March 29, 2024

The Cloud: Effectivness Overcomes Obstacles

Posted for The Patuxent Partnership

As the US military slowly transitions into Cloud Computing, a symposium of DoD leaders and cloud experts gathered five miles north of NAS:Patuxent River and assured more than 100 attendees that the estimable hurdles would be overcome.

Transitioning to cloud computing won’t happen overnight and ultimately will have nothing to do with cost efficiencies, the speakers emphasized throughout the day. However, they also said,  the ultimate effectiveness of cloud computing will propel the eventual transition.

Hosted by The Patuxent Partnership at the Southern Maryland Higher Education Center, the Cloud Symposium brought together more than a dozen DoD and industry leaders committed to bringing the federal government, particularly the US military, into a cloud computing environment as fast as technically feasible.

The symposium, subtitled Cloud Computing Defined: Seeking Clarity and Understanding, was structured around three main elements:

  • Overcoming Cloud Barriers
  • The Value Proposition of Cloud Computing
  • Migrating into the Cloud: What you need to know; practical steps for moving forward.

The barriers are significant and in many ways still nebulous. For example, upfront costs will not render a transition to cloud computing a cost efficient alternative in the short-run, a difficult premise in the best of times, let alone in the current climate of sequestration and budget cuts. But more complicated than the dollar per dollar calculations will be that cloud computing values will demand a completely different method of acquisition than currently employed by the military.

So the value propositions are going to be difficult to equate in the beginning, but no matter how it comes down, said David M. Brown, Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Federal Business Development, the capabilities and agility the cloud will deliver will prevail.   Brig Gen Steve Spano, USAF (ret), concurred. He said when a decision can be reached in minutes and not hours, not months, “that’s the difference between life and death on the battlefield.”

Migrating forward, the third prong of the all-day symposium, now that’s going to be complicated. Industry and government and specifically DoD are developing levels and layers of security specifications for the cloud. Levels and layers of government access to the levels and layers of the specifications are being developed. The same security versus access questions are being applied to government contractors and industry in general. Some portions of computing will never be able to move to the cloud. Other elements may be better left off the cloud.  Migrating forward is going to be tough.

But despite the risks regarding cybersecurity, complications of meshing new and always changing technology with government, and the massive task to transition from hardware solutions to cloud solutions, DoD and industry speakers were unanimous in their acceptance that the value benefits of cloud computing for future effectiveness will outstrip the difficulties in achieving it.

The conviction of the panelists boiled down to a single premise: The expanded effectiveness in the war-fighting arena is not merely huge, it is imperative in today’s world.

Among the attending symposium speakers and leaders were Bonnie Green, Executive Director, The Patuxent Partnership;  Larry Hollingsworth, SES, Director, Cyber Warfare, NAVAIR; Rob Vietmeyer, Lead for Cloud Computing and Big Data, Office of the DoD Chief Information Officer; Louis A. Lucarelli, Deputy CIO / AIR 7.2.2, NAVAIR; Derek Gabbard  Principal Solutions Architect, Smartronix, Inc.; Maj Gen James Poss, USAF (ret), Director of Strategic Initiatives, High Performance Computing Collaboratory at Mississippi State University; Lt Gen Peter M. Cuviello, USA (ret); Tom Bendien, Director, Federal SoftLayer Cloud Technology, IBM;  Nigel LeBlanc, Cyber/UAS Veteran Outreach Coordinator; Maryland Department of Business & Economic Development; Brig Gen Steve Spano, USAF (ret); David M. Brown, Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Federal Business Development; Brett Stafford, Director, DoD Strategic Programs, EMC Federal; Mark Fox, DoD Programs, Amazon; Adam Crosby, IA Lead, CSI SPAWAR, (Deloitte); CAPT Paul Tortora, Director, Center for Cyber Security Studies, United States Naval Academy; RADM Steve Eastburg, USN (ret), Executive Vice President, Engineering Solutions at Smartronix, Inc.

 

Leave A Comment