Billy Biggs, director of learning strategies, General Physics Corporation
Click to hear the interview
Download mp3

What does the emergence of cloud computing really mean for your organization?

One expert says, despite the buzz word, cloud computing should be looked at as nothing new when it comes to learning and development (L&D).

Billy Biggs is director of learning strategies at General Physics Corporation and recently wrote a white paper about how L&D should handle cloud. He tells FCB more about why this really can be business as usual, but starts out by explaining that many are still wary because, well, the definition of cloud has been undefined for a relatively long period of time.

BB: I think the difficulty around trying to define what cloud computing [is because] it’s still evolving. The technology is still evolving and, up until late last year, you really had no authoritative body providing one specific definition.

Until NIST released its definition late last year, it became a little easier for folks to get their hands around it, but to complicate matters, I think that the different cloud offerings that are available to consumers — whether it’s software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service or platform-as-a-service — with all the complicated ecosystems of vendors and partners and approaches, really complicates things on what cloud computing means to a lot of different people.

Jonathan Alboum, CIO, Food and Nutrition Service
Click to hear the interview
Download mp3

Jonathan Alboum is the chief information officer of the Agriculture Department’s Food and Nutrition Service.

He’s played a big role in the Apps for Healthy Kids program.

Today he tells us about how they’re looking at cloud computing and other Web 2.0 technologies in order to better serve their customers.

FCB: How are you guys implementing [2.0] at the Food and Nutrition Service?

JA: If you want to think about something like cloud computing — I know it’s a buzz word and there’s going to be pros and there’s going to be cons and evangelists and whatnot, but I think it has a lot of potential. We can cut down on having to build these servers and create an infrastructure to run our applications if we can leverage something the department has or another organization has conceptually. It’s going to to make my job easier and it’s going to help me be less focused on operations, because we’re kind of outsourcing that factor.

Steve O'Keeffe, founder, MeriTalk
Click to hear the interview
Download mp3

MeriTalk launched its cloud computing calculator earlier this year, and it looks like cloud is actually saving the federal government money.

Steve O’Keeffe is MeriTalk’s founder, and tells us more about the calculator, who’s used it so far, and where you can find additional resources if you’re looking at cloud.

SO: [It] is a tool that allows government agencies to put in their existing budgets for enterprise IT spend, and after a series of questions associated with the sensitivity of data and such, and press a button and find out what the cost implications would be associated with moving to cloud computing.

FCB: Is this something that is just for the U.S. Federal government, or can any government official use it? Let’s say I [work for] a local government and I’m interested in cloud computing. Can I use it too?

SO: You can, but we specifically built the input field to align with the information the federal government has . . . so, it’s really developed for the federal government.

Today in your end of the week cloud news round up:

• Confused about the cloud? Have no idea where to go next? Worried about what will happen once you make the move? Have no fear. The Cloud Computing Survivor’s Guide for Government is coming up, and you can still register. It’s hosted by David S. Linthicum, CTO of Bick Group. Learn more about how you might be able to make the cloud work for you.
• What can cloud really offer you? CIO.com’s Bernard Golden says there two kinds of agility you can find in the cloud that don’t exist elsewhere. Read more of his post as he discusses engineering resource availability, and business response to changing conditions or opportunity.
• You should know your rights — and responsibilities — in the cloud. Gartner has created a Bill of Cloud Computing Rights. ChannelWeb reports that the firm put together a Global IT Council for Cloud Services, which came up with the idea for a set of key rights to govern computing in the cloud. They say they hope it will help not only IT customers and clients, but also developers, vendors and other stakeholders.
• And NASA has joined forces with Rackspace Hosting, a cloud services provider. Daily Finance reports the agency is currently working on its Nebula software platform, which should be available by the end of this year. Rackspace has already contributed its Cloud Files system to NASA’s OpenStack code. Many in the industry think NASA’s code will serve as a best-of-breed technology.

Julie Boughn, CIO, CMS
Click to hear the interview
Download mp3

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid is being required to modernize its technology infrastructure.

Julie Boughn is chief information officer at CMS and tells Fed Cloud Blog about how her office is using some cutting edge technologies, including cloud computing.

“I love cloud. When you talk about software-as-a-service or even platform-as-a-service, the potential is actually astronomical, especially around things that maybe are lower risk and aren’t our core business, but have never been able to get funded. To be able to do projects like those. . . . We don’t have to develop a whole system, or host [some programs] in one of our data centers because we can get the whole service that we need, build a business process around it, and it can be up in a week, as opposed to what typically would take months to get through a regular IT investment life cycle.

What remains to be seen for me is where . . . We start to draw the line. [For example] Medicare fee-for-service claims processing. It’s hard for me to imagine that happening in the cloud, but that could be just because I’m being old and stogy. I hope that’s not the only reason, but it’s just hard for me to imagine that being there. Our backup — backup is the thing that happens in the cloud for a lot of . . . personal users. I’ve heard of some big companies that use cloud for backup and recovery. That one is even hard for me, too, and that’s mostly because of our scale and size. But, I’m very open minded . . . and where it makes sense I’m going to be gung-ho supportive of it.”

Hear Boughn talk more about modernization and virtualization at CMS on Ask the CIO.