[Infowarrior] - Tech Firms Seek to Get Agencies on Board With Cloud Computing

[Richard Forno]

Tech Firms Seek to Get Agencies on Board With Cloud Computing

By Kim Hart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 31, 2009; A13

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/30/AR2009033002848_pf.html

Consumers save their e-mail and documents on Google's data centers,  
put their photos on Flickr and store their social lives on Facebook.  
Now a host of companies including Amazon and Microsoft wants  
government agencies to similarly house data on their servers as a way  
to cut costs and boost efficiency.

But federal officials say it's one thing to file away e-mailed jokes  
from friends, and another to store government data on public servers  
that could be vulnerable to security breaches.

The push toward "cloud computing," so named because data and software  
is housed in remote data centers rather than on-site servers, is the  
latest consumer technology to migrate to the ranks of government.  
Companies such as Amazon and Salesforce, which do not typically sell  
services to the government, want a piece of the business.

Google opened a Reston office last year to sell applications such as  
Google Docs to federal employees. Silicon Valley-based Salesforce,  
which has focused on selling to corporations, established a team  
dedicated to government contracting. Microsoft spent $2.3 billion in  
2007 to build data centers for cloud computing, and IBM, Sun  
Microsystems and HP want to provide the government cloud.

"We're all putting our lives on the Internet," said Zach Nelson, chief  
executive of online application provider NetSuite, which has shifted  
its focus to federal sales. "If it works for business, why not for  
government?"

Instead of storing information on computers, an agency would store e- 
mail and other data on servers maintained by companies such as Amazon  
or IBM. Employees would access information through an Internet  
browser, and in many cases from outside the office, just like they  
would access a Hotmail account.

Already, the Defense Department's technology arm has set up a cloud to  
let the military rent storage space or use remote software programs.  
But skeptics say information is not protected on public servers. Some  
worry that data may be impossible to remove after it has been socked  
away in commercial data centers. Unlike destroying hard drives to  
erase sensitive data, traces could remain on outside servers for years.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest group,  
two weeks ago asked the Federal Trade Commission to bar Google from  
offering its online tools to consumers until it takes necessary steps  
to safeguard consumer data. The complaint comes after reports that  
Google inadvertently shared access to users' documents stored online.

Deniece Peterson, principal analyst for market research firm Input,  
said storing personal information such as health records or Social  
Security numbers in the "cloud" could spark concern for consumers.

Many consumers, she said, think personal information should be housed  
on private government networks, rather than a larger one shared by a  
number of parties.

Moving information "to the cloud" would mean that government agencies  
would have to trust third parties to provide security support, store  
and organize the information and make sure only authorized employees  
can access it.

"The government may be outsourcing functions to contractors now, but  
this takes it to a whole new level," said Jimmy Lin, assistant  
professor of information studies at the University of Maryland, which  
has received funding from Google and IBM to research cloud computing.

"And what happens if Google gets hacked by a third party?" he said.  
"The answer is, nobody knows."

Storing information on servers run by Amazon or Google could prove to  
be safer than storing it on government-owned databases, said Peter  
Mell of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which  
advises federal officials on technology. Large providers typically  
have more resources to ward off security threats because their  
business depends on it, Mell said. Agencies, on the other hand, often  
can't afford to hire as many employees to keep watch over the servers.

If data storage, security and software services are handled by a third  
party, agencies can spend less on buying their own servers and hiring  
employees to maintain them. In addition, agencies can rent extra  
capacity on those servers when they need more computing power instead  
of buying extra equipment they only use every once in a while.

Proponents say cloud computing could mean a big shift for traditional  
government IT providers, such as defense contractors SAIC and CACI.

"We think this thing is going to fundamentally change the way we  
leverage, procure and utilize IT," said Michael Farber, a Booz Allen  
Hamilton vice president. "We're not looking to buy packaged software  
anymore -- we're downloading and subscribing to things."

Acumen Solutions, a Vienna-based technology consulting firm, has  
launched a public-sector cloud-computing practice. Apptis, an IT  
services company in Chantilly, changed its strategy last year to focus  
on cloud computing rather than helping agencies integrate disparate  
software systems.

The U.S. Census Bureau is using Salesforce's cloud to manage the  
activities of about 100,000 partner organizations around the country.  
But it will store personal information gathered from citizens on its  
own private servers.

"People have to trust us, otherwise they won't give us the data," said  
J.R. Wycinsky, a Census program analyst.

One major hurdle is that there are no uniform standards for cloud  
providers. NIST is working with six industry consortiums to develop  
requirements for how companies can handle government information and  
how the different "clouds" can share information.

Yesterday, IBM spearheaded an effort with companies including Cisco  
and Rackspace to make their cloud computing technologies work together  
around common standards, in part to prevent agencies from being locked  
into working with a single cloud provider.

"Whenever we see new technology, security people are very leery," Mell  
said.

Firing up fewer servers is also more energy-efficient, IT companies  
say. "Getting rid of one server is the equivalent of taking one and a  
half cars off the road for a year," said Aileen Black, director of  
federal sales for Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware. "Imagine the impact  
of taking 450 servers away."