spires, then CIO
of the Dept of Homeland Security, said in a keynote that he was looking to take
out $500M of IT spend from his $5B IT budget and was looking to cloud computing
as a primary vehicle to accomplish this.
There you have it: Cloud
to the rescue.
This is not surprising, given that public cloud computing has
been shown to reduce IT infrastructure spending by 37% (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1002.3492.pdf)
or more. And Cloud spending has the
additional benefit of converting the capex model (“pay up-front”) to an opex
model (“pay-as-you-go”) which gives much more flexibility.
This is not new news.
Cloud computing’s promise has been well known to the government which
has had a ‘Cloud First’ mandate for two years now. But implementation progress towards this goal
has been tepid according to the GAO (http://www.gao.gov/assets/600/592249.pdf),
due in part to lack of skills, guidance, tools, security and the need for new
processes (such as cloud procurement).
However, there is one stand out government entity that has
overcome these barriers and seen great success using cloud computing to reduce
costs and improve agility: this is the
Dept of Information Resources of the State of Texas.
Nearly two years ago, the State of Texas implemented the
Texas Cloud Self-Service Portal (http://www.dir.texas.gov/SiteCollectionDocuments/Texas.gov/ptco.pdf).
State Agencies who used the portal were able to reduce IT
infrastructure costs by up to 30% and, more importantly, were able to
significantly reduce deployment times for new IT resources from months to
days. This portal was so successful that
it is now being extended to all 200 agencies in the State.
The key technology behind the Texas Cloud Self-service Portal
was a Cloud Brokerage and Management platform that allowed for the easy
onboarding and management of cloud computing resources. The platform streamlined the assessment, design, procurement,
provisioning, and real-time governance of solutions across hybrid cloud
environments.
Sequestration is
driving a new sense of urgency towards using cloud computing to save
costs. Fortunately, Government agencies
now have a roadmap and a tool set to enable them to easier onboard to and use
cloud computing using the State of Texas example. Seeing this, Agency CIOs have now recognized
the power of a Cloud Brokerage platform and it is no wonder that every agency
CIO that presented at the DoD and Government Cloud Computing summit this year
stood up and said they would be implementing a Cloud Brokerage platform.
This leads us to believe that 2013 will be the year Cloud
First gets real.
Praveen Asthana is Chief Marketing Officer of Gravitant, a cloud
services brokerage and management company. Prior to joining Gravitant, Praveen
was Vice President of Marketing and Strategy for Dell’s $13B Enterprise
Solutions Division.
( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2012)
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Fathers of Clouds - A Tribute
For more than half a century, cloud computing has changed names more often than a Hollywood starlet.
Utility computing. Time share. Thin client. SaaS. PaaS. IaaS. While concepts have been added and capabilities grown, cloud computing was no more invented by Amazon or other modern vendors in the last seven years reality invented by reality shows. It's simply been advance, repackaged and repurposed for as long as computer connectivity has existed.
In honor of Father's Day, NJVC looks up the family tree of cloud computing to say thank you to six of the fathers of cloud computing. (And if you're wondering about a gift, a single tie will suffice. Certainly, these guys understand how to share.)
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NJVC Platform as a Service to Include Google Geospatial Services
NJVC® was selected by Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) to provide the platform as a service (PaaS) element of a cloud-computing-based humanitarian assistance and disaster response data exchange demonstration.
A combined technology solution, known as GeoCloud, will provide trusted connectivity between multiple independent vendor cloud services through the use of this open platform. GeoCloud also will create a virtual organization of response teams so members can easily access critical geospatial data in support of their intertwined missions on a pick-and-choose basis and consume that data on demand. NJVC will leverage the CloudcuityTM AppDeployer application PaaS to integrate various apps to support the needs of a diverse population of international disaster first responders (e.g., law enforcement, fire response, disaster medical response) into a common complex humanitarian disaster (CHD) management operating environment. In this implementation, the AppDeployer PaaS extends and complements the Google Maps Engine development PaaS platform.
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Cloud Viewed as Fed's Answer to Big Data Needs
Cloud computing is steadily working its way into the U.S. federal government, potentially simplifying access to information for the public, but also creating some consternation over who ultimately controls that data.
Some federal agency managers are reluctant to hand over their data to cloud computing providers, for fear of diminished security or potential hassles should they need to switch vendors, according to an article on FederalTimes.com.
But the government’s growing appetite for collecting information is forcing agencies to consider the promised benefits of cloud computing, such as storing and managing their data for less money and the ability to access data from any device over the Internet. The latter is a major tenet of the Obama administration’s push to make more data accessible to the public, and to increase productivity by allowing employees to access systems and files remotely, or via the cloud.
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Deconstructing Cloud: An Excellent Guide to the Cloud Computing World
On an almost daily basis, I'm approached for my views on "cloud computing technology". Although typically innocent in nature, I always cringe at the thought of enduring yet another hours long discussion over the existence of a "cloud computing business model". With this in mind, you can understand the joy I experienced when I read an advance copy of "Deconstructing Cloud" by Andrea Bilobrk. This soon to be released work artfully balances both the technical and business aspects of cloud computing in an easy to read tutorial.
Writing from a knowledgeable viewpoint as a blogger at CloudBestPractices.net, Andrea minimizes the normally steep learning curve of applying this new approach for provisioning and consuming information technology. She skillfully uses humor and easily understood anecdotes to illustrate how businesses can really gain true value.
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Cloud People: A Who's Who of Cloud Computing
Behind every cloud or cloud-based solution, there are real people...A robust ecosystem of solutions providers has emerged around cloud computing. But who are the CEOs & CTOs behind those providers, who are the internal and external entrepreneurs driving companies involved in the Cloud, who are the leading developers, analysts, researchers, marketing professionals, authors...who, in short, are the people behind the cloud? This list of "Cloud People" will be updated regularly between now and November 5-8, 2012, when 11th Cloud Expo | Cloud Expo Silicon Valley opens its doors in the Santa Clara Convention Center, in the heart of California's Silicon Valley.
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Lessons Learned: VA Cloud Email Termination
According to a Federal Computer Week article by Frank Konkel, The Department of Veterans Affairs terminated its five-year, $36 million cloud computing contract for email and calendaring services with HP Enterprise Services. Citing a material change in the agency's requirements, VA officials declined to elaborate on the requirement changes that were actually made. Although I have no personal connection or first hand knowledge of the specifics of this deployment, this failure was apparently caused by failure to first build and understand the business case for supporting the cloud transition.
"In November -- after the agency announced its cloud deal with HP Enterprise Services – VA's Deputy CIO for Architecture, Strategy and Design, Paul Tibbits, told an audience at 1105 Media's Enterprise Architecture Conference that he questioned the cost-effectiveness of moving to the cloud.
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USDA Plows New Ground, Becomes Cloud Service Provider
Technology sure does make strange bedfellows.
The federal government’s newest cloud service provider is one that may elicit surprise. It’s the same agency that oversees farm policy and food safety – the US Department of Agriculture.
The USDA has been certified to provide Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platforms as a Service (PaaS) under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, a rigorous security-approval program overseen by the General Services Administration. The USDA now offers FedRAMP-certified cloud services to other federal agencies, as well as to state and local government, via its National Information Technology Center.
It’s the latest example of an emerging cloud model, called shared clouds, in which one government agency gets the most from its data center resources by making them available to other agencies, according to an article on Forbes.com. The USDA offers virtualized desktops and servers, storage, networking, databases, and content management as cloud services.
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Adaptive Computing Unveils Moab Cloud Optimizer Integration for HP CSA 3.2
Adaptive Computing on Tuesday announced the release of Moab Cloud Optimizer for HP Cloud Service Automation (CSA) version 3.2.
“With its out-of-the-box policies, Moab Cloud Optimizer helps IT organizations derive higher ROI from HP Cloud Service Automation private cloud environments,” said Rob Clyde, CEO of Adaptive Computing. “This product enables clouds to support higher capacities and lower costs for private cloud workloads, while meeting service-level agreements.”
Moab Cloud Optimizer’s range of cloud policies can be visually set and monitored to continuously optimize service placement, service performance, utilization and capacity management, resource reservations and resource maintenance.
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