NIST Cloud Computing Forum and Workshop IV Day 1

By A. Larry Gurule

Tuesday, November 1, 2011, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released for comment its Special Publication 500-293, US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap, Release 1.0 (Draft), in three volumes, for 30 days before final publication. In conjunction with this release, NIST is holding a three-day Cloud Computing Forum and Workshop, which I am attending.

Day 1 of the workshop was held at the NIST campus in Gaithersburg, Md., and was attended by 300+ individuals representing numerous companies and countries. The day was kicked off by Patrick Gallagher, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and the Director of NIST. Mr. Gallagher stated that $20 billion of the U.S. government’s $80 billion IT budget will be moved to the cloud.

Next up was the keynote speaker, U.S. CIO Steve VanRoekel, who affirmed his and the U.S. government’s support for and commitment to cloud computing, citing fiscal pressures coupled with community interaction that put the U.S. government on notice to deliver. Mr. VanRoekel went on to state that his office had awarded 12 contracts this year to cloud providers in four key areas: agencies, procurement, international and cybersecurity. He also touted FedRAMP, the government’s initiative aimed at streamlining the procurement of cloud capabilities. Mr. VanRoekel ended by reiterating that the U.S. government and his office specifically have a mandate to do more with less, and that the publication of NIST’s Roadmap was an important inflection point for cloud development and utilization.

Following the keynote speaker was a panel discussion on “Cloud Without Borders,” chaired by Ambassador Phillip L. Vereer, with panelists from Korea, China, Europe and, representing academia, the University of Maryland at Baltimore. While most panelists saw the cloud as a cost-saving mechanism, the Chinese representative stated that his country’s hopes for the cloud involved driving GDP. Concerns of the panel (especially in Europe) centered on data privacy. It was apparent from the discussion that cross-border adoption of the cloud involves issues of international regulations, not technology.

Another panel discussion, “The Case for USG Cloud Computing Priorities,” included representatives from the U.S. government’s Business Use Case Working Group, Goddard Space Flight Center and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Notable comments from this group included an estimate that public cloud spending would increase from $25.5 billion today to $159 billion by 2020.

The third panel discussion of the day, “Succeeding by Working Together to Build a Healthy Cloud Ecosystem,” included representatives from NIST, DHS, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), and two standards organizations, ETSI and DMTF. Their discussion centered around user experience and seamless interoperability as goals of the end game. They also emphasized the importance of legacy system sustainment/migration in cloud adoption. They stressed that silos of clouds will not offer the value of a true, all encompassing cloud environment.

The final presentation was entitled “Beyond the Definition — Categorizing & Classifying Cloud Services using the Collaboratively Developed NIST Reference Architecture.” The presenters were the co-chairs of the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture Working Group, who demonstrated their approach to cloud taxonomies. This includes a four-level hierarchy that includes (from top to bottom) Cloud Service Providers, Cloud Service Managers, Public Cloud and Data Portability.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a report from Day 2.