Is The Federal Government Moving Fast Enough On Cloud Computing? At a time when the Federal Government is being congratulated for saving billions by moving to the cloud (See: Research Report: Feds Rejoice the Cloud Way, with $5 bn In Annual Savings), the title of this article may seem somewhat incongruous. Before I delve into the reasons, let me bring up the topic of variance analysis. According to Wikipedia, “In budgeting (or management accounting in general), a variance is the difference between a budgeted, planned or standard amount and the actual amount incurred/sold….. The concept of variance is intrinsically connected
Federal government
Research Report: Feds Rejoice The Cloud Way, With $5 bn In Annual Savings Statistics have it that the federal government is enjoying a definite cutback in expenditure, estimated to be $5.5 billion per annum as an outcome of their thoughtful shift towards cloud-based services. The numbers have been accumulated by interviewing 108 federal CIOs and IT managers. On top of that, an increased aggression in the pro-cloud stir is expected to result in annual savings mounting to a mammoth $12 billion. Entitled “Cloudy with a Chance of Savings”, the research report was published by MeriTalk Cloud Computing Exchange, and the
Regional Cloud Hubs – How Government Clouds May Function in the Future Sometime back I had written about the possible issues affecting the government move to the cloud (See: Does Moving to the Cloud work for the US Federal Government?). Now, a report indicates that “regional cloud hubs” can ameliorate several of these issues, not only for the federal but also the state governments. First, some background information. According to the report “Best Practices: Regional Community Cloud Hubs – The New ‘Trickle Down’ Effect That’s Boosting State and Local Computing,” published by global market intelligence firm International Data Corporation’s (IDC:
How 9-to-5 Workers Can Win with the Cloud: Friday FAQs Several close friends of mine, currently maintaining full-time office jobs, have wondered about this whole “cloud computing” thing. Specifically, they question its usefulness for them, how it can empower them at work, and how it can potentially fuel a progression in their careers. These FAQs, I hope, will kick-start a discussion on just how the cloud meets these concerns and addresses them charmingly. Q: Can the cloud help me get home sooner, or get more done? A: Without a doubt. One word works best to summarize cloud computing’s assets to
Enterprise Cloud Curves Ahead, PaaS Carefully We’re seeing a lot of changes in the IT landscape. Oracle buying its way into the Cloud, AMD wants in on the server business, Dell is no longer a PC company, and some legacy players are learning about the Cloud market the hard way. Harris claims customers have a preference for on premise (private cloud) solutions, though a McKinsey survey mentioned in the article indicates CIOs will take a “balanced” approach (read: Hybrid Cloud). Besides, acquiring on-premise IT business won’t get easier in the Federal government space with its shift to a Cloud First Policy, nor in State
US Senator Seeks Federal Funding for New York Cloud Computing Center It’s no secret that the US Government is a big supporter of cloud computing. Although this support has declined slightly from the days when former Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra was at the helm of the country’s information technology initiatives (See: The Architect of the Official Cloud Computing Revolution – CIO Vivek Kundra), cloud computing still manages to get considerable attention in the US administration (See: US Cyber Command Chief Gives Cloud Computing Security His Vote of Confidence). Now, it seems individual lawmakers have also decided to get
Recent Cloud Computing Team Ups – I “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.” – Babe Ruth (1895-1948), American baseball legend. The above quote coming from someone who personalized individual achievement speaks volumes about the importance of teams. Working in teams is one of the defining characteristics of modern business, and this is not restricted to working within organizations only. Even across companies, teams have been able to leverage multiple competencies
Federal Roadmap to Your Cloud Achieve Greater Efficiency and Contain Costs Today, the Federal government operates and maintains approximately 2,100 datacenters, with a mandate to reduce that number by 800 by 2015. With virtualization, this goal is achievable, especially because fewer than 15 percent of Federal x86 servers are currently virtualized, according to recent estimates. If agencies undertook a simple 2:1 server consolidation effort, they could presumably reduce the number of physical x86 servers by half and achieve significant cost savings for this basic effort. Their savings potential, however, is much greater, considering that VMware customers achieve average consolidation ratios
