Class overview :

As the world’s largest consumer of information technology, the United States government encounters barriers to achieving optimum productivity and efficiency. Cloud computing has the potential to play a major part in addressing these inefficiencies and improving government service delivery.

Class goals :

• Evaluating cloud computing technologies to improve government service delivery
• Applying light technology and shared solutions for improved operational efficiency
• Selecting the best cloud deployment model to meet requirements
• Aligning cloud solutions with project requirements to identify first movers
• Examining potential barriers and pitfalls to government cloud adoption
• Analyzing government-wide initiatives to illustrate successful cloud implementations

Content of Cloud First: Overview, Strategies and Options for Government IT Managers

Cloud Computing Initiative: Defining a New Strategy for Government IT

Exploring the cloud computing landscape

• Business case for the Cloud-first policy
• Mapping agency priorities to cloud attributes

Analyzing cloud computing delivery models

• Public
• Private
• Hybrid
• Community
• Layering cloud services to create a coherent architecture

Achieving System Agility with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Implementing IaaS for operational efficiency

• Improving infrastructure procurement lead time
• Cost-effective, scalable and reliable data storage with Amazon Simple Storage Solution (S3)
• Immediate response to dynamic system requirements
• Auto-scaling infrastructure capacity to handle unpredictable demands

Federal, state and local agency case studies

• Computing intensive tasks with hundreds of servers at minimal cost
• Hosting a scalable Web application with Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2)

Integrating Software as a Service (SaaS) to Lower the Cost of Government Operations

Benefiting from SaaS

• Exploring best practices of the SaaS delivery model
• Minimizing administration costs
• Improving productivity and collaboration
• Replacing capital investments with pay-per-use

Federal, state and local agency case studies

• Implementing a SaaS vulnerability assessment system to reduce costs and increase security
• Managing and maintaining customer relationships with Salesforce.com

Selecting the Right Cloud Deployment Model

Leveraging public clouds

• Enabling shared solutions for reduced cost and increased efficiency
• Choosing a public cloud vendor
• Identifying the right services to move to the cloud

Implementing private clouds

• Determining when a private cloud is required
• Deciding on a private cloud architecture

Federal, state and local agency case studies

• Improving resource utilization with private clouds
• Leveraging public clouds for Federal systems

Improving Application Delivery with Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Leveraging PaaS to simplify deployment

• Employing off-premise execution platforms
• Instantaneous provisioning
• Achieving transparent application scalability
• Exploiting prepackaged configurations with Windows Azure and the Google App Engine

Live, in-class demonstrations

• Deploying applications to the Google App Engine for dynamic scalability
• Hosting ASP.NET data-driven applications in the Windows Azure cloud

Evaluating Potential Barriers to Adopting the Cloud

Security implications in the cloud

• Complying with FISMA requirements
• Achieving acceptable reliability and service-level agreements
• Aligning security requirements with cloud solutions
• Assessing cloud vendors authorized by FedRAMP

Building a strong governance foundation

• Establishing cloud computing standards
• Changing to a pay-per-use procurement model
• Evaluating the impact on employee skill requirements
• Best practices for government cloud services procurement

Live, in-class demonstration

• Investigating FISMA certified vendors

Moving Forward to Cloud Adoption

• Conducting a cloud-based alternatives analysis
• Selecting services for cloud migration
• Determining first movers
• Identifying a pilot project
• Creating a decision framework for your agency
• Streamlining RFP processes to relevant cloud services