Cloud Computing Conference

Digital Government Institute's 2009 Cloud Computing Conference kicked off with a Keynote Address by Chris Kemp, CIO, Ames Research Center, NASA who discussed "Government Cloud Computing for 2010: Moving Towards Efficient Operations".   According to Mr. Kemp, "Looking at the budget and guidance we get with the budget, we are seeing specific references to cloud computing and this has never happened before," he said, as reported in an article by Federal News Radio.   Several agencies are moving into the cloud slowly. NASA, for one, launched its Nebula cloud environment.  Kemp says NASA is trying to make it easier for agencies to use Nebula. He says NASA will put the platform in the Apps.gov storefront in early 2010 so agencies can use a government credit card and provision space on the platform.  Read More.

In a session moderated by Christopher Dorobek, Co-Anchor, The Daily Debrief, Federal News Radio, panelists reviewed "How to Take Advantage of Cloud Computing Today".   In an article by FCW, making the move to cloud computing should not be overly difficult for agencies since the technology is actually a progression of other technologies, according to Russ Fromkin, director of Intel Federal, and one of the session's panelists. Technologies such as virtualization make up the building blocks of cloud computing, he added.  "Seventy percent of your servers, theoretically, could be taken off and used for other things if you implement cloud computing," Fromkin said.

Peter Mell, Senior Computer Scientist, Computer Security Division, NIST, and Co-Chair of the Federal Cloud Computing Advisory Council spoke on "Understanding Security and Standards in the Cloud".

And Henry Sienkiewicz, Technical Program Director, Computing Services, DISA, discussed "Key Elements of Cloud Computing: From Private to Hosted Solutions".  DISA in early 2010 will open RACE to its classified network-NIPRnet.  Sienkiewicz says RACE already has 3,000 users and a few hundred projects, and the agency is starting to see results.  "Other organizations are contributing code into the same repository," he says. "It's been a great approach. This is a great example for other software development, especially inside the government space. This is a great model to use for other organizations."  Read the article reported by Federal New Radio.