SLG Cloud Computing Initiative
February 2012, Mt. View CA – At the Microsoft Mt. View offices, the State and Local Government (SLG) Cloud Computing Initiative presented their “beginning of the beginning” step zero plan for the migration of the state IT infrastructure to the cloud. The event, featuring Lt Gov Gavin Newsom, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and representative from cloud migration programs from several other states and technology companies gave a glimpse into the plan for the migration and how companies can get involved with the solution.
The event, organized by the Tech America Foundation, featured a report that was prepared by the state along with input from 38 corporate sponsors which included all the leading technology companies such as IBM, Intel, Google, Marvell, SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, EMC, Wyse and HP. The direction and comments are summarized in a report that is available at www.cloud4slg.org.
This report details the necessity of moving to cloud, first with non-secure data (information, forms, etc) and then operational data. The necessity of the initiative is to move to an expense and service basis for the IT infrastructure that will provide a more cost effective method of staying current with services and technology. This state program parallels program and in several states and the directions adopted by the federal government.
The meeting also launched the website for the program. It not only houses the current documentation, but is intended to be a marketplace for vendors, communities and cities to be able to share and co-develop the details of the migration plan. At this site, all of the real data is available free and there are no analysts fees. This is to facility the sharing of information and creation of the most cost effective and realistic solutions.
A number of success stories were presented that illustrated education, and other systems moving to the cloud. These examples highlighted infrastructure shifts that were used to create the change and also the results of the implmentations after the hiccups were resolved.
One of the challenges that was addressed in the Q&A with the Lt Gov is the issue of broadband access to all communities in CA to get to the web. At this time the technology for all the cities in the state to have high speed symmetric broadband is not possible, and infrastructure to bring this about – between cable, satellite, telephone and cellular has to be implemented.
The Cloud plan included as significant SaaS component that will require a different licensing paradigm than is currently being used, it will also drive towards interoperable and standardized hardware for the cloud. These SaaS solutions will be supplemented with Open Source software for customization aspects, continuing the trend from the past few years.
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