EXECUTIVE CORNER
Heads in the Clouds
Challenges and Impacts of Cloud Computing Offer Real Cost Reduction Opportunities
Thanks to the marketing prowess of Microsoft, cloud computing is being touted as the nirvana state for enterprise information management. This computing approach relies on a number of existing technologies, e.g., the Internet, virtualization, grid computing, Web services, etc. Computing power-to-price points are offering many advantages and when combined with a reliable and broadly available internet backbone, keeping our data and applications in the cloud is now a reality.
Cloud computing is really nothing new. Before Microsoft unleashed its marketers, Oracle had coined the term “grid computing” which was pretty much the same concept as the cloud (minus the on-demand resource provisioning). Applications and data could be “on the grid” with all the inferences to the power grid, critical infrastructure management and so on. We have been about high performance distributed computing for at least a decade and regardless of what you call it, it works.
Cloud computing is becoming so well established that last year, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) embarked upon a “cloud first” policy for all of government. Not too long ago, the government’s recently departed CIO, Vivek Kundra, announced that by the end of 2011, 137 of the 2,100 federal data centers would be closed. Looking inside DoD, CIO Teri Taikai was reported by Federal Computer Week to have announced that 8 military data centers have been closed so far.
The trend is irrefutable and, I think, positive. Moving to the cloud will reduce the facilities footprint needed for IT infrastructure. This will reduce costs for facilities operations and, perhaps more importantly, energy consumption. However, moving to cloud computing is just part of this story.
Think back more than a decade ago and look at your personal income tax return with the IRS. Odds are it was paper, requiring the IRS to keep vast warehouses for filing. Today, almost all taxpayers file electronically, meaning that the physical storage requirement went away. Add that concept to our dramatic ability to reduce the footprint of the computing infrastructure, and it is easy to see that keeping and managing data electronically has and continues to change the face of government, both internally and in how constituents receive support at all levels.
The IRS is but one example. There are others just as compelling across the federal sector, from DoD to HHS. Our ability to transform business processes away from paper and to then consolidate data and applications software into a distributed infrastructure is a significantly large opportunity for reducing federal real property and energy consumption.
This is good news all around. We can all share computing resources irrespective of where they are, achieve better performance at lower cost, make fewer purchases for dedicated applications, and secure that data through robust protocols. Furthermore, we can “turn off” facilities that are very expensive to operate, demonstrate significant total reductions in energy consumption and eliminate the requirement for future construction.
Look around the DC region alone. In the past year, 15 data centers have been shuttered according to Federal Computer Week. Yes, we still have to dispose of the buildings or terminate leases to complete the transition, but that can and will happen in due course.
We should all take pride in this. Cloud computing is the right thing for government to do, especially during a period when pressures to reduce all spending are so intense. Let’s all get our heads in the cloud.
David Baxa
President and CEO
VISTAtsi
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