Links List 02.05.10

February 5th, 2010 by Valerie Barber

The new Heinz “Dip & Squeeze” ketchup packet has nothing to do with our usual postings on network management or cloud computing, but if you saw this news, you were probably as happy as I was. They are set to hit restaurants this year.

Now on to the exciting stuff… 

Earlier this week, President Obama requested nearly $80 billion for federal IT spending in fiscal year 2011. The number of major IT projects increased to 809 from 781. Obama wants IT efforts related to open government and technology modernization to continue and he acknowledges that consumer technology is ahead of the federal government’s technology. Some White House initiatives include the continued rollout of less intensive and less expensive cloud computing technologies and are seeking ways to reduce the number and cost of federal data centers and reduce the time and effort required to acquire IT. Vivek Kundra said the government will be making a “major shift” to cloud solutions this year and he’s asked the CIOs at Treasury and DHS to lead the effort in consolidating the government’s more than 1,200 data centers.

New specialization for IT jobs is yet another example of the silver lining in cloud computing. The top 10 best IT jobs right now include:

• Security specialist/ethical hacker with the skill sets to better secure their environments
• Virtual systems manager – look for certification programs around virtual skills
• Capacity manager – help optimize resources and accurately assign financial value to technology resources
• Network engineer
• Open source specialist
• Service assurance manager to identify potential problems and optimize performance
• Sourcing specialist to make the choices on when to use SaaS. Cloud computing, managed services, outsourcing, etc.
• Service catalog manager, as enterprises IT operates more like a service provider 

Microsoft’s Azure Drive, a service that allows businesses to run existing Windows applications in Microsoft’s cloud environment through standard Windows NTFS APIs. The plans start at $0.12 per hour.

Speaking of pennies, Amazon has lowered the pricing for outbound data transfer by $0.02 across all its services, usage tiers and regions.

A new cloud calculator allows federal agencies quantify their potential cloud savings. It compares the different cloud model options, including private, community and public, to determine the suitability and financial impact of their cloud model choice. With lots of talk of the cloud coming to the federal government, this tool lets agencies get a feel for the cloud economics before they spend their money.

As more enterprises move to the cloud, I found some good basic principles for ensuring security: Improve cloud security in your enterprise.

• Learn from existing, internal security processes that apply to shared services like authentication, provisioning, database services and data centers
• Assess the risk and importance of moving various services to the cloud
• Study the different cloud models and categories
• Start thinking like a cloud provider
• Get familiar with and start using Web security standards now

Oracle released its plan on how it will integrate Sun’s hardware and software into its product lineup and CEO Larry Ellison’s comments led to this sharp reaction from IBM:

“Someone said they should have called his routine ‘Larry the Fable Guy’. I can’t believe some of the stupid—and ignorant—things he said.”

Bernie Spang, IBM’s director of product strategy

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