NJVC Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies

Overview:
Implementation of Cloud
Computing Solutions in Federal
Agencies

An NJVC Executive White Paper

Kevin L. Jackson
General Manager, Cloud Services

September 2011

NJVC and Driven by Your Mission are registered trademarks of NJVC, LLC. © 2011 NJVC, All Rights Reserved 1

Executive Summary

Cloud computing is a game changer. The value of the new approach of cloud computing to the
provisioning and consuming information technology lies within its ability to enable more efficient
and effective information sharing. Its merit is not just in cost savings, but in enhanced mission and
business enhancements and improved allocation of resources. Its characteristics not only
dramatically transform how an IT infrastructure is managed, but also the traditional roles of
enterprise IT professionals to a more service management orientation—as they become
responsible for helping their internal customers better use the externally provided IT services.
Building a cloud computing roadmap is essential to unlocking the value of the cloud in a predictable
fashion with acceptable risk. This paper outlines the essential steps to constructing a solid cloud
computing roadmap.

As a young approach, cloud computing is not without its
challenges. Few established tools, procedures and formats,
potential risks exist. Primary challenges exist in security
controls—particularly related to the protection of sensitive
data—lack of federal regulations and compliance standards, and
data sovereignty.

The benefits of cloud computing are recognized by the federal
government, including the defense and intelligence
communities. Dialogue on cloud computing has been ongoing
within the government for years, but agencies are still in the
early stages of implementing and adopting this new IT
approach. The Obama administration has publicly identified
cloud computing as a viable solution to help cut the federal
budget. The administration adopted a “cloud-first policy” as part
of its 25-point IT reform plan, which mandates all federal
agencies to develop and implement one cloud-based solution by
December 2011 and three such solutions by June 2012. For the
federal government, the evolution to the cloud is not something
to consider in the future—it is something to put into operation
today.

The Obama administration has publicly identified cloud computing as a viable solution to help cut the
federal budget. The administration adopted a “cloud-first” policy as part of its 25-point IT reform plan
… For the federal government, the evolution to the cloud is not something to consider in the future—
it is something to put into operation today.

The government can learn many lessons from the private sector pertaining to the implementation
of cloud computing solutions, as the private sector embarked on the journey to the cloud some time
ago. These valuable lessons include the need to expect a multi-year transition to the cloud, use a
consistent cloud opportunity identification process to reduce the risk of project failure and
formulate appropriate metrics (economic, operational and service) that are directly tied to mission.


Use of a gate-driven cloud adoption process designed to terminate failed projects early in the
project lifecycle and deliver measurable capabilities within a quick timeframe is recommended.

The defense and intelligence communities require utility computing methods that scale on demand
and enable self discovery and self-service access to secure, timely and relevant information in
support of mission. Designing software independence from the hardware through the use of cloud
computing solutions allows an operating system, applications and data to “live” across the
enterprise and is fundamental to the transformation of compute, storage and network functionality.

Facing an estimated $178 billion in budget cuts during the next several years, the Department of
Defense is exploring a number of administrative and structural cost-cutting measures—and IT is
one of the first areas for consideration. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently stated that the
agency is reviewing how to reform how it currently uses IT, which costs the agency approximately
$37 billion annually. DoD is in the process of consolidating hundreds of data centers and utilizing
cloud computing in this shift, and the fact that the defense community is beginning to explore cloud
computing through various smaller-scale projects is promising to proponents.

For intelligence professionals, the use of cloud computing can not only make the automation of the
interpretation of documents and translation of data into operationally relevant entities and events
possible, but it enables real-time continuous processing of the now digital document flow of our
adversaries. This commodity also removes the human from this tedious task, allowing intelligence
professionals to apply higher order professional analysis and insight.

For intelligence professionals, the use of cloud computing can not only make the automation of the
interpretation of documents and translation of data into operationally relevant entities and events
possible, but it enables real-time continuous processing of the now digital document flow of our
adversaries.

The human-based documentation exploitation process has led to a reliance on “operationally
proven” processes and filters. Instantiated by the use of multi-page structure query language (e.g.,
Boolean) and the ubiquitous goal of obtaining an appropriate “working set” of data, these processes
were born from the need to meet critical decision timelines within a computationally inadequate
environment. Cloud techniques and technologies can now be used to work on all the data. And with
an ability to leverage the power of a supercomputer at will, the working set requirement is now an
anachronism and critical decision timelines can now be more easily met.

Cloud computing can uniquely address important issues associated with mission support—
particularly related to its ability to remove information silos among various organizations that have
joined forces on the same mission. Moving IT operations to the cloud assists in enhanced
collaboration to meet mission needs. It is critical to our national defense. As a bonus, cloud
computing also can improve IT enterprise efficiencies and incur marked cost savings during project
lifecycles to alleviate some of the pressure of budget reductions for the defense and intelligence
agencies.


Introduction

Cloud computing is a new approach in the provisioning and consumption of information technology
(IT). While technology is a crucial component, the real value of cloud computing lies in its ability to
enable new capabilities or in the execution of current capabilities in more efficient and effective
ways.

Although the current hype around cloud computing has focused on expected cost savings, the true
value is really found in the mission and business enhancements these techniques can provide.
When properly deployed, the cloud computing model provides greatly enhanced mission and
business capability without a commensurate increase in resource (time, people or money)
expenditures.

Cloud Computing: Changing the Game

The use of commodity components, coupled with highly automated controls, enable cloud
computing.1 These characteristics also enable the economic model that makes it so disruptive to the
status quo. As an example, the software-as-a-service cloud delivery model typically does not
require any advance usage commitment or long-term contractual arrangements. SaaS not only
changes the typical software vendor business model, but also radically changes the strategy,
budgeting, buying and management options for the buyer. When Salesforce.com proved the
viability of SaaS, the software subscription model was instantly endangered as a profitable business
model. Amazon Web Services is similarly attacking data center hosting with its Virtual Private
Datacenter Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering.

Different cloud computing deployment models are actually changing what it means to be an IT
professional … This transition puts the enterprise IT professional into a service management role,
responsible for helping his or her internal customers better use externally provided IT services.

Looking at this phenomenon from another angle, different cloud computing deployment models are
actually changing what it means to be an IT professional. Since the days of the first computer, IT
workers have prided themselves in their ability to design, build, operate and fix the enterprise
hardware and software components that comprise the IT lifeblood of organizations—both in the
public and private sectors. These tightly knit teams worked hard to keep these custom-made
platforms updated, patched and ready to meet daily business and mission requirements. In the
cloud computing world, IT infrastructure that is not delivering differentiating value is viewed as
worthless cost. Critical business applications like email, Customer Resource Management (CRM),
Human Resource Management and Enterprise Resource Planning are being routed to more capable
cloud providers of these same services. This transition puts the enterprise IT professional into a
service management role, responsible for helping his or her internal customers better use
externally provided IT services. The new enterprise IT department is more a services organization
than the traditional delivery organization.


The new cloud economic model also radically changes the view of what’s actually possible.
Traditional IT procurement and provisioning processes have historically driven timelines
associated with the delivery or fielding of improved information and data processing capabilities.
Multiple threads of development, test, training and maintenance can also tax an organization’s
short- and long-term financial resources. IaaS and Platform as a Service options can not only
eliminate or limit capital expenditures, but can reduce or eliminate the expectation of operations
and sustainment costs. The time required to realize mission or business value also is substantially
reduced. With these differences, the impossible can suddenly become not only possible, but often
can lead to new mission capabilities or brand-new cloud-enabled, revenue-generating businesses.

Challenges of Cloud Computing

Despite the myriad benefits of cloud computing solutions, several challenges still exist. Being a
young industry, there are few tools, procedures or standard data formats or service interfaces in
place to guarantee data, computer application and service portability. As evidenced with the recent
situation involving the services failure of Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, outages can be a
potential risk—and can have widespread implications for consumers of cloud services. This risk
becomes even more severe if a mission-critical environment could be impacted.

A benefit as well as a challenge, security concerns have also slowed the widespread adoption of
cloud computing. A variety of security concerns exist. According to the article, “Three Cloud
Computing Risks to Consider,” in Information Security Magazine (June 2009), “the logging and
auditing controls provided by some [cloud] vendors are not yet as robust as the logging providing
within enterprises and enterprise applications,” which can put critical and sensitive data and
information at risk. Security, of course, becomes increasingly critical in defense and intelligence IT
environments.

For the government market, the lack of regulations and compliance standards are also cause for
concern. Currently, no federal regulations are in place to govern cloud computing, and according to
an April 2011 Information Systems Audit and Control Association survey of 1,800 Chief Information
Officers (CIOs), compliance is a top risk. Approximately 30 percent of the CIOs surveyed said that
“compliance projects are the biggest driver for IT risk-related projects”—particularly in public
clouds. Specific to federal environments, data sovereignty is a challenge. According to a speech
given by former Federal CIO Vivek Kundra at an April 7, 2010, National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) forum," [Data sovereignty] is not going to be a question of technology. [Data
sovereignty] is going to be a question of international law, and treaties that we will need to engage
in the coming years.” CIO Kundra later added: “We've got a very diverse interpretation and a very
diverse perspective when it comes to privacy or international security, if you look at our
neighbors—Canada or Mexico—versus what's happening in the European Union.”


Cloud Computing and the Federal Government

The Obama administration has identified cloud computing as a means to achieve savings in IT
budgets across federal agencies—across the board—and to address various other challenges (e.g.,
delays to capabilities and other inefficiencies) that have negatively impacted IT implementations. In
his Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 budget, President Barack Obama ordered a three-year freeze in spending
for non-defense, intelligence and national security programs and the trimming of the budgets of
some federal agencies by five percent. At a July 1, 2010, House subcommittee hearing, CIO Kundra
testified: “To do more than less [in terms for federal spending], we need game changing
technologies. Cloud computing is one such technology.”

The federal government is in the early stages of a decade-long process to “move to the cloud,” but
has taken definitive steps in its adoption. Several key milestones have been achieved during the
past two years in support of this effort:
 2009: Establishment of the General Services Administration (GSA) Cloud Computing
Program Office to coordinate the government’s cloud computing efforts; assembly of a
public-private sector Industry Summit to discuss the benefits and risks of cloud computing;
and creation of Security and Standards Working Groups to encourage collaboration and
discussion on cloud computing by federal agencies
 2010: Commencement of the development of federal security certification and
accreditation processes for cloud services; convening of a NIST-hosted, public-private
sector “Cloud Computing Forum and Workshop” to collaboratively develop cloud standards;
release of 25-point federal IT reform plan; announcement by GSA and Federal Chief
Information Officers Council on the requirements for the Federal Risk and Authorization
Management Program, a standard approach for the federal government to access and
authorize secure cloud-computing services and products
 2011: Release of the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy (per the Obama administration’s
25-point IT reform plan) and award of 12 GSA IaaS blanket purchase agreements

The Obama administration
adopted a “cloud-first” policy as
part of its earlier referenced 25-
point federal IT reform plan. This
plan was developed after
extensive review of federal IT
projects with a particularly hard
eye on 26 large-scale projects at
risk due to being over budget and
behind schedule. This policy is part
of the 2012 budget process.
Source: 25-Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal
One of the first steps in the “cloud-first” Information Technology Management, February 2009
adoption is the requirement for every
federal agency to develop and implement one cloud-based solution by December 2011 and three
cloud-based solutions by June 2012. As of April 2011, agencies are making progress in this
endeavor.


During a special White House event, CIO Kundra said that CIOs from 15 agencies have already
informed the Office of Management and Budget that they will evolve to cloud-based email solutions
by the December 2011 deadline.

Cloud computing also has been identified by the Obama
administration as a viable solution to the administration’s
challenge to cut the federal budget via the consolidation of
800 of the government’s 2,094 data centers by 2015. CIO
Kundra has specifically identified cloud computing as a
central measure to reduce the costs and increase the
efficiencies of federal data centers. Cost savings are already
being achieved. At an April 12, 2011 Senate subcommittee
hearing, Dave McClure, Associate Administrator, GSA Office
of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, testified that
the consolidation of just 12 data centers to three will save $2
million a year. Mr. McClure also testified that GSA’s move to a
cloud-based email system will save $15 million over the
Source: “Federal Cloud Computing Strategy,” Office of the U.S.
next five years.
Chief Information Officer, Executive Office of the President of the
United States, Feb. 14, 2011
So, whether or not federal agency CIOs support cloud
computing, the evolution to the cloud in their specific IT environments is not something to consider
in the future: it is something to undertake today—and is mandated. Therefore, the way the federal
government conceives of IT operations must change from traditional practices and operating
systems to new enterprise resource controls, standards and business processes and operations.
With the computing stacks functioning as a utility within the infrastructure as a platform and new
business processes in place, highly automated resources provide the extensible platform needed to
meet agency or mission needs.

Cloud Transition Lessons Learned

While the benefits and value of the federal cloud computing policy can be debated, the world’s
transition to cloud computing as an integral component of any IT infrastructure cannot be denied.
The prudent government executive should, therefore, heed the lessons learned from the many
private industry corporations that already have miles behind them on this journey.

When identifying a potential cloud computing project, one should always count on a multi-year
transition. Organizations should always use a consistent cloud opportunity identification process to
reduce the risk of project failure by leveraging data from successful cloud implementations. Clients
need to determine set metrics (economic, operational and service) with direct linkage to specific
mission requirement(s). Use of a gate-driven cloud adoption process designed to terminate failed
projects early in the project lifecycle and deliver measurable capabilities within a quick timeframe
(weeks—not years) is highly recommended.


A risk mitigation plan also must be formalized that addresses each of the following concerns:2
 Loss of Governance. When moving to a cloud environment, clients relinquish control to the
CP on a number of security-related issues. A gap in security defenses may also exist as
service level agreements may not adequately address CP-related security requirements.
 Portability. Issues related to provider lock in are outlined in the Challenges section of this
white paper on page 5.
 Isolation Failure. Multi-tenancy and collaboration are at the core of cloud computing.
Resource isolation failure addresses mechanisms separating storage, memory, routing and
reputation among different clients on the same cloud (e.g., guest-hopping attacks).
However, it must be noted that attacks on these mechanisms are not as pervasive and much
more difficult to attempt versus attacks on traditional operating systems.
 Compliance Risks. Investments in certifications (e.g., industry standard or regulatory
requirements) may be compromised or lost when moving to the cloud.
 Management Interface Compromise. Security is an issue with client management
interfaces with the public cloud provider. The reason? These services are provided via the
internet and permit access to a larger set of resources than traditional operating systems.
Security risk can dramatically increase when this is combined with remote access and web
browser vulnerabilities.
 Data Protection. It may be difficult for clients to effectively check the data-handling
practices of their CPs to ensure critical and sensitive data is handled lawfully and ethically.
This problem can be aggravated in cases of multiple transfers of data (e.g., between
federated clouds). However, it must be noted that some CPs share information on their
data-handling practices with clients and others offer certification summaries on their data
processing and data security activities and their various security controls (e.g., Statement
on Auditing Standards 70 Certification.
 Insecure or Incomplete Data Deletion. As with most operating systems, when a request
to remove a cloud resource is made, a true erase of data may not happen. Adequate or
timely data deletion also may not be feasible (or undesirable from a client perspective)
because extra copies of data are stored but not readily available or the disk to be destroyed
also houses other data from other clients. When multi-tenancies and the reuse of hardware
resources are added to the mix, this risk can increase.
 Malicious Insider. Cloud architectures necessitate the creation of certain staff positions
(e.g., CP system administrators and managed security service providers) that can be
extremely high risk in terms of internal security threats.

Frequently observed signs for failure should be avoided
 Lack of formal planning process
 Missing or poor IT governance
 Poor or missing responsibility matrix
 Neglecting the human resource management challenges
 No established program/project management office
 Missing inventory of assets
 Lack of executive oversight
 Lack of established service level agreements (especially in
multiple cloud provider scenarios)


Creating a Cloud Computing Roadmap for Federal Agencies

First Steps

According to, GovCloud: Cloud Computing for the Business of Government, when a government
agency is ready to undertake the implementation of a cloud-based solution, it must determine
which IT services, business functions and processes to deploy in the cloud environment. A five-year
roadmap should be created that includes the desired order to move each of the services to the cloud
for each year during that time period.3 Requirements for each service to be deployed in the cloud
should be developed and a cost/benefits analysis performed to establish the rationale why each
targeted service should move to the cloud.

Implementation of a Low-Risk Test Case

A low-risk test case should be implemented prior to undertaking a wholesale transfer of services to
the cloud.4 This is harder than it may sound as some IT services that may seem simple to deploy to
the cloud are not so easy. Four questions should be asked (and answered) to decide which IT
services are best suited to live in the cloud5:

1. Can compliance requirements be balanced with other IT
prioirities?
2. Is this an IT function or service the agency has
mastered?
3. Can the agency use a standardized service?
4. Is the test case easily implementable?

A misconception may exist that just because an application or service being deployed to the cloud
isn’t mission critical, the process will be simple and straightforward. This is not always true. If the
agency is new to the cloud and wishes to establish a private cloud it will take time to determine the
appropriate split of responsibilities between the service provider and the agency’s IT team.6
Compliance and liability issues can also be tricky, as defining compliance conditions and
establishing liability for intellectual property protection with cloud vendors reach well beyond the
IT world—and, as such, with so many moving parts may take time to properly address and
resolved.7 NIST has launched the U.S. Government Cloud Computing Business Case Working Group
to assist agencies with the development of cloud-compatible user cases. Email, geospatial data
exchange and services management are among the first user cases currently in development.


Additional Recommendations

The authors of GovCloud: Cloud Computing for the Business of Government also offer seven
recommendations that must be considered during the development and implementation of an
agency’s cloud roadmap:

 Own the information, even if you own nothing else. An agency must claim its right to
own the information even if it doesn’t own the infrastructure, application or service
associated with that information. Any agency is liable for its information—regardless of
where it lives—and some education will likely be needed about this fact among its IT team.
While it may be unrealistic to prevent departments from provisioning their own cloud
application, the agency must institute policies and procedures to ensure it can monitor how
information deployed to the cloud is managed. As it is often hard to envision future uses of
information, it also is recommended that agencies make sure cloud-dwelling data can be
brought back into the enterprise if needed.
 Don’t take terminology for granted. It is vital to ensure that important terminology is
defined in the same way by the agency and the cloud service provider—room for different
interpretation always exists. A review of information governance policies must take place to
identify the areas of highest risk so authoritative definitions for vocabulary in these areas
can be developed and adopted.
 Hope for standards, but prepare to integrate. In short, the cloud is young and isn’t
established enough to have developed standard specifications for platform interoperability
and data exchange. Strategic groundwork for future data integration needs to be laid in the
early stages of any movement to the cloud. Agencies must insist that their cloud service
providers provide clear documentation on the data formats and schemas used for
information storage in their systems.
 Control cloud platform proliferation. Agencies should minimize the number of different
cloud platforms that require support to limit information fragmentation and decrease the
chance of a future huge integration effort. To the greatest extent possible, an agency’s IT
team should help departments look for shared requirements in standardized business
functions. The team can identify cloud platforms that meet these needs and consolidate the
agency’s services on them, when possible. Not only will the ability to share information
increase, this will result in greater leverage when negotiating contract terms and pricing.
 Make the information “cloud ready.” Agencies that organize their data sets well enough
for use across multiple platforms will be best positioned to take advantage of cloud services,
and will be better able to deploy enterprise information to the cloud more easily.IT teams
need to get into the habit of encrypting data into one common format (probably XML)—a
process even more important if data moves through externally operated resources to the
cloud.
 Master solution integration. The shift to the cloud requires IT professionals to change
their focus from owning and operating enterprise systems to becoming master information
service integrators. In addition to linking legacy databases to SaaS, IT teams need to connect
their private and public clouds to create a seamless technology environment that works like
a single cloud custom-made for their specific enterprises.


Cloud Computing for Defense and Intelligence

The defense and intelligence communities are not immune to cloud computing. Arguably more than
any other government agencies, their missions require a fabric of utility computing that scales on
demand and enables self discovery and self-service access to secure, timely and relevant
information in support of mission: individual or shared. The traditional IT model requires system
engineering that binds most software to the hardware and does not provide an enterprise suite of
functionality or allow for increased flexibility and a governed lifecycle of services. Designing
software independence from the hardware allows an operating system, applications and data to
“live” across the enterprise and is fundamental to the transformation of compute, storage and
network functionality.

Designing software independence from the hardware allows an operating system, applications and
data to “live” across the enterprise and is fundamental to the transformation of compute, storage
and network functionality.

Defense is dealing with a $78 billion budget cut—the first since September 11, 2001—and another
$100 billion in other cost-cutting measures over a five-year period commencing in FY 2012.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is directing that the budget be cut from agency administrative and
structural areas (e.g., the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Network Intelligence and
Information, the Business Transformation Agency, and the Joint Forces Command are in the process
of being eliminated or disestablished with some essential functions transferred to other
organizations with the Pentagon).

In an official statement on the proposed budget costs provided on January 6, 2011, Secretary Gates
said: “First, reforming how the department uses information technology, which costs us about $37
billion a year. At this time all of our bases and headquarters have their own separate IT
infrastructure and processes, which drive up costs and create cyber vulnerabilities. The department
is planning to consolidate hundreds of data centers and move to a more secure enterprise system,
which we estimate could save more than $1 billion a year.” Department of Defense Chief
Information Officer Terry Takai also publically commented about the potential IT budget cuts at an
April 21, 2011, INPUT event, stating DoD’s support of the move of some of its IT operations to the
cloud—particularly data centers.

DoD has begun to explore cloud computing through several smaller-scale projects; some of these
are outlined in the “Examples of Successful Federal Cloud Solution Implementations” on page 13.


Cloud Computing and Mission Support

Information is often the decisive discriminator in modern conflict. Studies of recent mission failures
highlighted this fact, finding that many of these failures were caused by:
 Existence of data silos
 Human-based document exploitation process
 Reliance on “operationally proven” processes and filters typically used to address the lack of
computational power or decision time

Also disturbing is that in most of these cases, the critical piece of information necessary for mission
was in possession. The failure wasn’t in obtaining the information, but in locating and applying it to
the mission at hand. Cloud computing uniquely addresses all of these important issues.

Data silos evolved from a system-centric IT procurement policy and an almost reflexive reliance on
relational database technology. In developing early data processing systems, the high cost of
memory and storage led to a premium being placed on the efficiency of application data access and
retrieval. Relational database technology effectively addressed this need, which in turn led to its
pervasive use across government. In modern IT system development, memory and storage are
cheap—and getting cheaper—which has led to internet-scale storage and search paradigms that
are the stuff of everyday use today. The world’s largest databases cannot, in fact, be searched
quickly using a relational database management approach. Today’s ability to search multi-petabyte
data stores in milliseconds virtually eliminates the need for data silos. This capability is realized in
cloud-based storage.

Source: United States Army Intelligence and Security Command


Documents are the persistent records of human activity. As such, they are used to provide insight
into the societal structure and processes of our opponents. Conflict, however, is entity and event
centric. The intelligence professional must, therefore, interpret documents and translate that data
into operationally relevant entities and events. The time and resource intensive nature of this
skillcraft is perfectly suited for the precision search and analytic capabilities of the modern
compute cloud. The use of highly standardized and virtualized commodity infrastructure, not only
make the automation of this function possible, but it enables real-time continuous processing of the
now digital document flow of our adversaries. This commodity also removes the human from this
tedious task, allowing intelligence professionals to apply higher order professional analysis and
insight.

The human-based document
exploitation process led directly to an
institutional reliance on the
aforementioned “operationally
proven” processes and filters.
Instantiated by the use of multi-page
structure query language and the
ubiquitous goal of obtaining an
appropriate “working set” of data,
these time-honored processes were
born from the need to meet critical
decision timelines within a
computationally inadequate
environment. Cloud techniques and
technologies can now be used to work
on all the data. And with an ability to
leverage the power of a
supercomputer at will, the working
set requirement is now an
Source: United States Army Intelligence and Security Command
anachronism and critical decision
timelines can now be more easily met.

Cloud computing is unique in its ability to address these critical defense and intelligence mission
needs. That’s why cloud computing is critical to our national defense. As a bonus, cloud computing
offers defense and intelligence agencies the ability to increase efficiencies and incur marked cost
savings during their lifecycles to alleviate some of the pressure of budget reductions. Moving IT
operations to the cloud also will assist in enhanced collaboration.


Examples of Successful Cloud Implementations

Army Experience Center Pilot Program, United States
Army Solution Benefits
 Fewer recruiters required to
Two years ago, the United States Army initiated a pilot handle the workload of the five
program to explore how to better utilize new technologies traditional recruiting centers
in support of its marketing and recruiting work. The Army that the AEC replaced
Experience Center (AEC) in Philadelphia, PA, uses a variety  Faster application upgrades
 Dramatic reduction in hardware
of exciting technology—touch-screen career exploration
and IT staff expenses
kiosks, virtual reality simulators and social networking
 Significant increase in staff
tools to educate potential recruits about the Army and help productivity
them make informed decisions about enlisting. As part of
the center operations, the Army needed a customer
relationship management system to track prospect engagement (virtual and in person) to help
personnel better manage the recruitment and enlistment process.

Despite constant updates over the years, the Army’s legacy data system could not be modified to
meet the new requirements of the AEC, specifically social networking and other web 2.0
applications, data access from multiple platforms including mobile devices, the tracking of AEC
visitor information and the amalgamation of marketing and recruiting data. After reviewing bids
from both traditional and “non-traditional” IT vendors, the Army chose a customized version of
Salesforce for the pilot program. The annual cost of the pilot is only $54,000—compared to the
proposed operational costs from traditional vendors of $500,000 to $1 million a year.

This cloud-based, mobility solution CRM tool allows the Army to track potential recruits as they
participate in the different virtual activities in the AEC, and recruits can remain engaged with
recruiters after they leave the center through social media and email. Due to the mobility of the
platform, recruiters also can access potential recruit information anytime and anywhere.

Rapid Access Computing Environment, Defense
Information Systems Agency Solution Benefits
 Avoidance of high start-up costs and
The Defense Information Systems Agency made the leap additional ROI through software reuse
to the cloud by establishing the Rapid Access Computing  Savings of between $200,000 and $500,000
Environment in 2008. RACE is the agency’s secure, per project due to rapid project start-ups at
stable, private cloud that utilizes virtual server lower costs
technology to provide on-demand server space for  An estimated $15 million in cost avoidance
development teams. RACE is made up of several virtual by using open source software that provides
servers co-located in a single physical server. for software reuse and collaborative
development—in addition to lower funds for
licensing and support
 Improved software for agency users by
providing version control and traceability


RACE, which uses virtual server technology to provide on-demand server space for development
teams, aims to be more secure and stable than a traditional public cloud. RACE consists of many
virtual servers inside a single physical server. Within this virtual environment that meets DoD
security standards, customers use a self-service portal to provision computing resources in 50 GB
increments. The cost for RACE access is reasonable and can be established with an approved
government-issued credit card.

RACE offers the same level service and availability as a traditional server environment. Since RACE
was implemented, hundreds of military applications, including command and control systems,
convoy control systems and satellite programs have been developed and tested on this cloud-based
solution.

Forge.mil Program, DISA Solution Benefits
 Cost savings by dividing the costs of
Forge.mil is the secure software development provisioning and operating one
environment established by DISA designed to provide physical server among several
DoD with tools and services to rapidly develop, test and virtual servers
deploy new software and systems. CollabNet provided  Rapid provisioning of functional
DISA with a cloud-based software development platform server space to users (24 hours),
to allow customers to reuse and collaborate on software compared to a traditional dedicated
code. To date, forge.mil manages more than 5,000 users server environment (three to six
with more than 300 open source projects, 500 file weeks)
release posts and 30,000 downloads.  Improved security through built-in
application separation controls so
all applications, databases and web
Forge.mil hosts an array of projects for different DoD
servers are separated, and a strict
agencies, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine
data cleaning process
Corps and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Personnel Services Delivery Transformation, Air Force
Personnel Center
Solution Benefits:
Due to the mandated manpower reduction initiative, the  Savings of $4 million annually
Air Force Personnel Center had to find a new, viable way to  Seventy percent increase in
deliver human resource tools and services, while customer engagement in the
improving customer experiences by providing self-service knowledge base
solutions and the ability to track customer needs. AFPC  Reduction on the time required for
decided that the SaaS solution by RightNow was the customers to find answers from
solution necessary for improved knowledge management, more than 15,000 documents on
case and contact center tracking and the ability to meet file: from 20 minutes to only two
client survey mission requirements. minutes.

After implementation of the RightNow solution, customer
searches on the knowledge base have risen to nearly 2
million per week. This cloud-based platform also provides the ability to scale services to meet
fluctuating demand without any impact to customer experience.


Appendix 1: References

1. Mell, Peter, and Grance, Timothy. “The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing: Recommendations
of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.” January 2011. Jackson, Kevin L., and
Philpott, Don. GovCloud: Cloud Computing for the Business of Government: Desk Reference, March
2011
2. “Cloud Computing: Benefits, Risks and Recommendations for Information Security.” European
Network and Information Security Agency. November 2009.
3. Jackson, Kevin L., and Philpott. Don. GovCloud: Cloud Computing for the Business of Government:
Desk Reference, March 2011.


Appendix 2: Cloud Computing Resources

Info.apps.gov (http://www.info.apps.gov/node/19)

Federal Cloud Computing Initiative (http://www.info.apps.gov/node/2)

Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) –
(http://www.info.apps.gov/content/federal-risk-and-authorization-management-program-
fedramp)

Cloud Computing Resources (http://www.info.apps.gov/node/14)

“Cloud Musings by Kevin L. Jackson” (http://kevinljackson.blogspot.com/)

“Cloud Musings on Forbes” (http://blogs.forbes.com/kevinjackson/)

“Government Cloud Computing on Ulitzer”(http://govcloud.ulitzer.com/)

NIST Business Use Case Template (https://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-
computing/bin/view/cloudcomputing/businessusecasescall03)

NIST Computer Security Division, Computer Security Resource Center, Cloud Computing
(http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/)


About the Author

Kevin Jackson is General Manager, Cloud Services, at NJVC. Before joining the company, Mr. Jackson
served in various senior management positions with Dataline, LLC; Cryptek, Inc.; IBM; and JP
Morgan Chase. Recently, he was named a “Cyber Security Visionary” by U.S. Black Engineer and
Information Technology magazine. Mr. Jackson is the founder and author of “Cloud Musings”
(http://kevinljackson.blogspot.com) and “Cloud Musings on Forbes”
(http://blogs.forbes.com/kevinjackson), a Forbes magazine online blog dedicated to public sector
cloud computing. He is also founder and editor of “Government Cloud Computing on Ulitzer“
electronic magazine (http://govcloud.ulitzer.com ). His first book, GovCloud: Cloud Computing for
the Business of Government was released in spring 2011. Mr. Jackson has been deeply involved in
the broad collaborative effort between industry and the U.S. National Institute of Standards and
Technology on the federal government’s adoption of cloud computing technologies. He is the
Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium’s Cloud Computing Working Group Chairman.

About NJVC

NJVC is one of the largest information technology solutions providers supporting the U.S.
Department of Defense. We provide innovative and high-quality IT solutions to the government and
commercial organizations, and specialize in supporting highly secure IT enterprises, particularly for
the intelligence and defense communities. To learn more, visit www.njvc.com.


Headquarters
8614 Westwood Center Dr
Suite 300
Vienna, VA 22182
703.556.0110

www.njvc.com


NJVC Implementation of Cloud Computing Solutions in Federal Agencies

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