Exhibitor Name
3PAR
Abacus Technology Corporation
Accelera Solutions
AccessData
Accu-Tech Corporation
Ace Computers
Adobe
AF PKI SPO
AFL Telecommunications
American Wordata
Apple, Inc
Apptis
Array Information Technology
ASM Research Inc.
AT&T Government Solutions
ATS Corporation
Autonomic Resources LLC
Autonomy
Avaya Federal Solutions Inc.
Belkin
Bivio Networks
Black Box Network Services
Blue Coat Systems
BMC Software, Inc.
Booz Allen Hamilton
Brocade Communications
Brocade Communications
BTAS Inc
CA
CACI Federal
Cad / Cam Services, Inc.
Cape Fox Professional Services
Carahsoft
CDO Technologies, Inc
CDW.G
Cimcor
Cisco Systems
Citrix Systems, Inc.
CMS Products
Commercial Data Systems
CommScope
CommVault
Composite Software
Core Security Technologies
Crystal Clear Technologies, Inc
CXtec
Cyber Innovation Center
Data Domain
DCC (Dialogic Communications Corp.)
Defense Contract Management Agency
Dell Inc.
Diligent Consulting Inc
Diskeeper Corporation
Diversified Technical Services, Inc
DSA
DSD Laboratories
Dynamics Research Corporation
Dynetics
EADS NA Defense Security and Systems Solutions, Inc.
Eaton Corporation
eIQnetworks
EMC Corporation
Emtec Federal
EMW
Endeca
Engility Corporation
En-Net Services
ESRI
Evanhoe & Associates, Inc.
Expand Networks
Ezenia!
F5 Networks
FCN Technology Solutions, Inc.
FedTek
Fluke Networks
Force 3, Inc.
Forum Communications
Fujitsu Computer Products of America
Fujitsu Network Communications Inc
General Dynamics
General Services Administration
Global Knowledge
Google
GovConnection, Inc.
GTRI
GTSI
Hardigg Cases
Harris Corporation
Hitachi Data Systems
Holocom, Inc.
HP
HPC-COM LLC
IATAC
IBM
ICF International
iDirect Government Technologies
immixGroup
Imperva
INDUS Corporation
INDUS Corporation
Infoblox
Insight Public Sector
InsigniaSpectrum
Integrated Computer Solutions
Integration Technologies Group
Intelligent Decisions
IronKey, Inc.
Juniper Networks
Keane, Inc.
KGS
Kingston Technology
KnowledgeLake, INC
Kratos Defense and Secuirty Solutions, Inc.
L-3 Enterprise IT Solutions
Leviton Network Solutions
Lexmark International
LGS Innovations
Lockheed Martin
LTI Datacomm
M2 Technology Inc.
ManTech International
Mark Logic Corporation
MathCraft, Inc.
MaxCell
McAfee
McLane Advanced Technologies
Merlin International
Microsoft Corporation
MicroStrategy
MicroTech
Military Information Technology
Mimosa Systems
Motorola
Mystikal Solutions, LLC
NASA/SEWP
NCI Information Systems, Inc.
NCS Technologies, Inc.
NetApp
NETCONN Solutions
NetScout Systems
Network Integrity Systems
NitroSecurity, Inc.
Nortel Government Solutions
Nortel Government Solutions
NSA
Oasis Systems
onx enterprise solutions
OPNET TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
OST Inc
panasonic computer solutions company
PAR
PGP Corporation
PLUG-IN Storage Systems Inc.
Polycom
Protelecom, LLC
PTC
PTFS, Inc
QinetiQ North America
Quest Software
Qwest Government Services, Inc.
Red Hat
Research in Motion
Ricoh
Riverbed Technology
Rocky Mountain Ram
Ross Group Inc
Sachdeva, Ankush
SafeNet, Inc
Samsung Electronics
SAS
Science Application International Corporation (SAIC)
SecureInfo Corporation
Segovia
Segue Technologies
Sentar
Shim Enterprise, Inc
Siemens Government Services
SkillSoft
Smartronix
SMS Data Products Group
Snyder, Sandra L.
Spectra Logic
Sterling Computers
STG
Sumaria Systems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems Federal Inc.
Superior Essex
Symantec
Syncsort, Inc.
Systems Research and Application
TANDBERG
Technical Innovation
Technology Integration Group
Tec-Masters, Inc
Teksouth Corporation
TeleCommunication Systems, Inc.
Telos
THE CENTECH GROUP, Inc.
Titus Labs
T-Mobile
Tribalco
Tripp Lite
Tripwire
Trusted Systems, Inc.
TYBRIN
Ultra Electronics Criticom
Unisys
Verizon Federal
VION Corporation
VT Miltope
Wade, Chris
Wave Systems Corp.
Western Governors University
WolfVision, Inc
World Wide Technology, Inc.
Wyle Information Systems
Wyse Technology
Xerox Corporation
Zebra Technologies Corp.
Friday
MAY 31 Celebrate World No Smoking Day
5/28/2009 - FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AFNS) -- For the first time, the Department of Defense is endorsing the observance of World No Tobacco Day by encouraging servicemembers to participate. The effort is part of DOD's multiyear tobacco cessation campaign, Quit Tobacco--Make Everyone Proud. "On Memorial Day, when we reflect on the sacrifices our fallen heroes made so that we can live free, it seems that World No Tobacco Day comes at a perfect time," said Capt. David Arday, a physician and U.S. Public Health Service officer and chairman of the DOD Alcohol and Tobacco Advisory Committee. "Freedom from tobacco addiction is not a sacrifice; it's a way to live our lives to honor those who gave us our freedom," he said. "This is a great opportunity for servicemen and women to connect to others on their installation, across the country and around the globe in a worldwide event to take a public stand and make a personal commitment in the fight against tobacco." Health promotions staff members at installations are encouraging their patients and clients to sign the online pledge at http://www.ucanquit2.org/facts/WNTD and accept the challenge to become tobacco free on WNTD. There are free promotional and informational items available to order or download online to help stage events, plus specially designed e-cards visitors can send to encourage friends and family to give up tobacco. Military personnel also can use the e-card to announce their intention to quit. The campaign headquarters at http://www.ucanquit2.org offers the latest high-tech ways to connect with others on the road to becoming tobacco free. The site has launched a Twitter page at http://www.twitter.com/ucanquit2, and anyone who signs up can follow the site's activities and news, including tobacco and other related health information. Visitors can take advantage of other social networking opportunities, such as being a friend at MySpace, tuning in to the videos and making comments at the YouTube page and becoming a fan of the campaign's Facebook page. On Facebook, there's a new feature that allows users to announce to others they've quit and to congratulate friends and family who've make the commitment to quit tobacco. For those who want their own private area to concentrate on tobacco cessation, the campaign Web site offers users "My Quit Space," where they can create a customized quit plan and calendar. Blogging options include starting a private blog or publishing it for others to read and make comments. The site has gone mobile, which is perfect for the enlisted community. Users can point their mobile browsers to http://m.ucanquit2.org, the new mobile ucanquit2 Web site, to find cessation programs across America to help them quit tobacco and access important tobacco cessation news. Getting support from others is an important weapon in winning the battle against tobacco, which is recognized as an obstacle to optimal readiness and performance for the armed services. "Committing to participate in World No Tobacco Day on May 31is a one-day test run for what could be the beginning of a tobacco-free lifestyle for servicemen and women," Captain Arday said. Also visit Tricare's special Web page geared to quit tobacco efforts at http://www.tricare.mil/tobaccofree.
There's a New Cyber Czar!
President Barack Obama will announce on Friday the creation of a "cyber czar" position, stepping up his administration's efforts to better protect the nation's computer networks.
The White House appointment will be followed in coming days by the formal creation of a new military cyber command that will coordinate the defense of Pentagon computer networks and improve U.S. offensive capabilities in cyberwarfare.
The cybersecurity chief will report to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council, a compromise resulting from a fierce White House turf battle over the responsibilities and powers of the new office.
Mr. Obama won't announce on Friday the person who will fill the new job. That isn't expected for at least a few more days.
Acting White House cybersecurity chief Melissa Hathaway, who ran the administration's broad review of its cyber policies, is one candidate. Other potential candidates are thought to include Microsoft Corp. Vice President Scott Charney, a former government official who ran the Justice Department's computer-crime unit, and Maureen Baginski, who has held senior posts at the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The moves come amid growing evidence that sophisticated overseas hackers are waging a widening assault on important U.S. networks. The Defense Department detected 360 million attempts to penetrate its networks last year, up from six million in 2006. The Pentagon alone has spent $100 million in the past six months repairing damage from cyberattacks.
U.S. officials acknowledge that the hackers, believed to be mainly from Russia and China, are having some success. The Wall Street Journal reported this spring that cyberspies breached both the nation's electricity grid and the Pentagon's biggest weapons program, the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighters.
"I'd like to say that our networks are secure, but that would not be correct," Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, who runs the National Security Agency, told lawmakers this month. "We have vulnerabilities."
Gen. Alexander is expected to run the new military cyber command that will be created after the White House rolls out the results of its 60-day review of the government's efforts to protect key public and private networks
The White House appointment will be followed in coming days by the formal creation of a new military cyber command that will coordinate the defense of Pentagon computer networks and improve U.S. offensive capabilities in cyberwarfare.
The cybersecurity chief will report to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council, a compromise resulting from a fierce White House turf battle over the responsibilities and powers of the new office.
Mr. Obama won't announce on Friday the person who will fill the new job. That isn't expected for at least a few more days.
Acting White House cybersecurity chief Melissa Hathaway, who ran the administration's broad review of its cyber policies, is one candidate. Other potential candidates are thought to include Microsoft Corp. Vice President Scott Charney, a former government official who ran the Justice Department's computer-crime unit, and Maureen Baginski, who has held senior posts at the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The moves come amid growing evidence that sophisticated overseas hackers are waging a widening assault on important U.S. networks. The Defense Department detected 360 million attempts to penetrate its networks last year, up from six million in 2006. The Pentagon alone has spent $100 million in the past six months repairing damage from cyberattacks.
U.S. officials acknowledge that the hackers, believed to be mainly from Russia and China, are having some success. The Wall Street Journal reported this spring that cyberspies breached both the nation's electricity grid and the Pentagon's biggest weapons program, the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighters.
"I'd like to say that our networks are secure, but that would not be correct," Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, who runs the National Security Agency, told lawmakers this month. "We have vulnerabilities."
Gen. Alexander is expected to run the new military cyber command that will be created after the White House rolls out the results of its 60-day review of the government's efforts to protect key public and private networks
Pentagon Plans New Arm To Wage Wars In Cyberspace
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon plans to create a new military command for cyberspace, administration officials said Thursday, stepping up preparations by the armed forces to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare.
The military command would complement a civilian effort to be announced by President Obama on Friday that would overhaul the way the United States safeguards its computer networks.
Mr. Obama, officials said, will announce the creation of a White House office — reporting to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council — that will coordinate a multibillion-dollar effort to restrict access to government computers and protect systems that run the stock exchanges, clear global banking transactions and manage the air traffic control system.
White House officials say Mr. Obama has not yet been formally presented with the Pentagon plan. They said he would not discuss it Friday when he announced the creation of a White House office responsible for coordinating private-sector and government defenses against the thousands of cyberattacks mounted against the United States — largely by hackers but sometimes by foreign governments — every day.
But he is expected to sign a classified order in coming weeks that will create the military cybercommand, officials said. It is a recognition that the United States already has a growing number of computer weapons in its arsenal and must prepare strategies for their use — as a deterrent or alongside conventional weapons — in a wide variety of possible future conflicts.
The White House office will be run by a “cyberczar,” but because the position will not have direct access to the president, some experts said it was not high-level enough to end a series of bureaucratic wars that have broken out as billions of dollars have suddenly been allocated to protect against the computer threats.
The main dispute has been over whether the Pentagon or the National Security Agency should take the lead in preparing for and fighting cyberbattles. Under one proposal still being debated, parts of the N.S.A. would be integrated into the military command so they could operate jointly.
Officials said that in addition to the unclassified strategy paper to be released by Mr. Obama on Friday, a classified set of presidential directives is expected to lay out the military’s new responsibilities and how it coordinates its mission with that of the N.S.A., where most of the expertise on digital warfare resides today.
The decision to create a cybercommand is a major step beyond the actions taken by the Bush administration, which authorized several computer-based attacks but never resolved the question of how the government would prepare for a new era of warfare fought over digital networks.
It is still unclear whether the military’s new command or the N.S.A. — or both — will actually conduct this new kind of offensive cyberoperations.
The White House has never said whether Mr. Obama embraces the idea that the United States should use cyberweapons, and the public announcement on Friday is expected to focus solely on defensive steps and the government’s acknowledgment that it needs to be better organized to face the threat from foes attacking military, government and commercial online systems.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has pushed for the Pentagon to become better organized to address the security threat.
Initially at least, the new command would focus on organizing the various components and capabilities now scattered across the four armed services.
Officials declined to describe potential offensive operations, but said they now viewed cyberspace as comparable to more traditional battlefields.
“We are not comfortable discussing the question of offensive cyberoperations, but we consider cyberspace a war-fighting domain,“ said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. “We need to be able to operate within that domain just like on any battlefield, which includes protecting our freedom of movement and preserving our capability to perform in that environment.”
Although Pentagon civilian officials and military officers said the new command was expected to initially be a subordinate headquarters under the military’s Strategic Command, which controls nuclear operations as well as cyberdefenses, it could eventually become an independent command.
“No decision has been made,” said Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh, a Pentagon spokesman. “Just as the White House has completed its 60-day review of cyberspace policy, likewise, we are looking at how the department can best organize itself to fill our role in implementing the administration’s cyberpolicy.”
The creation of the cyberczar’s office inside the White House appears to be part of a significant expansion of the role of the national security apparatus there. A separate group overseeing domestic security, created by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks, now resides within the National Security Council. A senior White House official responsible for countering the proliferation of nuclear and unconventional weapons has been given broader authority. Now, cybersecurity will also rank as one of the key threats that Mr. Obama is seeking to coordinate from the White House.
The strategy review Mr. Obama will discuss on Friday was completed weeks ago, but delayed because of continuing arguments over the authority of the White House office, and the budgets for the entire effort.
It was kept separate from the military debate over whether the Pentagon or the N.S.A. is best equipped to engage in offensive operations. Part of that debate hinges on the question of how much control should be given to American spy agencies, since they are prohibited from acting on American soil.
“It’s the domestic spying problem writ large,” one senior intelligence official said recently. “These attacks start in other countries, but they know no borders. So how do you fight them if you can’t act both inside and outside the United States?”
The military command would complement a civilian effort to be announced by President Obama on Friday that would overhaul the way the United States safeguards its computer networks.
Mr. Obama, officials said, will announce the creation of a White House office — reporting to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council — that will coordinate a multibillion-dollar effort to restrict access to government computers and protect systems that run the stock exchanges, clear global banking transactions and manage the air traffic control system.
White House officials say Mr. Obama has not yet been formally presented with the Pentagon plan. They said he would not discuss it Friday when he announced the creation of a White House office responsible for coordinating private-sector and government defenses against the thousands of cyberattacks mounted against the United States — largely by hackers but sometimes by foreign governments — every day.
But he is expected to sign a classified order in coming weeks that will create the military cybercommand, officials said. It is a recognition that the United States already has a growing number of computer weapons in its arsenal and must prepare strategies for their use — as a deterrent or alongside conventional weapons — in a wide variety of possible future conflicts.
The White House office will be run by a “cyberczar,” but because the position will not have direct access to the president, some experts said it was not high-level enough to end a series of bureaucratic wars that have broken out as billions of dollars have suddenly been allocated to protect against the computer threats.
The main dispute has been over whether the Pentagon or the National Security Agency should take the lead in preparing for and fighting cyberbattles. Under one proposal still being debated, parts of the N.S.A. would be integrated into the military command so they could operate jointly.
Officials said that in addition to the unclassified strategy paper to be released by Mr. Obama on Friday, a classified set of presidential directives is expected to lay out the military’s new responsibilities and how it coordinates its mission with that of the N.S.A., where most of the expertise on digital warfare resides today.
The decision to create a cybercommand is a major step beyond the actions taken by the Bush administration, which authorized several computer-based attacks but never resolved the question of how the government would prepare for a new era of warfare fought over digital networks.
It is still unclear whether the military’s new command or the N.S.A. — or both — will actually conduct this new kind of offensive cyberoperations.
The White House has never said whether Mr. Obama embraces the idea that the United States should use cyberweapons, and the public announcement on Friday is expected to focus solely on defensive steps and the government’s acknowledgment that it needs to be better organized to face the threat from foes attacking military, government and commercial online systems.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has pushed for the Pentagon to become better organized to address the security threat.
Initially at least, the new command would focus on organizing the various components and capabilities now scattered across the four armed services.
Officials declined to describe potential offensive operations, but said they now viewed cyberspace as comparable to more traditional battlefields.
“We are not comfortable discussing the question of offensive cyberoperations, but we consider cyberspace a war-fighting domain,“ said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. “We need to be able to operate within that domain just like on any battlefield, which includes protecting our freedom of movement and preserving our capability to perform in that environment.”
Although Pentagon civilian officials and military officers said the new command was expected to initially be a subordinate headquarters under the military’s Strategic Command, which controls nuclear operations as well as cyberdefenses, it could eventually become an independent command.
“No decision has been made,” said Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh, a Pentagon spokesman. “Just as the White House has completed its 60-day review of cyberspace policy, likewise, we are looking at how the department can best organize itself to fill our role in implementing the administration’s cyberpolicy.”
The creation of the cyberczar’s office inside the White House appears to be part of a significant expansion of the role of the national security apparatus there. A separate group overseeing domestic security, created by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks, now resides within the National Security Council. A senior White House official responsible for countering the proliferation of nuclear and unconventional weapons has been given broader authority. Now, cybersecurity will also rank as one of the key threats that Mr. Obama is seeking to coordinate from the White House.
The strategy review Mr. Obama will discuss on Friday was completed weeks ago, but delayed because of continuing arguments over the authority of the White House office, and the budgets for the entire effort.
It was kept separate from the military debate over whether the Pentagon or the N.S.A. is best equipped to engage in offensive operations. Part of that debate hinges on the question of how much control should be given to American spy agencies, since they are prohibited from acting on American soil.
“It’s the domestic spying problem writ large,” one senior intelligence official said recently. “These attacks start in other countries, but they know no borders. So how do you fight them if you can’t act both inside and outside the United States?”
Wednesday
Sunday
GSA Releases New Recovery.gov Contract Documents
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Here is a great look at a complete contract process that was awarded to Smartronix. Contract Posted to Recovery.gov to Promote Transparency and Accountability
WASHINGTON – In a major step toward developing a state-of-the-art website that provides the public with a user-friendly portal to see how recovery money is being spent, the U.S. General Services Administration, on behalf of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, recently awarded Smartronix Inc. with a contract to build the new Recovery.gov website.
GSA, in cooperation with the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, has released the contract documents and they have been posted on Recovery.gov.
Through the use of innovative new technology, approachable design, and powerful data analysis and reporting tools, the new Recovery.gov will provide citizens and communities with easy access to information on recovery spending, thus increasing government transparency and accountability.
The contract award for the new Recovery.gov is part of this effort. Included in the information posted to Recovery.gov are the contractual documents, the Statement of Objectives, the contractor’s management and technical proposal which were incorporated into the task order, and a pricing summary.
Consistent with the release of these types of documents, they were carefully reviewed to ensure compliance with all relevant regulations. Proprietary information about Smartronix and its partners has been redacted pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(4), which allows for the withholding of certain commercial or financial records if the release of such records would involve a substantial risk of competitive injury to a business.
Information that qualifies for redaction can include private business sales statistics, technical design, research data, non federal customer and supplier lists, overhead and operating costs, non-public financial statements, resumes of company employees, names of consultants and subcontractors, details of production or quality control systems information, internal operating procedures, staffing patterns, and any information that may place a company at a competitive disadvantage for future procurements.
We take our responsibility to implement the Recovery Act in an open and transparent manner very seriously.
The following three groups of documents have been posted on Recovery.gov at http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/recovery-redesign-contract.
Initial Award of Contract This group consists of three documents:
1- The GSA Form 300 that formally awarded the project to build the new Recovery.gov to Smartronix, Inc. It required Smartronix’s work to be performed according to the attached Statement of Work. It also approved funding totaling $9.5 Million for development and implementation of the website (Contract Line Item 1), and development and implementation of a parallel Continuation of Operations (COOP) Site (Contract Line Item 80).
2- The Pricing Description that lists all awarded and optional Contract Line Items.
3- The Statement of Work that details the work Smartronix was expected to perform.
First Contract Modification (administrative) This group consists of one document:
1- The GSA form 300 that corrected accounting coding information and specified a period of performance for the contract.
Second Contract Modification This group consists of five documents:
1- The Standard Form 30 that clarified information in the initial award document by defining limits for certain expenses the contractor can charge to the government, and requiring that they perform work according to the requirements of the original Statement of Objectives, the contractor’s Management Proposal, and the contractor’s Technical Proposal.
2- The Pricing Description that lists all awarded and optional Contract Line Items, and establishes limits for travel, ancillary and support expenses that can be charged to the government.
3- The Statement of Objectives issued by GSA to solicit proposals from firms on the Alliant Governmentwide Contract, detailing the requirements and objectives of the new Recovery.gov.
4- The Technical Proposal submitted by Smartronix detailing how the company proposed to meet the Recovery.gov requirements and objectives.
5- The Management Proposal submitted by Smartronix detailing how the company proposed to meet the Recovery.gov requirements and objectives.
Tuesday
US military enlists iPhone for battlefield US military enlists iPhone for battlefield
The US military has found the iPod Touch to be a valuable battlefield tool for soldiers.
Apple's iPod Touch is proving to be a valuable tool to members of the US military, according to a report in Newsweek. The report notes that the iPod performs many functions in this time of "networked warfare", the iPod allows soldiers to be linked with other soldiers as well as intelligence resources, such as aerial images from drones and translation software.
Soldiers can use apps to add translated phrases to maps and photos, as well as show villagers video messages from local leaders. A new program called Vcommunicator translates spoken and written Arabic, Kurdish, as well as two Afghan languages.
Another application developed for the iPhone allows soldiers to take a photo of a street sign, upload it and immediately receive intelligence on the local area, such as water and sympathisers. Because new recruits are already familiar with how the iPod and iPhone work, it's also easier to train soldiers on loading content, the report notes.
Oh yeah, this rugged device, which retails for less than US$230, was developed in the private sector without taxpayer money. Considering the military's history of being charged for US$435 hammers, US$640 toilet seats and US$7600 coffee-makers by contractors, this is a great deal.
Commanding Military Drones - Now iPhone Has an App for That!
If you’ve got drones in different area codes, iPhone has an app for that. MIT’s Human and Automation Lab (HAL) has been able to control an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) using everyone’s favorite smart phone. By utilizing the iPhone’s touch screen, tilting sensors, and high speed data transfer HAL is able to manually fly the drone or guide it to follow a prescribed path. In turn, the drone sends back video and snap shots as requested. MIT’s success shows how the controls for UAVs can get smaller, simpler, and easier to use. Watch the three demonstration videos after the break.
Could the iPhone replace the bulky controls of the Raven Drone?
UAVs and other military drones are an important part of the modernization of the US Army. The Raven drone is a light-weight surveillance platform that can be launched by hand. Unfortunately, it’s operating controls are a heavy briefcase like enclosure that has to be lugged around. That sort of discontinuity irks HAL team leader Prof. Missy Cummings. Cummings was once a F/A-18 Hornet fighter pilot for the Navy and saw the UAVs as a great way to prove that drone control could be light-weight, simple, and elegant. Her students were the ones that pointed out they could use iPhones. (They would all have to receive iPhones as part of their research, of course).
The proof of concept tests were done with a commercially available four-rotor spy drone called a micro aerial vehicel (MAV). The drone only cost about $5000 and flew well inside the MIT robotics range. Watching the ease at which the operator controls the MAV it is hard to believe that HAL got the project from conception to demonstration in just six weeks!
It’s kind of crazy what a simple iPhone app can do. Besides manual control, the iPhone operator can cue in locations that he or she wants the drone to travel to called waypoints. There are single touch keys for launch and landing, and streaming video appears right inside the app. All this and the phone can still receive calls, texts, etc.
If the military decides to pick up HAL’s work, it will drastically lighten the load of soldiers in the field and allow them an easier way to manage their drones. Certainly the application could be modified so that a single iPhone could serve as a control for several different drones on collaborative missions.
Outside of the military, commercial drones could find more popularity with the ease of use promised by an iPhone application. In the final video, we see how the MAV can explore a new region with a high level of autonomy using a webcam and laser range finder. That’s good news for everyone from cave explorers, to security guards, to rescue workers. We’re bound to see more people using light weight and simple drones in important roles in the years to come. After all, iPhone now has an App for that.
Check out mroe at http://singularityhub.com
Thursday
AF Need Integrated Open Source Solutions
I found the following detail of General Kehler's keynote as detailed by John Nolan in the Dayton Daily News fascinating as it articulates the unique IT related challenges facing Cyber, Space and IT related support to the the U.S. Military:
Electronic systems that are proprietary and cannot be used with other suppliers’ networks or computer applications won’t help the Air Force reach its cyberspace goals of being able to attack enemies and defend key U.S. networks.
Electronic systems that are proprietary and cannot be used with other suppliers’ networks or computer applications won’t help the Air Force reach its cyberspace goals of being able to attack enemies and defend key U.S. networks.
The following is the detail of the General's comments. Great insight as to the true needs of our military and the way private industry can address those needs through open architecture resources.
“One thing industry can do is bring us integrated solutions,” Gen. C. Robert Kehler told the opening session of Infotech 2009, an annual conference that brings together top Air Force officials and technology companies eager to obtain or extend military supply contracts.
“Otherwise, we’re where we’ve been for 50 years, buying stovepipe systems that don’t talk to anybody else,” he said. “We don’t have enough money for that, and we don’t have the time for it.”
The speed of changes in the cyberspace world will force the Air Force, and the Defense Department in general, to find new ways to obtain technology to stay ahead of — or at least keep up with — cyber enemies, Kehler said.
The government’s current budget, planning and acquisition cycles are too slow, said Kehler, whose command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., oversees cyberspace operations, missiles and space satellite-based reconnaisance systems. The Space Command’s responsibilities include providing real-time information to battlefield commanders so that would-be ambushers can be identified and attacked before they can surprise U.S. or coalition forces.
The government will need the ideas of business and academia to find solutions, Kehler said.
“I think small business has got a huge role to play,” he said. “We’ve got to figure out how to unlock it — and not stifle it.”
He acknowledged the challenges of getting competing companies to work together in providing “open architecture” electronic systems that could communicate with each other.
Elsewhere in the Dayton Convention Center, vendors occupying booths at InfoTech displayed competing systems for information technology and other services.
An official who helped organize this year’s InfoTech event addressed Kehler’s concern, in a welcoming statement to conference participants.
“It is vitally important that we collectively engage in a useful dialogue of how we must drive the necessary change in our programs and organizations so that we can deliver the information that is truly integral to the joint fight,” wrote David L. Judson Jr., president of the Dayton-Wright chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.
The AFCEA is an association of command, control, communications, computer, and intelligence professionals with more than 130 chapters worldwide. The local Dayton AFCEA chapter organizes the annual InfoTech conference.
QinetiQ North America To Acquire Cyveillance
QinetiQ North America To Acquire Cyveillance
QinetiQ will extend Cyveillance's family of cyberintelligence solutions to customer baseMay 06, 2009 | 10:50 AM
MCLEAN, Va., May 6 /PRNewswire/ --QinetiQ North America today announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Cyveillance, Inc., a provider of online monitoring technology to identify and track data in cyberspace.
This acquisition positions QinetiQ North America well in cyber-intelligence in both the U.S. and International markets. It is in line with QinetiQ North America's strategic focus on key high-value, high-growth segments of the U.S. defense and security market.
Under the terms of the deal, QinetiQ North America will acquire 100 percent of Cyveillance, Inc. in an all cash transaction. There will be potential further consideration depending on the company's financial performance during the two-year period ending December 31, 2010. The acquisition is expected to close in June 2009 following receipt of regulatory approvals.
Cyveillance, Inc. is a venture-capital backed company based in Arlington, Virginia, and is in business to ensure the success of risk-management professionals in securing their enterprises against the growing number of threats found on the Internet. Cyveillance's family of cyber-intelligence solutions delivers the timely, reliable, relevant and actionable information required to proactively manage Internet-based risks. It provides a unique integrated offering to customers who rely on the web for their trading activities.
The acquisition represents a continuing execution of QinetiQ North America's strategy to grow its business and supports its focus on key national security markets, specifically in the emerging and growing multibillion dollar cyber security marketplace.
Cyveillance provides integrated cyber security solutions to a range of high profile commercial customers on multi-year subscription fee contracts that give good visibility of future earnings. The acquisition also offers opportunities to roll out Cyveillance's solutions to QinetiQ North America's existing customer base that includes government agencies in the U.S. and worldwide.
Commenting on the acquisition, Duane Andrews, QinetiQ North America CEO said, "Cyveillance's position in online monitoring technology builds on our existing capability in the growing cyber security market. It complements our portfolio in security and intelligence solutions and services and provides the potential to further leverage QinetiQ North America contracts in open source intelligence and technology protection. We believe Cyveillance is well positioned to benefit from the increased importance that the administration is placing on addressing cyber security as the risk of new and increasingly sophisticated online threats increases."
About QinetiQ NorthAmerica
QinetiQ (pronounced "kinetic") North America delivers world-class technology and responsive solutions to government agencies and commercial customers for many of their most urgent and complex challenges. QinetiQ North America is an independent, innovative technology provider that earns over a billion dollars in revenue operating with small company speed and agility while leveraging significant global resources. More than 6,400 QinetiQ North America engineers, scientists and other professionals have the mission knowledge and proven, reliable performance to meet the rapidly changing demands of national defense, homeland security and information assurance customers. QinetiQ North America is part of QinetiQ Group PLC, one of the world's leading defense and security technology companies. For more information, please visit www.QinetiQ-NA.com.
Sunday
Who is Gonna Be the Cyber Czar???
Reuter has it's own guess. My MIT colleagues ar thinking General Alexander or maybe Microsoft's security chief and a veteran of Clinton's and Bush's national security teams are leading candidates for cybersecurity czar, a job that needs White House access and clout to protect networks that underpin the U.S. economy.
President Barack Obama promised last month that he would personally decide who would lead the fight against an epidemic of cybercrime and organize a response to any major cyber attack.
A leading candidate for the post is Scott Charney, head of Microsoft's cybersecurity division, who has said he won't take the job, according to a source who had direct knowledge of the matter but was not authorized to discuss it. The source said, however, that Charney would change his mind if pressed.
Charney also led PricewaterhouseCoopers' cybercrime unit and headed the Justice Department's computer crime section.
His main competitor is likely Paul Kurtz, who led Obama's cybersecurity transition team and who worked on the National Security Council under both Bush and Clinton, the source said.
Others under consideration include former Rep. Tom Davis, a moderate Virginia Republican; Sun Microsystems executive Susan Landau; Maureen Baginski, a veteran of the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Frank Kramer, an assistant defense secretary under Clinton, the source told Reuters.
Also in the running but less likely to be picked are Melissa Hathaway, who led a cybersecurity review for the president, and James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, the source said.
John Thompson, chairman of the board of Symantec Corp, had been under consideration but turned it down, the source said.
UNDEFINED
The exact responsibilities of the new job remain largely undefined, although the position described in a report by Hathaway's team describes a coordinator who reports to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.
Holes in U.S. cybersecurity defenses have allowed major incidents of thefts of identity, money, intellectual property and corporate secrets. In one incident, a bank lost $10 million in cash in a day.
There have also been thefts of sensitive military information and a penetration of the U.S. electrical grid.
Susan Landau, who declined to discuss if she has been short-listed for the job, said she would urge Obama to make it a top-level position, as he promised.
"The job is very important," said Landau. "We have all sorts of different kinds of threats. ... What you want is ubiquitous security."
Landau is a Sun Microsystems engineer who has worked on digital rights, privacy and export control.
Lewis, who also declined to discuss on the record whether he was being considered, said the White House must emphasize national security expertise in picking a cybersecurity czar.
"Some guy from industry is going to write a national security strategy? No, they aren't. You don't just pick this up," said Lewis. "You need somebody who knows the national security game, who knows government and who knows about the technology."
Before becoming a senior fellow at CSIS on technology and national security, Lewis worked for the federal government as a foreign service officer with assignments on such disparate topics as global arms sales, encryption and high-tech trade with China.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill shared Lewis' and Landau's views, said a senate staffer who has been briefed on the issue.
"The president's vision is a heavyweight," said a Senate staffer. "I'm concerned that he or she will get sort of tied up, like Gulliver, tied down by a million different reporting requirements."
President Barack Obama promised last month that he would personally decide who would lead the fight against an epidemic of cybercrime and organize a response to any major cyber attack.
A leading candidate for the post is Scott Charney, head of Microsoft's cybersecurity division, who has said he won't take the job, according to a source who had direct knowledge of the matter but was not authorized to discuss it. The source said, however, that Charney would change his mind if pressed.
Charney also led PricewaterhouseCoopers' cybercrime unit and headed the Justice Department's computer crime section.
His main competitor is likely Paul Kurtz, who led Obama's cybersecurity transition team and who worked on the National Security Council under both Bush and Clinton, the source said.
Others under consideration include former Rep. Tom Davis, a moderate Virginia Republican; Sun Microsystems executive Susan Landau; Maureen Baginski, a veteran of the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Frank Kramer, an assistant defense secretary under Clinton, the source told Reuters.
Also in the running but less likely to be picked are Melissa Hathaway, who led a cybersecurity review for the president, and James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, the source said.
John Thompson, chairman of the board of Symantec Corp, had been under consideration but turned it down, the source said.
UNDEFINED
The exact responsibilities of the new job remain largely undefined, although the position described in a report by Hathaway's team describes a coordinator who reports to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.
Holes in U.S. cybersecurity defenses have allowed major incidents of thefts of identity, money, intellectual property and corporate secrets. In one incident, a bank lost $10 million in cash in a day.
There have also been thefts of sensitive military information and a penetration of the U.S. electrical grid.
Susan Landau, who declined to discuss if she has been short-listed for the job, said she would urge Obama to make it a top-level position, as he promised.
"The job is very important," said Landau. "We have all sorts of different kinds of threats. ... What you want is ubiquitous security."
Landau is a Sun Microsystems engineer who has worked on digital rights, privacy and export control.
Lewis, who also declined to discuss on the record whether he was being considered, said the White House must emphasize national security expertise in picking a cybersecurity czar.
"Some guy from industry is going to write a national security strategy? No, they aren't. You don't just pick this up," said Lewis. "You need somebody who knows the national security game, who knows government and who knows about the technology."
Before becoming a senior fellow at CSIS on technology and national security, Lewis worked for the federal government as a foreign service officer with assignments on such disparate topics as global arms sales, encryption and high-tech trade with China.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill shared Lewis' and Landau's views, said a senate staffer who has been briefed on the issue.
"The president's vision is a heavyweight," said a Senate staffer. "I'm concerned that he or she will get sort of tied up, like Gulliver, tied down by a million different reporting requirements."
NETCENTS II RFPS and Details
Hi all, Thanks to our friend Joyce Bosco and her team at Boscobel for providing me this quick resource to NETCENTS II RFP docs and Info. Hope you find it useful.
All documents pertaining to the acquisitions will be posted at the following links:
APPLICATION SERVICES DRAFT RFP
The NETCENTS-2 Program Office has released the draft RFP for Application Services full and open contract.
APPLICATION SERVICES (Small Business Companion) DRAFT RFP
The NETCENTS-2 Program Office has released the draft RFP for Application Services small business companion contract. NETOPS AND INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS DRAFT RFP
The NETCENTS-2 Program Office has released the draft RFP for NetOps and Infrastructure Solutions full and open contract.NETOPS AND INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS (Small Business Companion) DRAFT RFP
The NETCENTS-2 Program Office has released the draft RFP for NetOps and Infrastructure Solutions small business companion contract.
Please note that there has been an amendment posted to the Application Services (full and open) Draft RFP:Subject: Network Centric Solutions-2 (NETCENTS-2) Applications Services (Full and Open) Draft Request for Proposal (RFP), FA8771-09-R-00201.
The second paragraph of the Application Services Coverletter dated 09 July 2009 has changed as follows:
From: The resultant NETCENTS-2 NetOps and Infrastructure Solutions contract will be a multiple award Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. At present, the Government anticipates 6 - 9 contract awardees via full and open competition. The Government reserves the right to award more, less or none at all. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 541511 - $25M or less.
To: The resultant NETCENTS-2 Application Services (Small Business Companion) contract will be a multiple award Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. At present, the Government anticipates 6 - 9 contract awardees via full and open competition. The Government reserves the right to award more, less or none at all.
The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 541511 - $25M or less. 2. No other changes are made as a result of this update.
Register at the HERBB link (NETCNETS 2 PAGE) to receive updates:http://public.gunter.af.mil/aq/netcents/2/
Ideas and Relevance Adds up to Innovation!
Making sure the government transforms the nation's economy through technology innovation. This includes relooking at the federal research and development agenda and figure out how to drive innovation through policy, Chopra says.
Bringing innovation to the President's priorities such as health care, climate change, energy, economic improvement and education. "Game changing ideas often don't need to change policy, but can work within existing policy and accomplish the goal better, faster and cheaper," he says.
Delivering a reliable, resilient and trustworthy infrastructure. Chopra will focus on helping to develop a broadband plan by February and on cybersecurity. He says his work on cybersecurity will emphasize "game changing research and development, and collaboration with the private sector" to improve critical infrastructure.
Creating a culture of open and innovative government. Chopra says he will work with federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra, the General Services Administration and others to "build capacity in the federal government for a culture of openness transparency."
President Barack Obama already kicked off the open government initiative by challenging the major agencies to develop one significant transparency initiative in 2009.
Chopra says he is charged with working with agencies to come up with those initiatives and ensure there are results in a matter of weeks, not months or years.
He says this program is one approach to getting agencies to buy into the concept of innovation.
"As we release the projects and get results, we instill greater confidence that these things are possible," Chopra says. "That is culture change."
He uses his experience with the Virginia Commonwealth government as an example of this approach working.
Chopra says Governor Tim Kaine created a $3 million innovation fund and asked commonwealth agencies to submit ideas.
"The first year we offered grants to agencies, agency heads applied for relatively lame concepts that were unfunded things that the budget department said 'no' to," he says. "We didn't fund many of those projects because we didn't want to be the second door for bad budget ideas. But after we tried to educate folks on the spirit on this, folks more junior in the organization had comfort that they could present ideas and agency heads would champion them. Now they have a robust portfolio of 30 projects that will calculate 4.8 to 1 return on taxpayer investment."
He adds that in less than two years state employees embraced innovation.
Part of the approach to bring innovation to every agency is having ideas that are relevant.
"Relevance is defined by outcome goals or, in my case, presidential outcome goals," Chopra says. "We have clarity around relevance or we are in the process of getting that kind of clarity as agencies rethink their approach to outcomes based management. Ideas can be technology based or not technology based. The culture either welcomes new ideas or prohibits them from kissing the light of day. But by having an organization, a CTO, that essentially is a safe place where ideas can match up with relevance is the challenge at hand."
He adds that his office will look at best practices from the public and private sectors, and try to emulate them in government. Sometimes the innovation may happen at the state and local level with minimal contribution or impact on the federal agency, or the innovation will cut across all levels of government.
Chopra says agency CIOs may drive the innovation and they may not; He says it depends on the agency leaders' goals and how they want to direct the changes.
"What we need to do is have a thoughtful process of identifying what we are trying to accomplish, what resources we already have, what we can deploy and what new needs to be introduced to achieve those goals," Chopra says. "Some agencies will want to bring on board this type of capacity. We've already seen it with Alec Ross at the State Department as the senior innovation officer. His focus is on mission and goals not necessarily provisioning of IT."
Chopra also wants to work with industry. He says there are two ways vendors get their products to the government market: through procurement and through research and development.
"I want to be the voice for their ideas in the gray areas in between," he says. "For vendors with products they may have something cooking in oven that is not quite ready for prime time, they should think of the federal government as a potential partner for prototyping or beta testing some of those ideas that still are cooking. We will think through the process of getting that done in way that is compliant with rules and regulations we have before us."
He adds that service providers may be able to donate or volunteer expertise or skills to help the government meet its goals.
Listen to whole interview here:
Bringing innovation to the President's priorities such as health care, climate change, energy, economic improvement and education. "Game changing ideas often don't need to change policy, but can work within existing policy and accomplish the goal better, faster and cheaper," he says.
Delivering a reliable, resilient and trustworthy infrastructure. Chopra will focus on helping to develop a broadband plan by February and on cybersecurity. He says his work on cybersecurity will emphasize "game changing research and development, and collaboration with the private sector" to improve critical infrastructure.
Creating a culture of open and innovative government. Chopra says he will work with federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra, the General Services Administration and others to "build capacity in the federal government for a culture of openness transparency."
President Barack Obama already kicked off the open government initiative by challenging the major agencies to develop one significant transparency initiative in 2009.
Chopra says he is charged with working with agencies to come up with those initiatives and ensure there are results in a matter of weeks, not months or years.
He says this program is one approach to getting agencies to buy into the concept of innovation.
"As we release the projects and get results, we instill greater confidence that these things are possible," Chopra says. "That is culture change."
He uses his experience with the Virginia Commonwealth government as an example of this approach working.
Chopra says Governor Tim Kaine created a $3 million innovation fund and asked commonwealth agencies to submit ideas.
"The first year we offered grants to agencies, agency heads applied for relatively lame concepts that were unfunded things that the budget department said 'no' to," he says. "We didn't fund many of those projects because we didn't want to be the second door for bad budget ideas. But after we tried to educate folks on the spirit on this, folks more junior in the organization had comfort that they could present ideas and agency heads would champion them. Now they have a robust portfolio of 30 projects that will calculate 4.8 to 1 return on taxpayer investment."
He adds that in less than two years state employees embraced innovation.
Part of the approach to bring innovation to every agency is having ideas that are relevant.
"Relevance is defined by outcome goals or, in my case, presidential outcome goals," Chopra says. "We have clarity around relevance or we are in the process of getting that kind of clarity as agencies rethink their approach to outcomes based management. Ideas can be technology based or not technology based. The culture either welcomes new ideas or prohibits them from kissing the light of day. But by having an organization, a CTO, that essentially is a safe place where ideas can match up with relevance is the challenge at hand."
He adds that his office will look at best practices from the public and private sectors, and try to emulate them in government. Sometimes the innovation may happen at the state and local level with minimal contribution or impact on the federal agency, or the innovation will cut across all levels of government.
Chopra says agency CIOs may drive the innovation and they may not; He says it depends on the agency leaders' goals and how they want to direct the changes.
"What we need to do is have a thoughtful process of identifying what we are trying to accomplish, what resources we already have, what we can deploy and what new needs to be introduced to achieve those goals," Chopra says. "Some agencies will want to bring on board this type of capacity. We've already seen it with Alec Ross at the State Department as the senior innovation officer. His focus is on mission and goals not necessarily provisioning of IT."
Chopra also wants to work with industry. He says there are two ways vendors get their products to the government market: through procurement and through research and development.
"I want to be the voice for their ideas in the gray areas in between," he says. "For vendors with products they may have something cooking in oven that is not quite ready for prime time, they should think of the federal government as a potential partner for prototyping or beta testing some of those ideas that still are cooking. We will think through the process of getting that done in way that is compliant with rules and regulations we have before us."
He adds that service providers may be able to donate or volunteer expertise or skills to help the government meet its goals.
Listen to whole interview here:
Is Cloud Security Cloudy?
From our friends at Forbes:
Intelligent Technology
If The Clouds Burst
Andy Greenberg, 06.05.09, 06:00 AM EDT
NIST official warns that cloud computing could face a banking-style meltdown.
The much-hyped vision of information technology's cloud computing future is often described with an analogy to the power industry: Just as we pipe in electricity from a central utility, the comparison goes, so will we someday pay for processing and storage as utility-like services in a central location, a model that's more efficient, more flexible and cheaper.
But cloud computing, argues the National Institute of Science and Technology's (NIST) cloud computing lead Peter Mell, can also be described with an analogy to another industry, and one with a less savory track record: banking. In a cloud computing scenario, as in banking, businesses and governments entrust their precious digital assets to a single central repository--one that's more interested in maximizing profit than in creating a costly safety buffer.
Just as banks responded to financial incentives that caused them to over-leverage their capital, Mell argues that cloud computing vendors, including Google ( GOOG - news - people ) and Amazon, face pressures to leverage as many of their computing resources as possible, potentially risking the same sort of sudden and catastrophic collapse that's sent the U.S. economy reeling.
NIST, a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, doesn't have the power to impose regulation on cloud computing vendors. But the agency does function as a creator of standards and a watchdog group with a close eye on technology's security and its impact on the economy. Forbes spoke with Mell about cloud computing's appeal, what he sees as its hidden instabilities, and what needs to happen to prevent a future cloud computing meltdown.
Forbes: What's the cloud computing "crisis" scenario that you worry about?
Peter Mell: NIST's definition of cloud computing talks about resource pooling, location independence and elasticity. Those characteristics have led to the technology's increasing adoption for important applications, and they give users the appearance of unlimited capacity. The idea is they can have as much storage or processing as they want whenever they want. The only limiting factor is the cost.
But clouds do have a capacity limit, and major cloud vendors don't publish their overall capacity or utilization rates. So we have no idea if they're sitting on several idle data centers waiting for customers or if they're scrambling feverishly to add new capacity to keep up with demand.
Are you comparing the situation to the financial sector, where the economy suffered from a lack of transparency into the industry's risk?
The analogy is that in the banking crisis we've been very concerned with the cash reserves that banks have to ensure their viability to extend credit. We're very interested in their cash cushion, and in the banking industry there's visibility into the size of that cushion.
In the cloud computing industry there's no visibility into that reserve capacity. So as we become dependent on cloud computing we're relying on cloud computing vendors to have enough reserve capacity to continue our operations. And any unused computers that they maintain they have to pay for. It costs them resources to keep a large reserve. So it's a valid question: If you're profiting more by reserving less capacity, how much are you actually keeping for us?
How much capacity do you think vendors should keep in reserve?
Cloud computing is new enough that I'm not sure anyone knows. There will be certain situations where the demand suddenly increases or the supply disappears: For instance, a natural disaster, or a hacking attack, or a large influx of customers, as may happen when the economy rebounds over the next few years. And just as important as their reserve is how fast they can add capacity.
Do we need to force cloud vendors to publish their capacity? Or do we need to create a sort of FDIC for cloud computing that can rescue failed clouds?
I can't take part in any discussion of regulatory policy. But those are extremely interesting ideas.
You mention some scary hypotheticals, but are there real scenarios where this has happened?
We've seen clouds go down. Currently we don't have very good portability between clouds, so the multi-cloud outage concern will only exist in the future.
Within a single cloud, we've certainly had a history of public clouds experiencing outages. None of them have been of great duration. We know they can go down, but it's never been for a significant amount of time, and to my knowledge we've never had a cloud overcapacity situation cause an outage.
So when Google's services temporarily went down last month, that wasn't due to undercapacity? (See "An (Internet) Day Without Google.")
No, though it did show us what it looks like when an entire cloud goes down.
When a cloud is overloaded, would it actually collapse, or merely not work as well?
When an individual server starts to go above 80%, you have thrashing--the computer is constantly moving data from disk to memory and back again, and the computer slows to a crawl--nothing works.
If a cloud isn't built to expect an overcapacity situation, it could conceivably result in the entire cloud similarly ceasing to work. What I would hope, and what is also possible, is that when clouds reach their capacity limit, they could be architected so that applications can request no more computing capacity. They could gracefully degrade each applications' usage, which could prohibit the application from working, but allow the cloud itself to remain functional. It's possible that cloud computing will be architected that way, and it's critical, because otherwise the individual servers making up the cloud could be overloaded and cease to function altogether.
What about the interoperability between clouds? Will the ability to move data and applications from one cloud to another alleviate some of the risk of cloud overload?
There's a lot of effort now to achieve that data and application portability, moving from one cloud to another. But if you have many vendors, all with razor-thin capacity reserves, and one provider loses its data center because of greater economic activity or greater usage, an over-capacity situation could cause customers to migrate to another cloud vendor. If the cloud vendors don't gracefully handle the capacity situation--I hope they would, but we don't know if they have--there could be a chain reaction of outages.
So you're saying interoperability between clouds could also lead to a kind of cascading cloud blackout?
Interoperability could be a good thing too. If there was an outage in one cloud, customers could be redistributed among other clouds. But in a black swan sort of event, or any sudden increase in demand, it could also possibly trigger this kind of a chain reaction.
If there were a massive cloud outage, who would be held liable?
The typical service level agreement just refunds the customers' cost of service. It doesn't cover the cost resulting from an outage. So the cloud vendor wouldn't pay for the full cost of those outages to the customer.
That includes the SLAs of companies including Google and Amazon?
Right. And another issue is that many of these vendors also use their clouds for their own internal purposes. So if there were an overcapacity situation there would arise the question of whether the customers receive service or would the vendor support their own uses first.
Just as when a bank collapses, some investors are paid back their investment while others lose money.
Exactly. Even in the government, we've talked about creating community clouds, where one agency will host another's applications. We have to ask the question, when there's a problem, who loses their capacity--the host agency or the one being hosted? Those issues need to be worked out in any sort of shared cloud, and to my knowledge they haven't been.
Intelligent Technology
If The Clouds Burst
Andy Greenberg, 06.05.09, 06:00 AM EDT
NIST official warns that cloud computing could face a banking-style meltdown.
The much-hyped vision of information technology's cloud computing future is often described with an analogy to the power industry: Just as we pipe in electricity from a central utility, the comparison goes, so will we someday pay for processing and storage as utility-like services in a central location, a model that's more efficient, more flexible and cheaper.
But cloud computing, argues the National Institute of Science and Technology's (NIST) cloud computing lead Peter Mell, can also be described with an analogy to another industry, and one with a less savory track record: banking. In a cloud computing scenario, as in banking, businesses and governments entrust their precious digital assets to a single central repository--one that's more interested in maximizing profit than in creating a costly safety buffer.
Just as banks responded to financial incentives that caused them to over-leverage their capital, Mell argues that cloud computing vendors, including Google ( GOOG - news - people ) and Amazon, face pressures to leverage as many of their computing resources as possible, potentially risking the same sort of sudden and catastrophic collapse that's sent the U.S. economy reeling.
NIST, a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, doesn't have the power to impose regulation on cloud computing vendors. But the agency does function as a creator of standards and a watchdog group with a close eye on technology's security and its impact on the economy. Forbes spoke with Mell about cloud computing's appeal, what he sees as its hidden instabilities, and what needs to happen to prevent a future cloud computing meltdown.
Forbes: What's the cloud computing "crisis" scenario that you worry about?
Peter Mell: NIST's definition of cloud computing talks about resource pooling, location independence and elasticity. Those characteristics have led to the technology's increasing adoption for important applications, and they give users the appearance of unlimited capacity. The idea is they can have as much storage or processing as they want whenever they want. The only limiting factor is the cost.
But clouds do have a capacity limit, and major cloud vendors don't publish their overall capacity or utilization rates. So we have no idea if they're sitting on several idle data centers waiting for customers or if they're scrambling feverishly to add new capacity to keep up with demand.
Are you comparing the situation to the financial sector, where the economy suffered from a lack of transparency into the industry's risk?
The analogy is that in the banking crisis we've been very concerned with the cash reserves that banks have to ensure their viability to extend credit. We're very interested in their cash cushion, and in the banking industry there's visibility into the size of that cushion.
In the cloud computing industry there's no visibility into that reserve capacity. So as we become dependent on cloud computing we're relying on cloud computing vendors to have enough reserve capacity to continue our operations. And any unused computers that they maintain they have to pay for. It costs them resources to keep a large reserve. So it's a valid question: If you're profiting more by reserving less capacity, how much are you actually keeping for us?
How much capacity do you think vendors should keep in reserve?
Cloud computing is new enough that I'm not sure anyone knows. There will be certain situations where the demand suddenly increases or the supply disappears: For instance, a natural disaster, or a hacking attack, or a large influx of customers, as may happen when the economy rebounds over the next few years. And just as important as their reserve is how fast they can add capacity.
Do we need to force cloud vendors to publish their capacity? Or do we need to create a sort of FDIC for cloud computing that can rescue failed clouds?
I can't take part in any discussion of regulatory policy. But those are extremely interesting ideas.
You mention some scary hypotheticals, but are there real scenarios where this has happened?
We've seen clouds go down. Currently we don't have very good portability between clouds, so the multi-cloud outage concern will only exist in the future.
Within a single cloud, we've certainly had a history of public clouds experiencing outages. None of them have been of great duration. We know they can go down, but it's never been for a significant amount of time, and to my knowledge we've never had a cloud overcapacity situation cause an outage.
So when Google's services temporarily went down last month, that wasn't due to undercapacity? (See "An (Internet) Day Without Google.")
No, though it did show us what it looks like when an entire cloud goes down.
When a cloud is overloaded, would it actually collapse, or merely not work as well?
When an individual server starts to go above 80%, you have thrashing--the computer is constantly moving data from disk to memory and back again, and the computer slows to a crawl--nothing works.
If a cloud isn't built to expect an overcapacity situation, it could conceivably result in the entire cloud similarly ceasing to work. What I would hope, and what is also possible, is that when clouds reach their capacity limit, they could be architected so that applications can request no more computing capacity. They could gracefully degrade each applications' usage, which could prohibit the application from working, but allow the cloud itself to remain functional. It's possible that cloud computing will be architected that way, and it's critical, because otherwise the individual servers making up the cloud could be overloaded and cease to function altogether.
What about the interoperability between clouds? Will the ability to move data and applications from one cloud to another alleviate some of the risk of cloud overload?
There's a lot of effort now to achieve that data and application portability, moving from one cloud to another. But if you have many vendors, all with razor-thin capacity reserves, and one provider loses its data center because of greater economic activity or greater usage, an over-capacity situation could cause customers to migrate to another cloud vendor. If the cloud vendors don't gracefully handle the capacity situation--I hope they would, but we don't know if they have--there could be a chain reaction of outages.
So you're saying interoperability between clouds could also lead to a kind of cascading cloud blackout?
Interoperability could be a good thing too. If there was an outage in one cloud, customers could be redistributed among other clouds. But in a black swan sort of event, or any sudden increase in demand, it could also possibly trigger this kind of a chain reaction.
If there were a massive cloud outage, who would be held liable?
The typical service level agreement just refunds the customers' cost of service. It doesn't cover the cost resulting from an outage. So the cloud vendor wouldn't pay for the full cost of those outages to the customer.
That includes the SLAs of companies including Google and Amazon?
Right. And another issue is that many of these vendors also use their clouds for their own internal purposes. So if there were an overcapacity situation there would arise the question of whether the customers receive service or would the vendor support their own uses first.
Just as when a bank collapses, some investors are paid back their investment while others lose money.
Exactly. Even in the government, we've talked about creating community clouds, where one agency will host another's applications. We have to ask the question, when there's a problem, who loses their capacity--the host agency or the one being hosted? Those issues need to be worked out in any sort of shared cloud, and to my knowledge they haven't been.
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