Google, SalesForce help government transition to the cloud

Apps.gov is up and running after the Obama administration made a big announcement regarding cloud computing yesterday.

Two of the biggest players on apps.gov are Google and SalesForce.com.

Matt Glotzbach is Google's Product Management Director.

Dan Burton is Senior Vice President for Global Public Policy at SalesForce.com.

Each shared their ideas about cloud computing -- and where apps.gov is going -- on Wednesday's Daily Debrief.

Glotzbach said that having one company host a variety of applications is becoming increasingly popular in both the private and public sectors.

"They can be flipped on literally in a matter of minutes and be immediately consumed by customers, whether they be in the commercial world or, now more so, in the government world. Mr. Kundra is really pushing an agenda sponsored by the Obama administration at large to [look at] -- how can government get more efficient? How can we spend less of the taxpayers' dollars on these types of systems and really follow the lead that commercial industry has set in being able to leverage these services that are more efficient, more cost effective, more energy efficient . . . so that we can reduce the government IT spend and, more importantly, increase the pace of business," he said.

Burton agreed, touting cloud computing as being fast, cutting costs and having a high productivity yield.

Almost half of the cabinet-level agencies use SalesForce for a variety of purposes.

"The State Department uses it to track nuclear nonproliferation agreements. NASA uses it for tech transfer. Treasury uses it to track contracts across different federal agencies. U.S. Census is using it to manage their partners across the country as they're conducting the 2010 census. The U.S. Army is using it for recruiting. So, it really has a wide use of applications and I think the exciting thing is those applications are just the tip of the iceberg," he said.

Burton added that there is a new platform available through SalesForce called Force.com. It allows the user to build any application he or she wants to and then run it in the cloud.

Google is in the process of getting FISMA certification, which, Glotzbac explained, is because security is always top-of-mind, whether an agency is operating in the cloud or not.

"Security is absolutely job one for Google. As companies and governments are moving their systems out of their own control, there's a concern around -- well, when I can't put my two hands on it; when I don't manage the people who manage that system, am I compromising security? . . . FISMA provides guidelines and controls for ensuring that these information systems are secure -- that they do meet the needs of government agencies from a security and data privacy standpoint."

Glotzbach added that Google has already taken its existing commercial operations and made sure they meet FISMA controls. FISMA certification, he added, is the next step when it comes to working with the government.

Because neither Google nor SalesForce work exclusively with the federal government, each brings its own unique experiences with the private sector as apps.gov starts to evolve.

Burton said one of the main things to keep in mind is that Web 2.0 and cloud computing are not synonymous.

"Web 2.0 was was really -- the Web is ready for prime time and you can build critical applications on it. I think what the cloud does, is it really takes advantage of that Web, not only as a development platform, but as an application platform."

Burton describes SalesForce as an enterprise cloud computing company. This means it lets organizations run their applications on the cloud, as opposed to a company such as Amazon or Ebay.

"What is really means is all you need is an internet connection. Once you've got [that], with cloud computing you pay a monthly subscription. You have all of your data run in the cloud. You have all your applications run in the cloud. It's secure; it's reliable; and it reduces cost. It can be implemented very quickly because all of these big data centers and applications are already out there [and] provisioned. All customers are doing is customizing them and taking advantage."

Google is perhaps most famous for its messaging space applications, such as gmail. Glotzbach added that the company also has a range of collaboration applications, as well.

"We have a full set of hosted applications for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, internal team site building in Google Sites, secure video hosting and streaming with Google Video. The collection of these applications we give the name Google Apps and the unique thing about these is that they're all hosted by Google, much like Google's search engine is hosted -- you just open up a browser and go to google.com -- these applications are all hosted by Google and made available to users over the Internet in a secure way via the browser."

He added that there are a variety of benefits to the cloud model, one of the most important being the cost advantage, "We're literally serving hundreds of millions of users across the consumer business and government world alike, so our cost to serve is much lower than if an organization or an agency was standing up their own systems to serve a few thousand users."

There are other factors, as well. Working in the cloud, as Google does, allows for redundancy and reliability to ensure there is no one single point of failure in the system.

Glotzbach said cloud computing also increases the pace of innovation, something federal CIO Vivek Kundra and others have expressed an intense interest in.

"The model of cloud computing allows the software to evolve and progress at a much more rapid rate than the traditional, installed model where you get yearly or multi-year updates from your vendor and you have to install them and pass them and deploy them," he said.

Burton said many in his sphere are excited about government 2.0 and agencies moving toward the cloud, and they're looking to the General Services Administration, in part, to make that happen.

"If OMB is the IT policy arm for government, GSA is the operational arm. They sort of set the procurement model. They work with NIST on standards and guidance and I think [CIO casey Coleman] is very much in the business of executing the cloud vision and that's an appropriate role for GSA to take on."

Recently, Coleman spoke at the Gov 2.0 Summit and said that almost 45 percent of all government applications are suitable for the cloud, which means there will be an enormous market in the near future.

The challenge now, according to many analysts, is changing the culture of government as a whole to fit a more 21st century model.

"I think the culture of government, understandably, is really one of risk avoidance. How do you make sure that what you've got is going to work and minimize your risk? . . . I think the irony is that cloud computing is perfect for times like this -- when the avoidance of the risk is such a premium."

Burton said this is why a goal at SalesForce is to "let the customer talk."

"You'll have lots of discussions about cloud computing -- talk about the definition or the architecture or security or very abstract concepts, and [people] never talk about who's doing what. What is the customer experience? It's sort of like the old Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that didn't bark -- and in a lot of cloud computing discussions, where's the barking dog? What's really going on? That's why we think it's important to see [for example] what the State Department is doing on nuclear proliferation . . . and listen to them about their experience. What did they implement? What were the benefits? What were the barriers? How far can they push it? I think that's what's really going to overcome those risk avoidance issues."

Google recently announced the creation of a cloud dedicated to the federal government. Glotzbach explained that the reasoning behind what some might call a private cloud has to do with security concerns and the overall uniqueness of the needs of federal agencies.

"Everybody wants to ensure that their data is secure, but the government has very specific and unique requirements around things like background checks of employees that are administering systems. So, what we looked at and the conclusion we came to was -- the government as a whole, when you look at federal government plus state and local government agencies in and of itself is a very large set of users -- and they share a common set of requirements. . . . So, we're standing up a dedicated parallel instance of our cloud computing -- our government cloud, if you will -- that still enjoys all of the benefits of the cloud . . . [with] that level of isolation from other commercial agencies, international customers . . . and meet those more specific policies that the government has around security and data location."

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On the Web:

FederalNewsRadio - OMB launches cloud storefront, Apps.gov

FederalNewsRadio - Fed Cloud Blog

Google - Web site

SalesForce - Web site

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