Cloud Computing's Next Challenge

In 2009, cloud computing emerged from relative obscurity and became a driving force behind the U.S. government’s information technology strategy. Also in 2009—after studying this new IT resource for a year—NCOIC formed the Cloud Computing Working Group (CCWG) to examine current barriers to interoperability within and among clouds.

Although government and industry representatives still debate cloud computing’s risks, its potential user benefits are hard to ignore. These include increasing a network’s speed and agility; lowering its ownership, operating and maintenance costs; and simultaneously improving network security, privacy and confidentiality for people who use that network. In terms of cost benefits alone, the U.S. government recently estimated that cloud computing could save the federal enterprise billions of dollars each year. For its part, some in industry see cloud computing as an opportunity to accelerate government transformation and transparency—if the risks can be mitigated.

The U.S. government unveiled a new federal cloud initiative last year. Vivik Kundra, the federal chief information officer, highlighted major planks in that initiative. One was the launch of www.apps .gov—a cloud computing service that includes business, social media and productivity applications. Critical success factors include policy planning and architecture, consisting of centralized certifications, target architectures and formal security, privacy, and procurement processes.

The successful deployment of this bold move will depend on the realization of cloud interoperability. In a world of many and varied cloud-enabled computing solutions, government agencies must be able to move freely and securely from one cloud to another, no matter which vendor provides it.

HYBRID CLOUD COMPUTING

NCOIC has determined that interoperability between cloud environments and portability across clouds are key issues. Consequently, it formed the CCWG as a forum in which global industry can share best practices and collaborate with other cloud computing groups to overcome interoperability and portability barriers. The CCWG’s initial effort focuses on developing a hybrid cloud computing (HCC) capability pattern.

This net-centric pattern contains a set of instructions based on expert guidance that, when applied correctly, gives developers pragmatic advice about building interoperable products and systems. It also includes recommendations about which open standards developers should use in conjunction with the pattern.

NCOIC’s HCC capability pattern is designed to strike the optimal balance between cloud computing’s benefits and risks.

The HCC capability pattern consists of three primary characteristics:

• On-premise enterprise systems that store and secure private and confidential data behind the enterprise’s firewall. When data is in motion, encryption and cryptographic methods maintain security.
• Public cloud capabilities enabled via the Internet, with no cost for additional hardware. Deployment speed and reach improves; elastic resources are delivered and priced according to usage.
• Wi-Fi and 3G network services extend benefits to users of mobile and wireless handheld devices.

The HCC pattern could also support “tactical cloud computing,” which is typically defined as localized, short-lived information access and processing infrastructures. Examples include:

• “Cloud bursting” to support cyclic data-processing requirements
• Cloud-based collaboration environments
• Virtually binding shipboard IT infrastructures to create a battle group infrastructure-as-a-service platform
• Virtually binding land vehicle-based servers and data storage resources to create battlefield data centers
• Dynamic provisioning of virtual cloud-based servers to support automated exploitation and dissemination of data from unmanned aerial vehicles.

When developed and vetted by its members, NCOIC will publish the HCC pattern at its Website, www.ncoic.org, where the document will be available free of charge.

NCOIC’s next step is to characterize general requirements for cloud computing systems by applying systems, capabilities, operations, programs and enterprises (SCOPE) modeling. SCOPE’s quantitative and qualitative measurements will help NCOIC member companies, government agencies, standards organizations and others establish cloud computing interoperability dimensions. ♦

Kevin Jackson is engineering fellow, NJVC, and chairman of the NCOIC Cloud Computing Working Group. Melvin Greer is a senior research engineer and cloud computing chief architect at Lockheed Martin, and a member of NCOIC’s Cloud Computing Working Group.

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melvin.greer@lmco.com