Air Force and IBM partner to prove Cloud Computing works for Defense and Intelligence services

One of the top concerns about Cloud Computing is security of the data in the cloud.  IBM has a press announcement on the partnership here.

U.S. Air Force Selects IBM to Design and Demonstrate Mission-Oriented Cloud Architecture for Cyber Security

Cloud model will introduce advanced cyber security and analytics technologies capable of protecting sensitive national data

ARMONK, N.Y. - 04 Feb 2010: The U.S. Air Force has awarded IBM (NYSE:IBM) a contract to design and demonstrate a secure cloud computing infrastructure capable of supporting defense and intelligence networks. The ten-month project will introduce advanced cyber security and analytics technologies developed by IBM Research into the cloud architecture.

There are press articles too.

CNet News

Air Force taps IBM for secure cloud

by Lance Whitney

IBM has a tall order from the U.S. Air Force--create a cloud network that can protect national defense and military data.

Big Blue announced Thursday a contract from the Air Force to design and demonstrate a cloud computing environment for the USAF's network of nine command centers, 100 military bases, and 700,000 personnel around the world.

The challenge for IBM will be to develop a cloud that can not only support such a massive network, but also meet the strict security standards of the Air Force and the U.S. government. The project will call on the company to use advanced cybersecurity technologies that have been developed at IBM Research.

and Government Computer News.

What I find interesting is how few authors reference the IBM press release.  The goal of the project is a technical demonstration.

"Our goal is to demonstrate how cloud computing can be a tool to enable our Air Force to manage, monitor and secure the information flowing through our network," said Lieutenant General William Lord, Chief Information Officer and Chief, Warfighting Integration, for the U.S. Air Force. "We examined the expertise of IBM's commercial performance in cloud computing and asked them to develop an architecture that could lead to improved performance within the Air Force environment to improve all operational, analytical and security capabilities."

Which is cut and pasted into the CNet news article as well.

On the other hand, there are some good insights by Larry Dignan on his ZDnet blog.

What’s in it for IBM? Cloud computing has a lot of interest, but security remains a worry for many IT buyers. If Big Blue can demonstrate cloud-based cyber security technologies that’s good enough for the military it would allay a lot of those worries.

The advanced cyber security and analytics technologies that will be used in the Air Force project were developed by IBM Research (statement).

According to IBM the project will show a cloud computing architecture that can support large networks and meet the government’s security guidelines. The Air Force network almost 100 bases and 700,000 active military personnel.

and Larry continues on the key concepts of what will be shown.  Models!!! yea!

  • The model will include autonomic computing;
  • Dashboards will monitor the health of the network second-by-second;
  • If Air Force personnel doesn’t shift to a “prevention environment” in a cyber attack the cloud will have automated services to lock the network down.
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    Symbian Mobile OS goes open source, is data center design the next open source opportunity?

    Symbian OS went open source today.

    Symbian Is Open

    As of now, the Symbian platform is completely open source.  And it is Symbian^3, the latest version of the platform, which will be soon be feature complete.

    Open sourcing a market-leading product in a dynamic, growing business sector is unprecedented.  Over 330 million Symbian devices have been shipped worldwide, and it is likely that a further 100 million will ship in 2010 with more than 200 million expected to ship annually from 2011 onwards.


    Now the platform is free for anyone to use and to contribute to.  It is not only a sophisticated software platform, It is also the focal point of a community. And a lot of the foundation’s effort going forward will be to ensure the community grows and is supported in bringing great innovations to the platform and future devices.

    PCWorld write on the 5 benefits of open sourcing Symbian.

    Five Benefits of an Open Source Symbian

    By Tony Bradley

    The Symbian mobile operating system is getting a second life as the Symbian Foundation makes the smartphone platform open source. The lifeline will revitalize the platform, and has benefits for Nokia, smartphone developers, Symbian handsets, and smartphone users.

    With open source hitting all aspects of IT including mobile, when will data center designs go open source?  Don’t hold your breath as few of the data center designers are software people, so open source is still a foreign concept for many as designs are protected and transparency of what goes on is heresy to their thinking and business models.

    But, maybe as Cloud Computing goes open source with companies like Eucalyptus, people will not see the value in much of how data centers have been built in the past.

    Eucalyptus open-sources the cloud (Q&A)

    It's reasonably clear that open source is the heart of cloud computing, with open-source components adding up to equal cloud services like Amazon Web Services. What's not yet clear is how much the cloud will wear that open source on its sleeve, as it were.

    Eucalyptus, an open-source platform that implements "infrastructure as a service" (IaaS) style cloud computing, aims to take open source front and center in the cloud-computing craze. The project, founded by academics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is now a Benchmark-funded company with an ambitious goal: become the universal cloud platform that everyone from Amazon to Microsoft to Red Hat to VMware ties into.

    Or, rather, that customers stitch together their various cloud assets within Eucalyptus.

    Is open source a threat to data center design?  For some maybe, for others it is an opportunity.

    For compliance and regulatory issues, eventually cloud computing providers will need to provide some level of transparency on their data center infrastructure.  Enough to meet the needs of governments and other regulatory agencies.  Will this be a driving issue for opening more details on data center infrastructure?

    There are those who argue for security reasons, we are not transparent to reduce our risks.  But, open source software believers say the systems are more secure by being transparent and allowing peer review.

    Read more

    HP’s 20’ POD Container, $600K for 291kW of data center space, IT equipment not included

    HP just announced their 20 foot Performance-optimized Data Center POD.

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    HP POD is ideal for any enterprise customer requiring rapid white space growth

    • Quickly create data center space and deploy IT using HP Factory Express rack integration
    • Designed to support requirements for N+N power redundancy
    • Pay as you grow to minimize up front capital outlay - add additional HP PODs as you need more data center space
    • Decrease operating expenses through better energy efficiency with PUEs as low as 1.25

    More technical specs are here.

    Is this the future of cloud computing data centers?  At numbers that are $2 million per MW of physical data center space before power and chiller plant, it will be interesting to see who buys the HP POD.  

    It makes sense to consider a hybrid site that could hook up power, water and network to containers, then another space that is the traditional data center space for equipment.

    Maybe on my next trip to the bay area (next week), I should try and stop by HP.  I know the PR team has offered to set up a meeting with the HP container design engineers.  The total costs for a 2 MW data center build out would be interesting to discuss.

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    Taiwan’s Cloud Computing Data Center, $31 mil USD investment

    China Tech News has an article on two Taiwan institute’s jointly setting up a cloud computing company.

    Cloud Computing Center Planned In Taiwan

    February 1, 2010

    Chunghwa Telecom, Trend Micro, Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute, and Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry will jointly set up a cloud computing center and will invest NTD1 billion to establish a cloud computing company.

    According to reports in Taiwanese local media, because of its telecom business and technology advantages, Chunghwa Telecom will be in charge of the basic construction and operation of this new project. Trend Micro will be responsible for the expansion of international market via its subsidiaries worldwide. Industrial Technology Research Institute will be committed to the hardware development; and Institute for Information Industry will combine industry resources to develop cloud computing services and applications.

    The Taiwanese see a trend many of us do in that companies could go direct to Taiwan to buy the complete cloud computing data center infrastructure and hardware.

    Taiwan's related government departments reportedly plan to create a complete supply chain incorporating a cloud computing-based Internet data center, cloud computing devices and cloud computing services. The entire supply chain will be sold to overseas markets and is expected to gain sales and peripheral business opportunities of USD10 billion by 2014.

    Why buy from HP, IBM, Dell when you can direct to the manufacturer?

    The Taiwanese have also done a good job of focusing on market segments for cloud computing.

    For the application planning of cloud computing, Taiwan will initially establish two major industries focused on the cloud computing medical industry and cloud computing education industry. In the long run, it will develop six cloud computing-based emerging industries, including green energy, tourism, health, agriculture, culture, and innovation.

    If you look at their area of focus and overlap it with what I blogged about at Mizzou there is an overlap – health, education, energy, innovation, agriculture.

      1. Food for the Future
      2. New Media
      3. One Health, One Medicine
      4. Sustainable Energy
      5. Understanding and managing disruptive and transformational technologies.
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    What does a Cloud Computing Data Center look like? Comparison version 1

    There are a flood of cloud computing content out there.  As a thought experiment I start comparing conceptually what cloud computing is versus the existing data centers.  Many take the approach of building data centers to be solid as a rock which interesting enough is an opposite of clouds.  Rock is Earth.  Clouds are water and air, and electricity (lightning).

    Below is a first version of thinking about how there are differences between cloud computing data center vs. a Rock data center.

    When you start thinking about Cloud Computing as the future, what kind of data center fits business needs? 

    I am having some conversations with data center designers on this concept.  Cover up the right side, and only look at the left side.  When I look at the left, who doesn’t want this?  Except maybe those who may their money on the right side.

     

    Cloud Data Center Rock Data Center
    Water + Air + Energy = Clouds with lightning Earth = building built in a capital intensive redundant manner
    Business Alignment to current conditions Over-provisioned for the unknown future, but ironically many times limit businesses
    Speed is an advantage for less resources and changing business (minutes) You have no choice so you move at our pace (weeks/months)
    Systems integrated to reduce costs for business services Silos of self-optimization are used to prove efficiency
    Pay as you go service use Costs are not transparent or directly related to what you use
    Virtualized servers, storage, and network abstract discussions to capabilities for business Staff discusses specifications of servers, storage, and networking
    Energy efficient and high utilization are standard discussions Energy is viewed as a small cost paid for by someone else
    Commodity hardware Specialized hardware
    Healthy, growing vendor ecosystem Static ecosystem that is growing slowly, maybe even declining
    Exponential growth currently, innovation Declining as users migrate to Cloud, maintenance mode, cost reduction
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