Member video: Cloud First: Taking a centralized approach to service delivery

Bobbie Browning, SVP at GovDelivery gives her perspective on cloud computing at the 2011 SIIA Cloud/Gov conference in Washington DC. More info and conference media:

Cloud/GOV CIO Panel Announcement

In this session you will hear leading government CIOs share their perspectives of cloud in government and what it means for their respective agencies. We will discuss the state of procurements (current and future) for which the agencies are seeking cloud/saas capabilities, their primary goals and objectives for each agency’s cloud initiative, and the metrics for evaluating the ROI.

Moderator:
Michael Binko, President and CEO, kloudtrack

Panelists:
Thomas Bayer, Chief Information Officer, Securities and Exchange Commission
Henry Sienkiewicz, Chief Information Officer, DISA
Kevin Smith, Deputy Chief Information Officer, United States Patent & Trademark
Keith Trippie, Executive Director of Enterprise System Development , Department of Homeland Security
Stephen Warren, Deputy CIO, Department of Veterans Affairs

The Real Jobs Machine by Robert Samuelson

WASHINGTON — If you’re interested in job creation — and who isn’t these days? — you should talk to someone like Morris Panner. In 1999, Panner and a few others started a small Boston software company called OpenAir. By 2008, they sold it for $31 million. The firm had then grown to about 50 workers. It turns out that entrepreneurship (essentially: the founding of new companies) is crucial to job creation. But as Panner’s experience suggests, success is often a slog.

Read the rest at: Real Clear Politics

State of Public Sector Cloud Computing by Vivek Kundra

Executive Summary by Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer

The Obama Administration is changing the way business is done in Washington and bringing a new sense of responsibility to how we manage taxpayer dollars. We are working to bring the spirit of American innovation and the power of technology to improve performance and lower the cost of government operations.

The United States Government is the world’s largest consumer of information technology, spending over $76 billion annually on more than 10,000 different systems. Fragmentation of systems, poor project execution, and the drag of legacy technology in the Federal Government have presented barriers to achieving the productivity and performance gains found when technology is deployed effectively in the private sectors.

In September 2009, we announced the Federal Government’s Cloud Computing Initiative. Cloud computing has the potential to greatly reduce waste, increase data center efficiency and utilization rates, and lower operating costs. This report presents an overview of cloud computing across the public sector. It provides the Federal Government’s definition of cloud computing, and includes details on deployment models, service models, and common characteristics of cloud computing.

As we move to the cloud, we must be vigilant in our efforts to ensure that the standards are in place for a cloud computing environment that provides for security of government information, protects the privacy of our citizens, and safeguards our national security interests. This report provides details regarding the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s efforts to facilitate and lead the development of standards for security, interoperability, and portability.

Furthermore, this report details Federal budget guidance issued to agencies to foster the adoption of cloud computing technologies, where relevant, and provides an overview of the Federal Government’s approach to data center consolidation.

This report concludes with 30 illustrative case studies at the Federal, state and local government levels. These case studies reflect the growing movement across the public sector to leverage cloud computing technologies.

Download the full report: [PDF] [DOCX (Word 2007 Format)]