PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD
PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD The U.S. government has built a cloud and is now hoping that users at the myriad federal agencies will use it.
Apps.gov makes cloud-based business, productivity and social media applications along with cloud-based IT services available to federal agency users. The service was launched by federal CIO Vivek Kundra on Sept. 15, 2009, at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffatt Field, near San Francisco.
Cloud computing enables users to access server-based resources from any location, consuming and paying for only what they need.
The initiative is not the only cloud-based service under way to serve the federal community. The same day as the apps.gov launch, Google said it will create a cloud of its own dedicated to serving the federal government. In addition, NASA itself is cooking up a cloud called Nebula to serve up on-demand applications to its user community. In addition, the Department of Defense’s Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) built RACE (Rapid Access Computing Environment), a cloud of computing resources for use by DOD personnel. RACE, which went live in October 2008, allows “customers to swipe a card and pay by the month for a compute platform as well as applications."
Kundra made the case for apps.gov in a blog post:
“… federal agencies and departments encounter many difficulties in deploying new IT services and products. Procurement processes can be confusing and time-consuming. Security procedures are complex, costly, lengthy and duplicative across agencies. Our policies lag behind new trends, causing unnecessary restrictions on the use of new technology. Past practices too often resulted in inefficient use of purchased IT capabilities across the federal government. We are dedicated to addressing these barriers and to improving the way government leverages new technology. ... With more rapid access to innovative IT solutions, agencies can spend less time and taxpayer dollars on procedural items and focus more on using technology to achieve their missions.”
The federal government spends $75 billion on IT per year. It’s unclear how much of that total apps.gov will save. “Apps.gov is starting small—with the goal of rapidly scaling it up in size. Along the way, we will need to address various issues related to security, privacy, information management and procurement to expand our cloud computing services,” Kundra wrote.
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