Learning Resources
References – listed alphabetically by title
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Cloud related documentation provided by the NIST
The General Services Administration plays a “lead by example” role in driving adoption of cloud computing across the US Federal Government. The GSA also applies its buying power to benefit state and local jurisdictions – to provide cost-efficient procurement end-to-end across the public sector. Read more
here.
The Federal Government’s current Information Technology (IT) environment is characterized by low asset utilization, a fragmented demand for resources, duplicative systems, environments which are difficult to manage, and long procurement lead times These inefficiencies negatively impact the Federal Government’s ability to serve the American public Cloud computing has the potential to play a major part in addressing these inefficiencies and improving government service delivery The cloud computing model can significantly help agencies grappling with the need to provide highly reliable, innovative services quickly despite resource constraints. More can be found in the
Federal Cloud Computing Strategy Report by Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer.
In September 2009, we announced the Federal Government’s Cloud Computing Initiative. Cloud computing has the potential to greatly reduce waste, increase data center efficiency and utilization rates, and lower operating costs. This report presents an overview of cloud computing across the public sector. It provides the Federal Government’s definition of cloud computing, and includes details on deployment models, service models, and common characteristics of cloud computing. Read more at the
State of Public Sector Cloud Computing White Paper from Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer.
This issue brief is intended for federal executives who seek to use cloud IT infrastructure services (such as web hosting) to better achieve agency mission and business goals while reducing spend. It reviews the context for federal cloud computing acquisition decisions by describing relevant government-wide IT policies, programs and contract vehicles, and provides five key considerations for acquiring cloud services to meet federal requirements.
Read the white paper at
Making it happen: Responding to federal initiatives to speed and simplify cloud adoption to find out more.
This paper is intended to help federal agency executives to better address federal security and privacy requirements when choosing cloud computing services. We explain how using a cloud provider that is certified through the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) and the General Services Administration’s Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offers agencies real potential for improving efficiency and risk management in establishing their IT infrastructure in the cloud. We also delineate the FedRAMP lines of responsibility between agencies and cloud providers, and provides guidance for evaluating cloud providers to maximize benefits and minimize delivery risk.
More detail can be found at the
Cloud Security for Federal Agencies White Paper.
As agencies strive to reduce costs and drive innovation, they are looking to maximize the promise of cloud computing to do more with less, and do it faster and better. Governments have embraced the Cloud as a game-changing technologyfrom federal “cloud-first” policy to innovative state and local initiatives. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has responded by creating a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings that meet robust government requirements. Under this BPA, CGI offers virtual machines (VMs) and cloud web hosting services to federal, state, local and tribal governments.
Find out more in the
Cloud Infrastructure Services for Government White Paper.
The current tight budget environment puts Federal CFOs in a vital and strategic position to provide practical information, advice and leadership to help generate cost savings and free up increasingly scarce budget dollars for important mission functions.
Learn more on this topic by reading the
Applying the Cloud as a Strategic Financial Stewardship Tool White Paper.
This whitepaper details the design of Salesforce.com’s Internet Application Development Platform. Find out more about the benefits of The Force.com Multitenant Architecture by reading the
Multitenant Architecture White Paper.
IDC believes that the rise of Cloud computing has the potential to be among the most transformative developments in the world of information technology in the last 20 years. To date, Cloud computing is already having a significant impact on the way technology vendors are service-enabling and delivering applications, how CIOs think about infrastructure and datacenter optimization, how vendors are building platform based BPO and other high-level service offerings, and how CIOs approach building and deploying custom applications and objects via Cloud-based platform as a service (PaaS).
Read more in the
IDC ROI White Paper.
An ever-growing list of enterprises trusts the Force.com cloud computing platform to deliver critical business applications, in large part because of salesforce.com’s commitment to security and privacy. This paper first explains the terms security, privacy, and trust, and then explores the basic requirements for secure cloud computing. Subsequent sections of this paper provide a comprehensive introduction to the inherent security and privacy features of the Force.com enterprise cloud computing platform as well as platform features application providers can in turn use to build and secure their applications and customer data. Read more details in the
Force.com Security White Paper.
Provided by Salesforce.com, this calculator provides an initial estimate of the time and cost of your custom application development projects. Visit the
Force.com Business Case Calculator to access this tool and begin planning.
Provided by Stelligent, access the
Stelligent ROI Calculator to estimate return on investment for 100% automated cloud operations.
With just 2 questions and 2 minutes you can see how Google Apps can help your company. Find out more at the
Google Cloud Calculator.
There is a lot of buzz about the business case for moving to the Cloud and there is a clear trend in IT towards rationalizing software applications, servers, data centres and back-office functions to cheaper web-based solutions. However, it can be challenging to assess whether Cloud Computing is an appropriate move for your company's needs.
GetApp.com offers this easy-to-use ROI Calculator to help you analyze which elements of your IT infrastructure and portfolio of applications will cost less and perform better when moved to the Cloud.
This ROI tool has been developed based on data collected from a large number of companies that have migrated to the Cloud and has been build by Astadia on the Force.com platform. Amongst other things, it shows the ROI of moving to platforms such as Google, Amazon Web Services and Force.com.
Access this ROI calculator at the GetApp Cloud Computing Calculator.
Moving to the cloud is said to be a logical step in minimizing business operational costs and IT infrastructure investment. However beneficial the migration is, cloud computing migration is a decision that should not be taken lightly, simply because the migration is resource-intensive. Spending a large sum of investment money to move your business to the cloud without getting significant return in term of cost saved is the least thing you want to happen. Combat this by being armed beforehand with on target estimates as to cost and return on investment. More detail can be found at the
Cloud Business Review - Cloud Migration ROI Calculator.
In 10 minutes or less, this TCO calculator can be used to help organizations:
- determine the right Windows Azure Platform configuration and provide a pricing overview,
- help quantify the costs of migration to the Windows Azure Platform,
- quantify Windows Azure Platform and on-premises application delivery costs.
Find out more by accessing the
Windows Azure TCO Calculator.
Written in Silverlight, this calculator from Microsoft allows you to calculator monthly costs as well as migration costs and ROI. Find out more by visiting the
Windows Azure ROI Calculator.
A streamlined ROI calculator provided by Amazon Web Services, that allows IT professionals to calculator their monthly cloud expenditures. Access the
AWS Simple Monthly Calculator to find out more.
The AWS Economics Center provides access to information, tools, and resources to compare the costs of Amazon Web Services with IT infrastructure alternatives. Our goal is to help developers and business leaders quantify the economic benefits (and costs) of cloud computing. You may access the
Amazon Web Services Economics Center for more information.
Trust Dashboard Examples
Salesforce.com
Trust.salesforce.com is the salesforce.com community’s home for real-time information on system performance and security. On this site you’ll find:
- Live and historical data on system performance
- Up-to-the minute information on planned maintenance
- Phishing, malicious software, and social engineering threats
- Best security practices for your organization
- Information on how we safeguard your data
You may access the Salesforce.com trust website at https://trust.salesforce.com/.
Windows Azure
Microsoft maintains the history of the health status for each service component of the Windows Azure platform for the past five weeks in the form of running logs. An example of this history is shown in the table above. On this page you may access detailed incident reports.
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An example of the current status on the health of the Windows Azure platform is shown in the table above (left). From this website you may subscribe to notifications for interruptions to any of the services shown. You are also able to view detailed incident reports for services that are not running normally.
You may access the Windows Azure trust website at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/support/status/servicedashboard.aspx.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Amazon Web Services publishes their most up-to-the-minute information on service availability. Examples are shown in the tables above. You may access their trust dashboard at any time to get current status information, or subscribe to RSS feeds to be notified of interruptions to individual services. You are also able to submit a service issue report from this page.
You may access the Amazon Web Services trust website at http://status.aws.amazon.com/.
Informatica Cloud
On this page you’ll find live data on Informatica Cloud system availability. You’ll also be updated on maintenance schedules and be able to track historical information on system performance.
You may access the Informatica Cloud trust website at http://trust.informaticacloud.com/status.
