Archive for the ‘Cloud Computing’ Category
Author: Bob Moul, 09.02.10, 09:00 AM EDT
Planning for integration can make a world of difference.
Berwyn, Penn. — Cloud computing has the potential to be transformative.
A recent survey of IT and business decision makers by international research firm Vanson Bourne found that nearly 7 out of 10 (68%) respondents think cloud computing will help their businesses recover from the recession. However, while “cloud computing” has become an increasingly popular IT buzz word, many enterprises overlook a key aspect in developing a cloud computing strategy that will provide a rapid return on investment and deliver the savings and productivity gains businesses believe will aid in their economic recovery: Integration.
Integration allows for the transfer of data between applications. These applications can either be operated by the company on-site, behind their firewall (known as on-premise applications) or operated by a third-party and accessed via the Internet (”in the cloud”). Integration has been a difficult process since the invention of business software. While cloud computing has changed how it’s done, it’s still a critical process to plan for and address when a company develops its cloud computing strategy.
While on-premise and cloud integration processes are similar, the solutions to accomplish these integrations are anything but. Just like business applications have moved to the cloud, there is a new class of integration platforms being delivered from the cloud as well. Cloud-based integration platforms (as opposed to integration done on-premise for cloud applications) offer unique advantages for enterprises. Speed, flexibility and the ability to tap into innovative new capabilities as they are developed are just some of the advantages to a cloud-based enterprise application integration strategy.
Here’s why:
Integration processes are distributed, while administration and management functions remain centrally controlled. Cloud-based integration platforms allow you to design, build, monitor, and manage integrations centrally (from the cloud), yet deploy actual integration processing where it needs to occur–either in the cloud or on premise. Separating where the actual data integration is completed while unifying the administrative and management functions eliminates unneeded complexity and increases the quality of data governance, monitoring, and reporting.
Integration is single-instance, multi-tenant. The term “single-instance, multi-tenant” means there is one version of a particular piece of software or application (single-instance) that is used by a number of different customers (multiple software “tenants”). This is one of the main concepts behind cloud computing–many different customers can use the same application, with their own data, over the Internet. Software updates and new features are easy and inexpensive to deploy to customers because everyone uses the same version of the software.
Cloud integration operates the same way–as a single-instance, multi-tenant platform. If integration relies on a more traditional, custom update and configuration approach, it inherits the same problems that have affected integration (and enterprise software as well) for decades. Updates are too slow, maintenance too expensive and the innovation and efficiency promised by cloud computing is lost.
Innovation is built in, with lower maintenance costs and more regular enhancements. Having only one copy of an application to maintain means that on-the-fly and instantaneous customizations are easier and less expensive, dramatically shifting the maintenance-to-development ratio toward the latter. Resources that would have normally been consumed in upkeep for multiple versions of applications can be used to develop new features and functions. The resulting productivity boost has given rise to what some have called the “continuous innovation cycle” of SaaS (software as a service).
Return on investment includes flexibility for future cloud-based initiatives. Using a cloud-based integration platform to address your current on-premise integration requirements has the added benefit of positioning the enterprise to support the adoption of cloud and SaaS-based applications in the future. Cloud computing services are only going to increase in number, and developing a solid cloud-based integration strategy at the start makes it easier to add additional services and boost return quickly and efficiently.
Cloud-based applications, while offering true cost savings and revenue enhancing possibilities, have introduced a new set of integration complexities that legacy integration products were not built to support. With a cloud integration platform, applications and data sources inside and outside your firewalls can easily be added to your IT infrastructure and your company can take full advantage of cloud computing.
Bob Moul is president and CEO of Boomi, a provider of SaaS and cloud integration technology.
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Virtual Global, a West Virginia corporation, is a provider of cloud-enabled enterprise IT solutions, including the TeamHost™ cloud platform for creating and deploying SaaS systems without programming; HealthCapsule™, a toolkit for creating secure Health IT solutions; TeamLeader™, a project management 2.0 software for tracking and reporting on virtual teams in real-time; and cloudipedia.com, a website that brings cloud computing information to the masses. Since 1995, Virtual Global’s platform technologies have served commercial and federal customers worldwide with enterprise-class IT needs.
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By Mike Lillis - 08/30/10 06:08 PM ET
The Obama administration on Monday named the first two companies with the power to approve the electronic health record (EHR) systems soon to be required of all providers.
The Chicago-based Certification Commission for Health Information Technology and the Drummond Group Inc. of Austin, Texas, can begin certifying the products of EHR vendors “immediately,” said David Blumenthal, the Department of Health and Human Services’s (HHS) national coordinator for health information technology.
“This is a crucial step,” Blumenthal said in a statement, “because it ensures that certified EHR products will be available to support the achievement of the required meaningful use objectives, that these products will be aligned with one another on key standards, and that doctors and hospitals can invest with confidence in these certified systems.”
As providers move toward mandatory adoption of EHR systems, HHS created an incentive program designed to encourage the transition. That program — created as part of last year’s economic stimulus bill — offers physicians up to $44,000 in Medicare incentives, and almost $64,000 in incentives through Medicaid. Hospitals, meanwhile, are eligible to receive millions of dollars.
To be eligible for the payments, providers must not only purchase the new equipment, but also meet a series of “meaningful use” benchmarks — standards designed to ensure that the systems aren’t just collecting dust, but are being utilized to improve patient care.
Certification is the first step of the process, designed to ensure that EHR systems are up to the task of enabling providers to meet the meaningful use standards.
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Virtual Global, a West Virginia corporation, is a provider of cloud-enabled enterprise IT solutions, including the TeamHost™ cloud platform for creating and deploying SaaS systems without programming; HealthCapsule™, a toolkit for creating secure Health IT solutions; TeamLeader™, a project management 2.0 software for tracking and reporting on virtual teams in real-time; and cloudipedia.com, a website that brings cloud computing information to the masses. Since 1995, Virtual Global’s platform technologies have served commercial and federal customers worldwide with enterprise-class IT needs.
Friday, August 6, 2010 by Sidney Angelos
Some small business owners mistakenly believe that enterprise cloud computing is something that benefits only large corporations. In fact, the small business often has much more to gain from the cloud. Since many startups and small businesses are strapped for cash, it makes sense for them to move to the cloud and avoid paying a large upfront investment in hardware and software.
With an enterprise cloud computing platform, the provider from whom you are “renting” the service will typically handle all maintenance and upgrade costs. If additional servers are required, the provider is the one who buys them. Reducing capital expenditures gives you more cash to use for other expenses, such as marketing, that can help your business to grow.
You never have to worry about running out of storage, because you are renting whatever storage space you need from the provider. You can adjust the amount you need as your business expands, and it is more or less instantly available, without the need to purchase hardware and configure it before you can use it. Cloud computing is scalable and flexible, so it can easily accommodate your business’s peak periods or steady growth.
Cloud computing allows small companies to have access to the same applications as the large corporations. Many of these are simply impractical for a smaller operation to purchase, either because of the expense or because they will be outdated long before a significant return on investment can be realized. Cloud-based applications are extremely flexible and can be tailored to your business’s needs, allowing you to get all the valuable the features without the expense.
You will also have access to your data from any location. All you need is an Internet connection. This means that whether you at home or on the road, you are not cut off from your information. The same is true for all of your authorized users, who no longer must be at their desks to log in to the program.
Back ups and disaster recovery are handled by the provider as well. You no longer have to worry about losing your data should your building suffer a fire or flood. Trips to safety deposit boxes to store your offsite back ups are also eliminated.
Qiligo, an Atlanta-based SEO firm, moved from in-house Microsoft Office to a cloud-based platform when CEO Rick Batchelor added a new staff member and realized he would need to shell out several hundred dollars to obtain another license of Office. He lists the advantages as fewer support problems, which translates to lower cost and increased productivity; ease in sharing documents with clients and offsite employees; better organization; and the ability to access data from mobile devices.
If you add up all that you are paying for software and additional licensing fees, the space to store your data, and the cost of an IT staff, you may find that enterprise cloud computing makes sense for your small business. Whether you opt for a completely integrated program that combines accounting functions, customer service, sales data integration and lead management, or a limited application to share spreadsheets and documents, the chances are that you will realize significant savings and be able to grow your business with ease.
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Virtual Global, a West Virginia corporation, is a provider of cloud-enabled enterprise IT solutions, including the TeamHost™ cloud platform for creating and deploying SaaS systems without programming; HealthCapsule™, a toolkit for creating secure Health IT solutions; TeamLeader™, a project management 2.0 software for tracking and reporting on virtual teams in real-time; and cloudipedia.com, a website that brings cloud computing information to the masses. Since 1995, Virtual Global’s platform technologies have served commercial and federal customers worldwide with enterprise-class IT needs.
by: David Blumenthal and Don Berwick
On July 13, with the issuance of two regulations defining and supporting “meaningful use” of electronic health records (EHRs), our nation began in earnest its journey toward ubiquitous and effective use of health information technology. In considering the significance of this moment, it is useful to remember the events and energies that have brought us to this starting point, and to understand the many different elements that will support this initiative.
The proximate event leading us to the July 13 announcement was the enactment of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, in February 2009. This act makes available unprecedented resources to support the nation’s transition to EHRs. In the months since its enactment, extensive preparations have been made. These constitute the operational supports for a multiyear, multiphase campaign of EHR adoption and use. But behind these preparations lies a longer and deeper history that has prepared us to seize this moment.
It was six years ago that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) was created. The recognition of the need for a federal leadership role reflected a growing professional and bipartisan consensus regarding the potential benefits of health information technology (IT). In the intervening years, we have also seen an increasing understanding of both the opportunities and the barriers to the dissemination of electronic health information systems.
Of even greater importance, it was a decade ago that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published findings regarding safety and quality of health care in America in a pair of groundbreaking studies: To Err Is Human and The Quality Chasm. Those findings altered the nation’s understanding of its health care system and the results it was achieving, as well as highlighting the great potential for improvement. The IOM reports played an important part in illustrating both the need for improved information systems in health care and the potential for electronic data to help fill that need.
Finally, it has been more than 20 years since pioneering health care institutions began developing early digital systems to support clinicians and improve patient care. Some of the successes and the failures along that road are well-known; others made their contribution with less notice. All of them deserve our appreciation. Both of the authors are beneficiaries of those efforts; both of us are able to testify now to the potential of health IT because we benefited in our practice of medicine from the efforts of early adopters and EHR technology developers.
This brief history demonstrates that our nation has undergone a long learning process in preparation for the initiative we are now undertaking. A review of the pages of Health Affairs itself would reveal a layered progression of discovery and understanding. For some years, we have reviewed the evidence and considered the questions: “Is the technology ready for significant national investment?” and “How is such investment to be made?”
HITECH: Answering The Questions
Congress answered those questions in HITECH, not only by providing significant new resources, but equally importantly by creating a multifaceted structure of standards, supports, and protections that reflect the learning of many years. Since enactment of HITECH, the ONC, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), other federal and state agencies, and a myriad of stakeholders have been working to assemble and launch the many elements of a national EHR initiative.
First, Congress found that universal adoption and meaningful use of EHRs can indeed yield unique and substantial benefits that are urgently needed in our health care system—to improve individual and public health, support providers in the delivery of care, empower patients, and improve cost-effectiveness. At the same time, the implementation of health IT must be synergistic with other efforts. A modernized health IT system will be a resource for the innovation, spread of ideas, rewards for excellence, patient empowerment, and transparency that are all envisioned in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
To help achieve those benefits, HITECH authorized significant federal expenditure over a ten-year period: up to an estimated $27 billion in incentive payments through Medicare and Medicaid to support clinicians and hospitals in the adoption and use of EHRs. This projected federal spending recognizes both the real financial challenges that providers face in acquiring EHR systems, as well as the potential benefits to the nation as a whole from such investment.
Second, Congress made clear that HITECH’s incentive payments are not intended merely to support acquisition of EHR technology for its own sake. Simple digitalization of information does not produce the benefits we seek. Instead, as outlined by the law, it is the “meaningful use” of EHR systems that creates new value—including the capacity to make a patient’s information available when and where it is needed, and the capacity to improve patient safety and quality of care. To achieve those goals for the meaningful use of EHRs, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) developed three companion regulations:
- A CMS regulation defining the meaningful use objectives that providers must meet in the initial years to qualify for incentive payments (announced July 13);
- An ONC regulation specifying the standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria that EHR systems must meet in order to be certified as capable of supporting the meaningful use requirements (announced July 13); and
- An additional ONC regulation initiating a rapid certification process, so that qualified EHR systems can be made available quickly, and providers can have confidence that the systems they acquire will successfully perform the functions required to obtain incentive payments (announced June 18.) A permanent certification process will be put in place shortly.
Third, HHS continues to build the protections necessary for an EHR-based health care system. Privacy and security are the bedrock of building trust, a “must-have” component for the success of health IT. On July 8, the HHS Office for Civil Rights announced a proposed rule strengthening protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
The proposed rule would expand individuals’ right to access their information and restrict certain disclosures of protected health information to health plans; extend the application of important privacy and security requirements to the business associates of entities already covered under HIPAA; establish new limitations on the use and disclosure of protected health information for marketing and fund-raising purposes; and prohibit the sale of protected health information without patient authorization.
Finally, Congress provided a variety of supports to assist providers in adopting and using EHRs, and to help enable EHR technology to keep moving forward:
- The Health Information Technology Extension Program ($643 million). A nationwide network of Regional Extension Centers (RECs) will provide technical assistance to clinicians, especially those who provide primary care services in smaller practices. Clinicians in such practices deliver the majority of primary care services but have the lowest rates of EHR adoption and the least access to resources to help them implement and use EHRs. The RECs’ goal is to provide outreach and support services to at least 100,000 high-priority primary care providers within two years. A Health IT Research Center will also provide support materials, especially to clinicians serving patient populations with special needs.
- The State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program ($564 million). This grant program is helping states to rapidly build capacity for exchanging health information. The ability to exchange information is vital to realizing the benefits of EHRs, and state leadership is essential to achieving this.
- The Health IT Workforce Training Program ($118 million). There is a national shortage of health IT professionals who can help clinicians and hospitals achieve meaningful use. The workforce training program will support education of health IT personnel, including curriculum development, funds for community college programs, and competency examinations.
- The Beacon Community Program ($235 million). This grant program has identified leading communities where health and IT goals are being combined to demonstrate improved health and care results. They will focus on achieving measurable health and efficiency improvements over a compressed time frame, and they will provide lessons that can be transferred to other communities in the United States.
- The Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) Program ($60 million). This grant program will fund research to address key issues for health IT use that could impede progress in adoption and meaningful use.
In addition, the ONC continues to develop a National Health Information Network, a secure means for exchanging health information to ensure that the information follows the patient.
Thus, since enactment of HITECH, a constellation of efforts has been assembled and coordinated to carry out a national initiative on EHR adoption. These go well beyond the simple authorization of bonus payments through Medicare and Medicaid. They focus on achieving health results through meaningful use of EHRs. They address the bedrock issues of privacy, security, and public trust in health IT. And they include new programs to support providers in adopting and using EHR systems.
July 13: Beginning The Journey In Earnest
July 13 marked the beginning of a national EHR initiative. On that day, with the many other elements in place, the final CMS regulation on incentive payments and meaningful use was announced, as was the final ONC regulation on standards and certification.
In the final CMS regulation, significant changes were made from the rule published last January, to better enable providers to meet the requirements of meaningful use and qualify for incentive payments. The total number of objectives to be met in Stage 1 (2011-12), as well as the thresholds associated with those objectives, were reduced.
Other changes were also made in response to the more than 2,000 comments received. We recognize the challenge that providers face in making the transition to EHRs. Our goals for EHR adoption and use remain high, but they must be attainable by the average clinician and hospital. We have sought to make our objectives for meaningful use both ambitious and achievable.
The issuance of these two final rules and the launch of a national incentive campaign affirm and carry out the goals set by Congress and the President. After many years of discussion and learning, the time for action is here. EHR systems will not be perfect as we embark on this transformation. We will learn and adjust as we move through this multiyear process. And for smaller practices and hospitals especially we want to offer assistance.
But we believe the time for waiting is over. EHR adoption and meaningful use hold the promise of safer, higher-quality care for patients. They will enable health care professionals to serve with greater effectiveness and confidence. They will enhance public health and make more cost-effective use of our nation’s unparalleled health care resources.
It is our privilege to be able to help our health care colleagues bring about these improvements. It is our pledge to work closely and productively with them to achieve these goals.
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Virtual Global, a West Virginia corporation, is a provider of cloud-enabled enterprise IT solutions, including the TeamHost™ cloud platform for creating and deploying SaaS systems without programming; HealthCapsule™, a toolkit for creating secure Health IT solutions; TeamLeader™, a project management 2.0 software for tracking and reporting on virtual teams in real-time; and cloudipedia.com, a website that brings cloud computing information to the masses. Since 1995, Virtual Global’s platform technologies have served commercial and federal customers worldwide with enterprise-class IT needs.
In the computer age, the ability to share health information would appear to be the least of the reform challenges facing the nation’s medical industry.
Virtual Global Technologies announces the availability of TeamLeader Lite , a free collaboration system for small businesses seeking to improve teamwork on a budget. The limited functionality TeamLeader release includes features for team management, interoffice tasking, project coordination, messaging, e-mail notifications, contact management and more. The Lite edition supports up to 25 users using an Access database.
Today’s teams move so fast that it’s almost impossible to keep track of everything going on,” says Cary Landis, CEO of Virtual Global Technologies. Now anybody can own a team collaboration solution and start building a knowledgebase at the same time.”
TeamLeader Lite includes several unique features. The Team View interface provides a visual representation of the whole team and everything they are working on. The Project View makes it easier to coordinate complex projects. Team members can collaborate with other team members while managing individual workloads and information products.
Managers and team members can begin sending tasks and attaching documents within minutes, following a simple configuration facilitated by the setup wizard. Team members are often surprised by the increased workload when they first install TeamLeader,” says Landis. A heightened awareness is usually one of the first signs of success. People become much more in tune with how they fit into the overall organization and projects.”
Businesses seeking a more advanced collaboration solution can upgrade TeamLeader at a later time. The Small Business Edition supports features for workflow, custom reporting, designing forms, electronic signatures, e-mail notifications, and decision support. Web access and SQL Server scalability are also available for larger organizations. TeamLeader is already used in such industries as manufacturing, engineering, technology, law enforcement and government.
Virtual Global is a full service technology company, offering custom TeamLeader implementations and software integration, including .NET migration. Virtual Global also supports a mature value added reseller program. For more information about TeamLeader or Virtual Global Technologies, visit www.virtualglobal.com.
By Jon Brodkin, Network World
July 28, 2010 10:51 AM ET
It’s a rite of passage for tech start-ups to announce their first multi-million dollar rounds of funding, a way to demonstrate viability in a hyper-competitive industry. But taking on funding from outside investors is, to a certain extent, becoming unnecessary and even financially irresponsible because of new opportunities made available by cloud computing, suggests John Seely Brown.
FAQ: Cloud computing, demystified
Brown, a former chief scientist at Xerox who now holds roles with the Deloitte Center for the Edge and the University of Southern California, delivered the opening address at the Burton Group Catalyst conference in San Diego Tuesday.
Brown said he’s puzzled by start-ups that take in large sums of money from angel investors, in the process giving away a large portion of their future value, and then spend that initial cash on an IT infrastructure that will be obsolete in five years. Instead of buying physical servers, start-ups today should simply rent virtual servers from the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, he said.
With the Amazon cloud, “I can now build a start-up at a fraction of the cost I used to build start-ups,” he said.
Brown discussed Animoto, a start-up that built an automated system for creating music videos, and was able to scale up incredibly quickly using the Amazon cloud. Animoto’s application went viral after being posted on Facebook, and because the company ran its infrastructure on Amazon it was able to scale from 50 servers to 5,000 servers in about 24 hours. Without that technology, and cloud management tools made by RightScale, Animoto would have had to pay for thousands of servers up front, and perhaps never use the majority of them.
“The sense of infinite speed to scale up made all the difference in the world,” Brown said. “They didn’t have to pay for the stuff they weren’t using.”
Labor productivity has improved remarkably over the past four decades, largely due to improvements in information technology, Brown said. At the same time, U.S. businesses’ return on assets has dropped because of intense global competition, diminishing brand loyalty, and a shift in power from businesses to customers, he said.
Some of the new cloud computing technologies may help restore lost profitability, Brown said, arguing that “cloud is much more disruptive than any of us have ever thought.”
Brown used the example of Skadden, a law firm in New York City, which noticed that a young group of lawyers was resolving cases in “a fraction of the time” needed by older counterparts, simply because they were using Twitter to exchange information when they ran into problems.
The cloud will only become more useful in the future as cloud networks begin to take advantage of powerful graphics processing units, he said.
“Today, on a single chip through Nvidia, we’re getting 512 processors,” Brown said. “I can take a 512-processor box sitting on a cheap Dell server, and I can build this entire thing for $2,000. But why would you want to be satisfied with 512? Why can’t you string 100 of these boxes together? Now I have basically 50,000 processors.”
The Burton Group Catalyst conference will last all week, tackling cloud computing, virtualization, security and many other topics.
Much of the show will focus on what is “the new normal” in IT, as technology pros adjust their role in the wake of a damaging recession. “We’ve made it through the worst of this thing and now is the time we start thinking about where to go next,” Burton Group analyst Chris Howard said.
But while cloud computing seems to offer a less-expensive alternative to many types of business systems, IT has to keep in mind that the cloud carries certain limitations and often increased risk.
“One of the reasons cloud computing seems so appealing to the business side is that it seems to them a silver bullet,” said Burton Group CEO Jamie Lewis. “I can circumvent all these hard problems and integration issues I run into internally. The question is, is that real?”
For the Burton Group’s part, Lewis pledged that the analyst firm will not be changed significantly by Gartner, the much larger analyst firm that acquired Burton Group earlier this year.
“While Gartner has acquired us we have not been devalued,” Lewis said. “Gartner bought us because what we do is very different from what Gartner has traditionally done.”
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News posted by Virtual Global:
Virtual Global, a West Virginia corporation, is a provider of cloud-enabled enterprise IT solutions, including the TeamHost™ cloud platform for creating and deploying SaaS systems without programming; HealthCapsule™, a toolkit for creating secure Health IT solutions; TeamLeader™, a project management 2.0 software for tracking and reporting on virtual teams in real-time; and cloudipedia.com, a website that brings cloud computing information to the masses. Since 1995, Virtual Global’s platform technologies have served commercial and federal customers worldwide with enterprise-class IT needs.
(Health and Human Services Department Documents and Publications/ContentWorks via COMTEX) — SUMMARY: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is issuing this final rule to complete the adoption of an initial set of standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria, and to more closely align such standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria with final meaningful use Stage 1 objectives and measures. Adopted certification criteria establish the required capabilities and specify the related standards and implementation specifications that certified electronic health record (EHR) technology will need to include to, at a minimum, support the achievement of meaningful use Stage 1 by eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and/or critical access hospitals (hereafter, references to “eligible hospitals” in this final rule shall mean “eligible hospitals and/or critical access hospitals”) under the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs. Complete EHRs and EHR Modules will be tested and certified according to adopted certification criteria to ensure that they have properly implemented adopted standards and implementation specifications and otherwise comply with the adopted certification criteria.
DATES: Effective Date: This final rule is effective August 27, 2010. The incorporation by reference of certain publications listed in the rule is approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of August 27, 2010.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Steven Posnack, Director, Federal Policy Division, Office of Policy and Planning, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 202-690-7151.
News posted by Virtual Global:
Virtual Global, a West Virginia corporation, is a provider of cloud-enabled enterprise IT solutions, including the TeamHost™ cloud platform for creating and deploying SaaS systems without programming; HealthCapsule™, a toolkit for creating secure Health IT solutions; TeamLeader™, a project management 2.0 software for tracking and reporting on virtual teams in real-time; and cloudipedia.com, a website that brings cloud computing information to the masses. Since 1995, Virtual Global’s platform technologies have served commercial and federal customers worldwide with enterprise-class IT needs.
Tags: By TOM SPOTH | Last Updated: July 27, 2010
Google’s package of cloud-computing applications is the first to be certified by the General Services Administration as meeting federal cybersecurity standards, the company announced Monday.
Google Apps — which includes well-known programs such as Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar — was approved by GSA chief information officer Casey Coleman last week under the 2002 Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA).
The certification only covers the use of Google Apps within GSA, but Google officials believe it gives the company a leg up in the race to move federal networks at other agencies into the cloud.
“We see this really as a green light for agencies to move forward with cloud computing,” David Mihalchik, head of business development for Google’s federal team, said Tuesday in an interview. “Given the leadership role GSA plays … we fully expect that other agencies will leverage this certification.”
GSA is heading up the Obama administration’s cloud-computing initiative, and last month it asked contractors for proposals to move GSA’s e-mail systems and other applications into the cloud.
Google’s certification is “something other agencies could look to, but not that they could use,” GSA spokeswoman Sahar Wali said. Specifically, other agencies could adopt the language used in GSA’s certification of Google, but they would still have to conduct their own negotiations with the company and prepare their own certification documents, Wali said.
Other companies, including Google rival Microsoft, have requested FISMA certification from GSA and are still going through the process.
This fall, GSA plans to set up a program called Fedramp that will speed adoption of cloud computing by allowing agencies to piggyback on each other’s cloud-related FISMA certifications. Existing certifications would give companies a head start once Fedramp is up and running.
The administration advocates cloud computing as a way to save money, improve performance and free up resources. Employees at agencies that move to a solution such as Google Apps would access their e-mail, calendars, address books and files such as spreadsheets and presentations via the Internet, rather than an application loaded on their hard drives.
Security has been a primary concern for federal department heads and chief information officers as they mull the transition to the cloud. To help alleviate those fears, Google will store government customers’ data in a system located in the continental United States and keep it separate from other Google customers’ information.
“Most agencies we have worked with have found that Google Apps provides at least equivalent, if not better, security than they have today,” Kripa Krishnan, technical program manager for Google Apps for Government, wrote in a blog post Monday.
Google Apps is already in use by more than a dozen federal agencies, but only for small projects that did not require FISMA certification, Mihalchik said.
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News posted by Virtual Global:
Virtual Global, a West Virginia corporation, is a provider of cloud-enabled enterprise IT solutions, including the TeamHost™ cloud platform for creating and deploying SaaS systems without programming; HealthCapsule™, a toolkit for creating secure Health IT solutions; TeamLeader™, a project management 2.0 software for tracking and reporting on virtual teams in real-time; and cloudipedia.com, a website that brings cloud computing information to the masses. Since 1995, Virtual Global’s platform technologies have served commercial and federal customers worldwide with enterprise-class IT needs.
By Stephen Cass : Technology Review
According to its advocates, cloud computing is poised to succeed where so many other attempts to deliver on-demand computing to anyone with a network connection have failed. Some skepticism is warranted. The history of the computer industry is littered with the remains of previous aspirants to this holy grail, from the time-sharing utilities envisioned in the 1960s and 1970s to the network computers of the 1990s (simple computers acting as graphical clients for software running on central servers) to the commercial grid systems of more recent years (aimed at turning clusters of servers into high-performance computers). But cloud computing draws strength from forces that could propel it beyond the ranks of the also-rans.
Rather than running software on dedicated hardware–a mail server here, a database host there–cloud systems can let software run on virtual machines, simulated systems generated at a moment’s notice in massive data centers (see “Water-Powered Computers“). If a customer’s needs expand, more virtual machines can be created and configured with ease, and should those needs later decline, the underlying hardware resources are returned to the data center’s pool.
No elaborate construction or development program is needed to kick-start such technology–the infrastructure is already in place and making money. Existing data centers, built to support the likes of Amazon and Google, can rent spare capacity, creating a collection of services that provide the illusion of infinite computing power and storage on tap. Technologies like virtualization (as explained in “Conjuring Clouds“), combined with growing market pressures to reduce capital spending (see “Virtual Computers, Real Money“), could revolutionize the software industry, enabling startups to offer online applications or services without investing much in storage, Web, or e-commerce infrastructure. End users could have seamless access to applications and data anywhere, on any device.
As reported in “Making Art Pay“, eliminating the need for infrastructure investment allows rapid development of applications. An ecosystem of startups has sprung up to provide platforms, tools, and expertise–recently joined by companies such as IBM and Intel (see “Companies to Watch“). As a still-maturing technology, however, cloud computing has yet to overcome certain challenges, such as guaranteeing the integrity and security of users’ data, providing a seamless user experience, and establishing standards to allow companies to move from provider to provider (see “The Standards Question“). A number of key players are driving many of the industry’s responses to these challenges, and open-source efforts and academic research consortiums are likely to play a role as well (see “Open-Source Projects and Research Consortiums“).
A survey of corporate software buyers by the 451 Group showed the use of public cloud computing increasing by more than 60 percent in the last quarter of 2008 over the previous two quarters, and International Data Corporation has predicted that business IT spending on cloud services will rise from $16 billion last year to $42 billion by 2012, setting up cloud computing as one of the few areas of growth in an otherwise gloomy economy.
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Virtual Global, a West Virginia corporation, is a provider of cloud-enabled enterprise IT solutions, including the TeamHost™ cloud platform for creating and deploying SaaS systems without programming; HealthCapsule™, a toolkit for creating secure Health IT solutions; TeamLeader™, a project management 2.0 software for tracking and reporting on virtual teams in real-time; and cloudipedia.com, a website that brings cloud computing information to the masses. Since 1995, Virtual Global’s platform technologies have served commercial and federal customers worldwide with enterprise-class IT needs.