December 30, 2013
Volume XLVI, Issue 7
hCLOUD Speakers for CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2014
As previously announced, the DCIA & CCA will present CLOUD COMPUTING EAST (CCE:2014), a strategic summit for business leaders and software developers, in Washington, DC from Tuesday May 13th through Wednesday May 14th.
As one of three tracks within CCE:2014, hCLOUD (The Healthcare Cloud) will thoroughly examine progress being made by the healthcare industry in adopting cloud-based solutions to become more efficient, collaborative, and interactively connected. It will also address liabilities and challenges that need to concern healthcare organizations regarding cloud-based services.
Topics will include: managing private patient records; collecting clinical research data; big-data imaging, and more.
If you would like to speak at this major industry event, please contact the DCIA at your earliest convenience. We're interested in representatives of hospitals, clinics, multi-physician practices, and solutions providers to discuss how cloud computing is serving every part of the healthcare system.
We're finalizing the conference agenda and speakers list to be included in the promotional materials and conference program now. Call or e-mail at your earliest convenience — THIS WEEK — for more information.
DCIA Member companies and DCINFO subscribers also received invitations last week to speak on the gCLOUD (The Government Cloud) track, and this week will receive invitations for fCLOUD (The Financial Services Cloud) track.
Please contact the CCA for attractive exhibition and sponsorship opportunities.
Invitation to French Technology Reception at CES
DCINFO readers are invited to join the French Minister for Innovation and Digital Economy Fleur Pellerin at a special reception celebrating French technology companies and startups exhibiting at the 2014 International CES.
At this reception you will learn how France is leading the development of the digital economy, meet executives from prominent French companies and enjoy a glass of French wine! David Appia, Chairman and CEO of Invest in France Agency and Ambassador for International Investment, will also attend this event.
The reception will convene during the 2014 CES on Tuesday, January 7th at 7:30 PM at The Venetian, Level 4, Lando Ballroom.
This event is jointly organized by UBIFRANCE, the French Agency for International Business Development, The Invest in France Agency, MEDEF, and French Employers Organization, with sponsorship from ORANGE Telecom.
Confirm your participation.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Happy New Year from the DCIA, and best wishes for success in the cloud in 2014.
On Wednesday January 8th, we will present CONNECTING TO THE CLOUD (CTTC), a Conference within the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV.
Please register now for CTTC at CES.
Click here for a preview of the Conference Brochure.
The CCA is handling sponsorships.
CTTC at CES will highlight the very latest advancements in cloud-based solutions that are now revolutionizing the consumer electronics (CE) sector or - as ABI Research's Sam Rosen referenced that category at CLOUD COMPUTING WEST - the "cloud electronics (CE) sector."
At 1:00 PM, an opening panel presented by Verizon Digital Media Services, featuring Jonathan Perelman, GM Video & VP Agency Strategy, BuzzFeed; Adam Ostrow, Chief Strategy Officer, Mashable; Michael Schneider, CEO, Mobile Roadie; and Jason Baptiste, CMO, Onswipe; and moderated by Daniel Dan Cryan, Senior Director of Digital Media, IHS / Screen Digest, will examine "Millennials, Online TV, and Gaming: Now and Tomorrow."
What are the implications of the digital revolution in the way Millennials discover, access, and consume video, music, and gaming content online? Hear it first-hand from young voices representing leading companies in the digital, social, and tech arenas.
At 1:45 PM, Robert Stevenson, Chief Business Officer & VP of Strategy, Gaikai, will further examine this issue in a keynote address entitled, "Tomorrow Is Now: What We Are Connecting to the Cloud."
At 2:00 PM in a solo presentation, Sam Rosen, Practice Director, TV & Video, Consumer Electronics, ABI Research, will address, "Where Are There Problems Connecting to the Cloud?"
Next, at 2:15 PM, Reza Rassool, Chief Technology Officer, Kwaai Oak, will further expose "Consumer Drawbacks of Cloud-Delivered Content: Availability, Reliability, Scalability Issues."
The follow-on panel at 2:30 PM with Andy Gottlieb, VP, Product Management, Aryaka; Larry Freedman, Partner, Edwards Wildman Palmer; David Hassoun, Owner & Partner, RealEyes Media; Jay Gleason, Cloud Solutions Manager, Sprint; and Grant Kirkwood, Co-Founder, Unitas Global, will discuss "The Impact on Telecommunications Industries of Cloud Computing."
Then two sessions, starting at 3:00 PM will delve into "Telecommunications Industry Benefits of Cloud-Delivered Content: New Opportunities" with Doug Pasko, Principal Member of Technical Staff, Verizon Communications. And at 3:15 PM, "Telecommunications Industry Drawbacks of Cloud-Delivered Content: Infrastructure Challenges" with Allan McLennan, President & Chief Analyst, PADEM Group.
The next panel, at 3:30 PM, will address "The Impact on Entertainment Industries of Cloud Computing" with Jay Migliaccio, Director of Cloud Platforms & Services, Aspera; Mike King, Dir. of Mktg. for Cloud, Content & Media, DataDirect Networks; Venkat Uppuluri, VP of Marketing, Gaian Solutions; Mike West, Chief Technology Officer, GenosTV; George Dolbier, CTO, Social & Interactive Media, IBM; Kurt Kyle, Media Industry Principal, SAP America; Adam Powers, and VP of Media Technology & Solutions, V2Solutions.
Two solo presentations, at 4:15 PM with Les Ottolenghi, Global CIO, Las Vegas Sands Corporation, and, at 4:30 PM, Saul Berman, Partner & Vice President, IBM Global Business Services, will highlight "Entertainment Industry Benefits of Cloud Computing: Cost Savings & Efficiency" and "Entertainment Industry Drawbacks of Cloud Computing: Disruption & Security" respectively.
Additional sessions, starting at 4:45 PM will introduce the subjects "Consumer Electronics Industry Benefits of Cloud-Based Services: New Revenue Streams" with Mikey Cohen, Architect & Principal Engineer, Netflix, and, at 5:00 PM, "Consumer Benefits of Cloud-Delivered Content: Ubiquity, Cost, Portability Improvements," with Joshua Danovitz, VP of Innovation, TiVo
The closing panel at 5:15 PM will draw on all the preceding sessions to more deeply analyze "The Impact on the Consumer Electronics Industry of Cloud Computing" with Melody Yuhn, CTO, CSS Corp.; Michael Elliott, Enterprise Cloud Evangelist, Dell; David Frerichs, President, Media Tuners; Thierry Lehartel, VP, Product Management, Rovi; Russ Hertzberg, VP, Technology Solutions, SoftServe; Guido Ciburski, CEO, Telecontrol; and Scott Vouri, VP of Marketing, Western Digital.
Top program topics will include case studies on how cloud-based solutions are now being deployed for fixed and mobile CE products - successes and challenges; the effects on consumers of having access to services in the cloud anytime from anywhere - along with related social networking trends.
Also featured will be what broadband network operators and mobile Internet access providers are doing to help manage - and spur - the migration to interoperable cloud services.
Some in traditional entertainment industries find this technology overwhelmingly threatening and disruptive - others see enormous new opportunities; and the value proposition for CE manufacturers will also continue to evolve substantially to providing cloud-based value-adding services - rather than conventional hardware features.
Please register now for CTTC at CES. Share wisely, and take care.
Round-Up of Cloud Computing Predictions for 2014
Excerpted from Forbes Report by Louis Columbus
Alan Kay's saying that, "The best way to predict the future is to create it," resonates through the best cloud computing and enterprise software predictions for 2014.
Constraints that held start-ups back from delivering sophisticated new apps and services are disappearing fast. The dynamics of one of my favorite books, The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen, are in full force across the cloud and enterprise landscape.
There are many predictions being generated right now and instead of writing yet another set, I'm providing a listing of those that are the most interesting and thought-provoking. They are listed below:
10 Cloud Computing Predictions for 2014 — In-depth analysis of ten predictions including how more companies will realize they are really in the software business, private cloud computing having a moment of truth and continued adoption of cloud brokerages. This set of predictions is an interesting read and provides useful insight. I'd just add that as application developers go, so goes an industry, a point Bernard Golden refers to in this post.
Analytics Eats the World in 2014 — George Mathew of Alteryx is one of the most driven people I've ever met about analytics programming and development. He's very focused on breaking down constraints that hold analysts back from getting more value from their data. His predictions provide insight into how business analysts' roles are changing based on rapid advances in analytics app development, model development and use.
Changing Cloud Scapes in 2014 — Jeff Kaplan, Managing Director of THINKstrategies provides ten insightful predictions regarding the continued adoption of cloud computing platforms in the enterprise. His fourth prediction, "Although horizontal cloud solutions will continue to experience significant growth, vertical market solutions aimed at specific industries will grow even more rapidly" is starting to emerge today. The recent success of Veeva Systems supports his prediction and points to next year seeing more vertical market solutions being successfully launched.
Cloud computing experts forecast the market climate in 2014 — Excellent summary of seven cloud computer experts' predictions for 2014 including Mark Eisenberg, Roger Jennings, Paul Korzeniowski, David S. Linthicum, Tom Nolle, Dan Sullivan and Mark Szynaka. Highlights include IDC analysts predicting the "Over the 2013 to 2017 forecast period, public IT cloud services will have a compound annual growth rate [CAGR] of 23.5%, five times that of the IT industry as a whole," and PaaS will lead IaaS and SaaS with a CAGR of 29.7%. What's useful about these set of predictions is the breadth of expertise reflected in market statistics, market and technology projections and insights shared.
Cloud Computing Predictions for 2014: Cloud Joins The Formal IT Portfolio — James Staten of Forrester Research has compiled an excellent series of predictions for the year with emphasis on security and SaaS becoming the de facto choice for new applications. While he hasn't quoted adoption figures of SaaS relative to on-premise, he does point out that Forrester believes HCM, CRM and collaboration will be the leading categories of SaaS apps in 2014.
Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2014 — Gartner is predicting that the top ten strategic technology trends for 2014 include mobile device diversity and management, mobile apps and applications, the Internet of Everything (IoE), Hybrid Cloud and IT as a Service Broker, Cloud/Client Architecture, The Era of Personal Cloud, 3D-Printing, Cloud-Scale IT and several others.
My One Big Fat Cloud Computing Prediction for 2014 — I have been following the industry analysis, writing and research of Joe McKendrick for years based on the excellent insight he provides. Joe predicts that cloud computing is set to become mainstream computing, period. He cites Cisco's research showing the majority of data center will be cloud-based and shares his perspective of the market. Joe has an innate sense of how enterprises adopt and use technology and this post reflects that expertise.
SaaS predictions for 2014 — Chris Kanaracus is predicting that multitenancy will fade away as a major concern in SaaS, geographic depth of coverage will accelerate with cloud vendors announcing new data center openings around the world, and more vertical market adoption of SaaS. He also prefaces his predictions with the Gartner forecast for SaaS (software as a service) quoting their figures of the total market will toping $22 billion through 2015, up from more than $14 billion in 2012.
Top Predictions about Software Companies in 2014 — In-depth analysis and predictions of which companies are going to be the most interesting to watch in 2014 and predictions regarding the enterprise software landscape. This post provides a great overview of how industry veterans see enterprise software changing as a result of cloud computing as well.
Troubling, Challenging 2014 ERP Predictions — Brian Sommer's predictions are the most thought-provoking and honest of any written so far this year. He writes "for an ERP vendor to sell CX (customer experience) software and then mistreat their own customers so badly is more than ironic (or moronic). It's a death wish. Yet, it happens." If there is only one set of predictions you read from this list, be sure to read this set.
What Should CMOs Do In 2014? IDC's Top Ten Predictions — Gil Press provides in-depth analysis of IDC's predictions of how the role of CMO will change in 2014. He's summarized the key points of the recent webinar including market forecasts from IDC, providing his insight and expertise in this post. IDC is predicting that digital marketing investment will exceed 50% of total program budget by 2016, up from 39% in 2013 and that by the end of 2014, 60% of CMOs will have a formal recruiting process for marketers with data skills.
More and More Jobs Are in Analytics, Big Data & Cloud
Excerpted from Hindu Business Line Report by T.E. Raja Simhan
Looking for a job in the IT sector? Consider big data, analytics, and cloud computing — hot areas that IT companies may recruit people for in 2014, say HR experts.
There is a growing demand for skills in big data and analytics mixed with business and management education. Consulting firm McKinsey estimates that India will need two-hundred-thousand data scientists in the next few years. Analytics professionals and data scientists will be most sought after as digital data is growing exponentially. The rate of explosion of data from India will be double that of the world average in coming years.
With the rising popularity of big data, firms are banking on analytics professionals and data scientists to create a competitive edge, said Moorthy Uppaluri, CEO, Randstad India.
Cloud computing, big data, and analytics will be the hot areas as these are the ones that directly bring the revenue for the organizations, said Sunil Goel, Managing Director, GlobalHunt, an executive search company.
India will remain the preferred destination for analytics outsourcing compared with the Philippines and China. Unlike BPOs, analytics requires are not easily available in those countries. India's analytics talent pool will be in high demand because of their process expertise and English language proficiency, according to Gaurav Vohra, CEO, Jigsaw Academy, an online analytics training academy.
Salaries in the analytics industry have been increasing faster than the average for the last 10 years. This trend will continue in 2014 as well.
Entry level salaries will grow by 5 per cent and for those with five years of experience will grow by 10-to-15 per cent.
Online job portals like HeadHonchos and Naukri.too feel that data analytics and cloud computing will be the top picks in 2014.
While big data and analytics have been talked about extensively in the past year, areas that will see high traction will be data analytics, data security, and safety, said V. Suresh, Executive Vice-President and National Head of Sales, Naukri.
India is poised to surpass US in terms of number of Internet users and with a rapid penetration of mobile devices, we can expect huge demand in the sectors such as Internet, mobile application development, social, and digital media experts, he said.
Many companies are adopting cloud to achieve operational efficiencies. This paves way for appropriate security, enterprise, and infrastructure architect to ensure a secured computing environment, said Uday Sodhi, CEO, HeadHonchos.
Many businesses thrive on data and the demand for IT professionals specializing in data sciences will grow. Extracting knowledge and valuable insights from data requires knowledge of variety of fields, including mathematics, statistics, data engineering, pattern recognition and learning, advanced computing, visualization, uncertainty modeling, data warehousing, and high performance computing with the goal of extracting meaning from data and creating data products, he said.
Solutions architects, chief technology officers, and program managers will be top picks in 2014, According to E. Balaji, an HR consultant.
Solution architects play the bridge role between customers and developers. CTOs will be key ally to the CEOs. They need to have a strong appreciation of customer behavior and devise appropriate strategies to address segments effectively. Program Managers with prior experience in running huge programs will be in great demand, he said.
These 3 Companies Will Prosper in the Cloud
Excerpted from The Motley Fool Report by Tim Brugger
We all knew cloud computing was a fast-growing market. But based on new data from IDC, cloud revenues in 2014 will exceed already sky-high expectations, jumping to more than $100 billion in spending next year. That's a 25% increase from this year and opens a huge door of opportunity for investors.
Of course, not all IT companies are ready to take advantage of the shift to cloud computing. But for a couple of late adopters and one underdog, 2014 could prove to be a pleasant year in the cloud.
Cloud infrastructure, services - particularly platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and related software - will lead the jump in cloud revenues next year, according to IDC. And both IBM and German-based SAP are positioned to take full advantage of all things cloud.
Early cloud players like Salesforce.com and Amazon will certainly benefit from next year's $100 billion cloud-based spending, since both got onboard early. But the fact that IBM and SAP are later arrivals to cloud technologies, combined with their all-out commitment to making it a driving force for growth, will actually work in the favor of investors.
Why? Because IBM and SAP are just scratching the surface when it comes to the cloud.
The day before announcing Q3 earnings, SAP was trading at $73.75 a share: It's now more than $84 a share, with little sign of slowing. The reason for the nice jump in share price wasn't just a solid quarter - SAP certainly did that - it was how it accomplished it. While still a relatively small piece of SAP's overall revenue pie, its significant jump in cloud-related revenue to an annual run-rate of more than $1 billion was impressive, to say the least.
IBM's cloud efforts are even further along than SAP's, increasing to more than $1 billion in revenues last quarter for the first time ever. Investors were hung up on the decline in IBM's hardware sales, however, and its stock price has yet to return to its pre-earnings-announcement levels. And that's ideal for value investing Fools in search of long-term appreciation.
Much of the talk surrounding Intel is how long it will be before it's able to make a serious dent in the exploding mobile market. New-ish CEO Brian Krzanich has Intel running full steam in the mobile direction, and that's as it should be. But another tidbit from IDC's recent news regarding cloud revenues in 2014 could prove very interesting for Intel fans.
Keeping up with all the software-as-a-service (SaaS) and PaaS needs of the cloud will require more data centers. According to IDC, there will be a dramatic increase to meet demand, and that fits right into Intel's data-center wheelhouse. While some bemoan its lack of growth in mobile, as well as the steady decline in PC sales, Intel has continued to strengthen its data center business.
Last quarter, Intel's Data Center Group generated $2.9 billion in revenues, a 12.2% improvement over Q3 of 2012, and up 6.2% from its second-quarter results. Yes, Intel's future prospects are more reliant on its mobile efforts, but as the market for cloud-related services continues to climb, Intel is quietly positioning itself to reap some of the benefits.
Cloud technologies are going mainstream even sooner than many of us expected, and there are no shortage of potential benefactors -- but some are positioned better than others. SAP's commitment to growing its cloud revenues is beginning to pay off, as evidenced by its $1 billion annual run rate in cloud revenues.
IBM will certainly carve out a big piece of the cloud's $100 billion pie and, coupled with its ridiculously low forward-price-earnings ratio of just over 10, it may be the best opportunity of the bunch. And don't forget about cloud underdog Intel, either. The talk is all about mobile, but Intel also has its head in the cloud.
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Is Personal Cloud as Disruptive as Personal Computer?
Excerpted from InformationWeek Report by Jonathan Feldman
Information technology (IT) organizations are apt to react as badly to the 21st century's "PC" as they did to the 20th century's "PC." Help them get over it.
When I first read about Western Digital's "personal cloud" for consumer storage, I didn't think much of it. It was just a network-attached storage (NAS) solution with some clever apps that provided remote access features . But I'm now predicting that a more pervasive distribution of personally owned compute and storage assets will change the face of IT as we know it. Here's why:
The revelations by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden about the extent of NSA spying on, well, everyone have led to public distrust of the government, the major providers of public cloud services, and even the basic security protocols of the Internet.
If privacy-minded folks have an easy alternative to "protocols invented with the help of government agencies" or "software created by those we now distrust" — in the form of private clouds — they'll take them.
Seagate's new Kinetic architecture, whereby hard drives can be directly attached to Ethernet without a server, is a game changer. If it's widely adopted, it will change the building blocks of networked storage by making each drive into a network node, so that file objects can be stored or retrieved based on a unique ID.
Although vendors are aiming serverless hard drives and associated support apps at enterprise users, once startups start tinkering with these systems, an individual will have the redundancy of Amazon S3 with the physical security of a home NAS.
What if you could put a couple of hard drives at your brother Larry's house, and your home routers had apps on them that made sure that those hard drives synced with the ones at your house? Combine that setup with Western Digital's "data anywhere" platform, and all of a sudden your data is physically secure.
The only way you can really know that a protocol implementation doesn't have back doors is to use open source. Some might say that an open-source cloud stack isn't sustainable, but the Linux market taught us that even though the horse we bet on might not win, the essential open-source product will continue on in some shape or form (think SuSE versus RedHat). Just as open-source Linux has shown up in video disc players, home routers, and other consumer products, expect open-source cloud computing to show up in consumer devices.
It's also entirely reasonable to assume that new consumer devices will arrive specifically to scratch the itch of individuals who want the government and multinational companies to "stop watching us."
The bane of the personal Internet and the future personal cloud is asynchronous bandwidth - you can download but not upload at high speeds. That's about to change. Google's fiber optic networking effort isn't just about providing synchronous broadband to Kansas City, KS; Austin, TX; and Provo, UT.
It has also galvanized the telecom industry and kicked economic development pros into high gear now that they realize that cities such as Chattanooga, TN, are luring businesses away from them by creating commercial incubators centered on gigabit infrastructure. These new networks certainly will be speedy enough in both directions to support personal cloud computing.
No doubt, the notion of company employees moving all kinds of data into personally owned compute and storage clouds will freak out IT control freaks as much as employees doing the same with their personally owned devices. But "bring your own compute" and "bring your own storage" are going to happen, and the question is: Will it hit you unawares, or will you plan for it?
The best shield against any rogue IT activities in the enterprise will continue to be the IT organization's credibility. Specifically, IT organizations must continue to engage with fellow employees in activities that make it clear that delivering value to business units and being a good partner is their number one charge - not arbitrary control freakishness.
If individuals think that their IT colleagues are punishers and not enablers, they'll avoid having these conversations and delight in bypassing IT's controls. If these same individuals feel that IT helps them to figure out how to use the latest personal productivity technology safely and within the organization's rules, they'll seek IT's opinion before using those new tools, personal cloud or otherwise.
Cloud Analytics Market to Reach $16.52 Billion by 2018
MarketsandMarkets recently conducted a study on the Cloud Based Business Analytics Market: "Cloud Analytics Market [Cloud Business Intelligence (BI)] - Text; Web; Speech; Machine; Video; Predictive Analytics: Global Advancements, Delivery Models, Market Trends, Enterprise Roadmap, Market Forecasts and Analysis (2013 - 2018)", which analyzed and studied the major market drivers, restraints, and opportunities in North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Japan, Asia-Pacific and Latin America.
Browse 118 market data tables and 10 figures spread through 247 pages and in-depth table-of-contents in a sample copy of the report today.
The global Cloud Analytics Market is driven by the emergence of Big Data and cloud computing technologies. Over the last few years, businesses have begun cloud computing extensively.
Big players and new start-ups have shifted towards business analytics, and cloud based BI. Traditional BI and analytics solutions are striving to meet the requirements of today's business needs.
Enterprises are struggling with high operating costs, lack of IT expertise and increasing employee mobility. This trend has forced BI vendors to use new ways of delivering business analytics.
Analytics on cloud is an emerging term that is a complete combination of services and enables enterprises to move their BI, data warehousing, and online analytic procession (OLAP) workload over the cloud platform.
The adoption of cloud BI or business analytics enables enterprises to collect, access, monitor and share key performance indicators (KPIs) virtually, through any mobile device.
Cloud BI utilizes the software-as-a-service (SaaS) licensing model and is also based on a pay-as-you use model, which doesn't need software and hardware installations. Cloud BI services are accessed by using login credentials in a browser.
These services are easily scalable, allowing enterprises to include anyone with an authentic email ID in their BI solution.
MarketsandMarkets has recently conducted a study on the Cloud Analytics Market, analyzing the major market drivers, restraints, and opportunities in North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Japan, Asia-Pacific (Ex-Japan) and Latin America.
The study reports that the global Cloud Analytics market is expected to grow from $5.25 billion in 2013 to $16.52 billion by 2018, at an estimated CAGR of 25.8% during this forecast period.
The report also draws the competitive landscape of the cloud analytics market, providing an analysis of the technological and marketing strategies that the key players are adopting in order to gain an edge over their competitors.
Top 15 Government Technology Stories of 2013
Excerpted from InformationWeek Report by Wyatt Kash
If a few words could sum up 2013 for the government technology community, they might be surveillance, robots, security, cloud computing, mobility, sequestration, and HealthCare.gov.
Each helped define the year.
It makes sense, then, that each of these topics figured prominently in one or more of the year's most popular stories in InformationWeek Government. This year's top-ranking stories, based on the number of readers who read them, capture a glimpse of how technology shaped the work that government agencies were busy tackling in 2013.
Government surveillance practices that have remained largely out of sight for Americans suddenly spilled into our living rooms in April as surveillance video played a leading role in identifying the suspects in the tragic Boston Marathon bombing. Although the rapid arrest of the surviving suspect brought a sense of the benefits of surveillance, it also made clear just how much the nation's citizens had come under the watch of sophisticated security IT systems.
That realization exploded into more disturbing view, beginning in June, with the leak of a series of National Security Agency (NSA) documents detailing the widespread collection of US citizens' telephone records in the name of national security. Revelations that the NSA was tapping into the overseas cables used by the world's leading technology players, including Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, unleashed a firestorm of complaints and a new push by the private sector to strengthen its encryption methods.
The Obama administration is now weighing the findings of a just-released presidential report making 46 recommendations on how to rebalance competing demands for privacy and national security.
On a more positive note, federal agencies also showed how technology - and the evolution of robots - is extending the reach and capabilities of humans.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), for instance, staged a two-day contest for robots developed to help people recover from natural and other disasters. Google's recent purchase of Boston Dynamics and Tokyo-based Schaft, both of which had robots in the competition (Schaft took top prize), heightened the sense that robots are gaining wider attention in technology circles.
NASA, meanwhile, continues to draw universal interest not only for its various missions to explore Mars but also its efforts to share data and technical applications with fellow Earthlings.
Meanwhile, the perennial debate on cyber-security only intensified in 2013, but at least one event stood out this year in government circles: The Obama administration's Cybersecurity Executive Order in February.
The order, in response to Congressional inaction dealing with cyber threats on the nation's critical infrastructure, led to the release in October of a national framework for managing cyber-security risks. The framework, prepared by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and based on best practices gleaned from industry, will be released in February.
The number of agencies taking significant strides toward cloud computing and mobility make it hard to single out any one story that sums up the year's progress on both technology fronts.
The Department of Interior's move to award as much as $10 billion in cloud computing contracts highlighted how far some federal agencies have come since the administration issued its "cloud first" memo in 2010.
However, as the findings of a recent InformationWeek survey on government cloud computing shows, agency progress toward the administration's cloud-computing goals remains uneven, and is still not high priority for some agencies.
One reason for that - and one of the other defining stories of 2013 - was the struggle agencies faced adapting to across-the-board budget cuts imposed by sequestration, and longer-term funding uncertainties as Congressional failed repeatedly to reach a budget agreement.
That struggle took on a public face in October with the government shutdown.
Few government IT stories, however, left a bigger mark on 2013 than the government's failed launch of its healthcare insurance exchange.
In fact, to contain the number of stories, commentaries, and reports surrounding the ill-fated launch, and subsequent repair of the government's HealthCare.gov site, we created a special report section you can find here in InformationWeek.
Click here for the Top 15 most widely read stories in InformationWeek Government in 2013.
Feds Rapidly Adopting Cloud
Excerpted from Talkin' Cloud Report by Chris Talbot
Security concerns aside, US federal government departments and agencies are adopting cloud computing services and infrastructure, according to the results of a survey conducted by Dimensional Research on behalf of Tripwire.
Although there may still be some security concerns related to cloud, the US federal government is chugging along at a rapid pace in its adoption of cloud computing technologies. The results of a survey of federal IT professionals from Tripwire shows that cloud adoption within the federal government has increased by 400 percent.
According to the second annual survey, security concerns are often cited as roadblocks, but the feds' Cloud First policy seems to have been taken seriously by the various agencies and departments within its purview.
"The data indicates that this move is working - not only do stakeholders perceive improved security from this initiative, they are showing confidence by moving more important data and workloads into the cloud," said Dwayne Melancon, Chief Technology Officer for Tripwire.
Not only that, but the survey results showed a "slow but steady increase" in the adoption of baseline security controls. Part of the reason for that is the adoption of FedRAMP's baseline security controls, which are helping to mitigate some risk, Melancon said.
A few other key findings from the survey include: of the 100 US federal IT professionals surveyed, 58 percent said federal initiatives designed to encourage cloud adoption have improved security; four times more respondents said they are outsourcing at least a third of their IT infrastructure to cloud vendors than in 2012; half are moving moderate-impact data to the cloud, which is up from 31 percent in the 2012 survey; of the respondents, 28 percent said FedRAMP's baseline security controls have accelerated their agencies' migration to the cloud, which is up significantly from the 11 percent who said the same in the 2012 survey.
The federal cloud computing market is expected to continue growing at 32 percent annually over the next three years, according to Deltek. And at least some of those sales are going to channel partners, creating a huge and growing opportunity for partners playing in the cloud space.
Global Government Cloud Market Report 2013-2018
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Government Cloud Market Report 2013-2018" report to their offering.
Cloud Computing is being readily adopted by the governments across the globe, as a means to offer fundamental changes in the way public sector adopts and operates information communications technology (ICT).
The cloud market in the government sector mainly focuses on SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS services.
These services are being offered and managed directly by agencies or by the system integrators, which run the private clouds on behalf of the government agencies. In the government sector, cloud platforms help in reducing the costs and transforms the business processes completely, improving the flexibility and security at a large scale.
With the implementation of government cloud, there is more collaboration and transparency in data analytics and information sharing capabilities between the various departments in the government sector.
GovCloud Revolutionizes Services in Hong Kong
Excerpted from SharedServicesLink Report by Abbie Lewis
Following a dramatic rise in the usage rate of Hong Kong e-government services, Hong Kong government Chief Information Officer, Daniel Lai, has highlighted cloud computing as a catalyst for revolutionizing e-government services.
In 2012, 12.9 billion information searches and electronic transactions took place, increasing by 2.7 times from 2010.
Hong Kong government have now established a cloud platform (GovCloud) to develop shared electronic government services, comprised of "core infrastructure and a shared pool of computing resources that can be dynamically provided to e-government services, based on individual demand" explains Lai.
GovCloud will also support the provision of shared services such as electronic information management, e-procurement and human resources management for around 30 bureaus or departments.
Government Advises Public Sector on Cloud Services
Excerpted from Computing Report by Sooraj Shah
The UK government has released security guidance for public sector organizations that are seeking to adopt cloud services.
Whitehall has been keen to encourage public sector organizations - both at local and national level - to purchase cloud services from a wide range of service providers in the most cost effective manner possible.
This is why it established the G-Cloud framework, as part of a drive to reduce the amount government spends on IT services from large suppliers by removing some of the pre-qualifying paperwork.
The government said the guidance document is "intended to help organizations consider the security features of cloud services they wish to use". It said that this is the first of a number of guidance documents for the public sector relating to the use of cloud services to process official information.
The principles are to apply equally to infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and software-as-a-service (SaaS) as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
"Consumers of the cloud services will need to decide how much, if any, assurance they require in the different security principles which matter to them," the government said.
The document lists 14 cloud service security principles that need to be taken into account. These are: data in transit protection; asset protection and resilience; separation between consumers; governance; operational security; personnel security; secure development; supply chain security; secure consumer management; secure on-boarding and off-boarding; service interface protection; secure service administration; audit information provision to tenants; and secure use of the service by the consumer.
Within the personnel security guidance category, the government states that service provider staff should be subjected to adequate personnel security screening for their role.
"At a minimum this should include identity, unspent criminal convictions, and right to work checks. For roles with a higher level of service access, the service provider should undertake and maintain appropriate additional personnel security checks," the document reads.
The guidance publication is in BETA and the government has asked for feedback on the content.
Cloud Computing: The Preference for Private
Excerpted from Midsize Insider Report by Marissa Tejada
Private cloud computing is showing impressive growth among today's firms. According to a recent report by InformationWeek, the percentage of organizations using functional private clouds has more than doubled.
InformationWeek's Private Cloud Survey found that within a period of about 20 months, private cloud adoption has increased from 21 to 47 percent. The findings revealed that just a year and a half ago, 30 percent of respondents had just begun a cloud project.
The study concluded that firms are adopting the cloud at an extremely fast rate because they expect a significant increase in operational productivity and cost savings.
Early private cloud adopters appreciated the automation factor of private cloud computing, which enabled the duplication and deployment of internal systems. Firms that opted against a private cloud had concluded that their needs were not urgent enough to necessitate migration or that the cloud model did not support their applications or budget.
Now, the tables are turning; private cloud adoption is being considered by 12 percent of survey respondents this year compared to 6 percent last year.
Any fears that IT professionals at midsize firms have about cloud deployments are being assuaged, and as a result, more firms are investigating the potential of having their own cloud platform versus a public one. Private and public clouds offer different benefits, and each has its own points to consider.
Every private cloud implementation project will require different tools and expertise since each can be deployed in various ways. A firm can buy all the necessary servers, gear and software and set it up entirely on premises or at another rental space. Depending on the IT knowledge at a given midsize firm, private cloud vendors are often called in to assist with one or more aspects of the migration.
Midsize companies already in the public cloud can also choose to adopt private clouds to address gaps in their existing public cloud infrastructure. Private clouds can effectively handle customer relationship management, human resources functions, systems management and storage. They can also be a good fit for enterprise resource planning, business intelligence and analytics solutions.
Once a private cloud adoption is underway, midsize firms look forward to full control over their IT, including security and data protection. Firms that have IT staff with the requisite knowledge can ensure that their data is being properly secured.
Additionally, administrative tasks involving the upgrading of software, patches and equipment maintenance become a regular part of the job. For some growing firms that have certain needs regarding the control of data standards, uptime, security and privacy, a private cloud is the most reasonable option to build their strongest IT infrastructure and gain a lead over the competition.
For Enterprise IT, Cloud Pricing Isn't Simple
Excerpted from CIO Insight Report by Samuel Greengard
It's no secret that cloud computing has changed the dynamics of business and IT. But along with significant gains, there have been plenty of growing pains. Understanding pricing models and increasingly complex business agreements is at the center of the challenges for CIOs.
"Cloud has long been thought as analogous to electricity, allowing consumers to 'plug-in' and consume IT resources, paying only for what they need. Unfortunately, the IaaS market is far, far away from being a utility, and there is a confusing array of pricing methods, chargeable line items, metrics, and pre-configured bundles," observes Owen Rogers, Cloud Economist at 451 Research.
In fact, comparing like-for-like offerings and fully understanding the pros and cons of different cloud offerings is currently a "nightmarish task," he says. Different providers use different and often confusing terminology, and most claim that their cloud products offer the best value.
As a result, 451 Research has recently introduced a cloud pricing guidebook, dubbed the Cloud Pricing Codex, which attempts to simplify an increasingly complex cloud environment and help CIOs more accurately gauge the true costs of cloud computing services. The Codex breaks down pricing for a number of factors, including service bundling, billable attributes, usage metrics, how charges appear, and how they are measured.
"Understanding exactly what might appear on a monthly invoice is a difficult task, particularly because many services are bundled," Rogers explains. For each pricing method, the Codex provides a detailed review of the related financial risks so that executives can prepare for issues pre-deployment and post-deployment.
At the heart of the issue, Rogers says, is understanding pricing models up front and balancing costs with overall business risk. "On-demand pricing is a fairly low risk because resources can be stopped and started at will, with no commitment or sunk cost. The provider essentially absorbs this risk," he explains. "Alternative pricing methods put some of this risk back in the consumer's hands through recurring commitments or pre-payment, but reward the consumer with a discount."
The upshot? "Canny CIOs use alternative pricing methods with an assessed and understood level of risk to reduce their costs, while using on-demand pricing to burst into extra capacity, so the business can scale in times of growth. Providers and consumers both win by combining on-demand with alternative pricing methods," he points out.
Rogers recommends that CIOs and other executives shop for cloud services by asking a cloud provider to justify why its solution is the most cost-effective option; compare products in an "apples to apples" way; and fully understand the costs associated with scaling and auto-scaling clouds. In addition, "What happens if the cloud provider goes bankrupt? How much will it cost to migrate our data if we change provider? What happens if we fail to meet our financial commitment?"
It's also important to maintain a broad perspective. "There are lots of cloud providers seeking your business," Rogers concludes. "If you think a cloud provider is hiding behind a wall of pricing complexity, demand a simpler and more transparent method."
Can Cloud Computing Help Prevent Cybercrime?
Excerpted from CloudTweaks Report by Akash Valand
We have stepped into the digital age, where technology moves quickly, and our lives have been transformed by modern computing. Digitization has resulted in a staggering amount of information flowing through cyberspace. Processing that data has led to a revolution in how we store and access information.
The idea of the cloud is nothing new. Considered as far back as the 1960s, it was the principle on which the Internet was developed. The term"cloud" was coined in the 1990s with the advent of virtual private networks (VPNs).
Initially used for simplifying business processes, the utilization of cloud computing quickly gained popularity among scientific and gaming communities as well.
Today, the cloud has transcended some of its earlier models and is now widely accepted as a secure means of data storage and shared processing power. Its application in science is vastly accelerating research and has been used with particular success in astronomy.
Despite this, online security remains a hot topic and the Internet presents ongoing security concerns. The UK government has stated that cybercrime is a bigger threat than nuclear weapons, with an estimated £27 billion cost a year.
Cybercrime is often the result of poor security protocols and unaffordable IT support for many businesses and individuals. Weak wireless passwords and unencrypted, solid-state storage are often cited as the biggest threats to online security. The advancement of cloud computing offers a reliable solution to these vulnerabilities.
Clouds are not single point servers. They rely on a network of encrypted servers configured to spread information across a wide area. With larger companies and professional web-networks such as Google and Cisco, this methodology ensures a strong architecture and reduces the threat posed by hackers.
The obvious benefit of this system is to remove information from fixed points such as localized networks and individual machines. It effectively eliminates vulnerable access points to data storage and protects against unapproved software installation.
The nature of information spreading does, however, open cloud networks to prolonged attacks designed to identify weak points in security. If one server has weakened defenses, it provides easy access to other localities in the network.
Many governments consider Internet regulation the answer to online security issues. The industry stands firm against it, suggesting regulation will throw up compromises to data ownership, access, and security protocols depending on the location of servers.
The answer proposed by the industry is for a self-regulatory body dedicated to research and development of stronger cloud security systems. The idea is of a conglomerate effect as the more people who use the cloud, the stronger it becomes.
The implementation of standardized protocols would further enhance security for weaker systems while providing regulatory standards and anticipating future threats.
So, can cloud computing prevent cybercrime? Certainly by limiting solid state access points, there is a mathematical probability that the security web is stronger.
Many are still reluctant to trust third party storage, but the evidence does seem to support the idea that dedicated cloud based security is a step in the right direction.
Handful of Cloud Miracles for 2014
Excerpted from The Street Report by Dana Blankenhorn
The big cloud-computing headline is that we may soon stop using the term. Cloud has become the mainstream of computing, just as e-commerce has become the mainstream of commerce.
Cloud is not an option. Virtual operating systems and infinite scaling, a "barbell" in which the high-end hosts and hand-held device makers crush the computing middle class - that's the reality for businesses and investors.
The question for 2014 is how many public clouds will survive the coming shakeout. Amazon's vicious price war strategy has given the world's dominant online retailer most of the market, so Google and Microsoft have had to match prices and features. IBM is promising "big things" for early next year, but it's unclear whether Big Blue can add any new features to make much of a difference.
If IBM can't make a dent in Amazon's lead, what are the chances for success for Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, or Rackspace? With Amazon's infrastructure system becoming an industry standard, same goes for VMware, Citrix, and RedHat?
Most of these competitors will be forced to find some refuge in the "private cloud." Private cloud is like desktop Linux or a Cowboys Super Bowl win: They tease it but it never seems to happen. Cloud costs much more to build than to buy, so most don't.
Because renting cloud is so cheap, many enterprises are moving key applications to "faux cloud" systems run by Salesforce.Com, NetSuite, or even Oracle, based on Oracle's proprietary services and databases.
There are savings, the software all updates together, it's the same inventory, customer management or human relations system as before, so why build a private cloud?
Can China change this equilibrium? Amazon is already going into China. Can fear of the National Security Agency (NSA)? Some countries will join Switzerland in demanding local hosting of local data. But will it make a difference?
Cloud was filled with acronyms. IaaS - Infrastructure as a Service. That's the basic cloud technology Amazon has been selling. PaaS - Platform as a Service. That adds the languages and tools you need to create Software as a Service (SaaS). SaaS is what you get when you use PaaS on an IaaS.
Coming Events of Interest
International CES - January 7th-10th in Las Vegas, NV. The International CES is the global stage for innovation reaching across global markets, connecting the industry and enabling CE innovations to grow and thrive. The International CES is owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $209 billion US consumer electronics industry.
CONNECTING TO THE CLOUD - January 8th in Las Vegas, NV. This DCIA Conference within CES will highlight the very latest advancements in cloud-based solutions that are now revolutionizing the consumer electronics (CE) sector. Special attention will be given to the impact on consumers, telecom industries, the media, and CE manufacturers of accessing and interacting with cloud-based services using connected devices.
CCISA 2014 – February 12th–14th in Turin, Italy. The second international special session on Cloud Computing and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and its Applications within the 22nd Euromicro International Conference on Parallel, Distributed, and Network-Based Processing.
CLOSER 2014 - April 3rd-5th in Barcelona, Spain. The Fourth International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science (CLOSER 2014) sets out to explore the emerging area of cloud computing, inspired by recent advances in network technologies.
NAB Show - April 5th-10th in Las Vegas, NV. From broadcasting to broader-casting, NAB Show has evolved over the last eight decades to continually lead this ever-changing industry. From creation to consumption, NAB Show has proudly served as the incubator for excellence — helping to breathe life into content everywhere.
Media Management in the Cloud — April 8th-9th in Las Vegas, NV. This two-day conference provides a senior management overview of how cloud-based solutions positively impact each stage of the content distribution chain, including production, delivery, and storage.
CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2014 - May 13th-14th in Washington, DC. Three major conference tracks will zero in on the latest advances in the application of cloud-based solutions in three key economic sectors: government, healthcare, and financial services.
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