The big news in the federal cloud computing market is that the General Services Administration has issued a request for quotation for cloud storage, Web hosting, and virtual machine services, according to an InformationWeek Government article. The RFQ is a preliminary step toward an online storefront for all federal agencies requesting cloud computing services. In essence, it's a single portal for finding and purchasing these services using prearranged agreements specific to the needs of the U.S. government.

"The RFQ includes ground rules for being a cloud service provider to the U.S. government. Federal agencies will retain ownership of data and applications hosted online, and they can request full copies of data or apps at any time. In addition, cloud services are to be multitenant in architecture, be able to be provisioned securely and remotely, scale elastically, reside within the continental United States, and provide visibility into resource usage," the article notes.

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According to the RFQ, cloud SLAs must provide at least 99.95 percent availability, and the cloud computing providers have to take steps to secure their services. Moreover, virtual machine services must allow live migration of workloads from one VM to another, and all Web hosting services must provide Windows and Linux options.

What's important about this RFQ is that the U.S. government is clearly getting behind cloud computing and, thus, is looking to provide a mechanism for validating and procuring cloud computing services for government agencies. Also, it validates cloud computing as a core direction for the U.S. government, which is looking to lower costs and increase effectiveness for its IT infrastructures. (Who isn't?)

The trick with all this is to create a strategy around the cloud computing services, or mechanisms and ways of adopting these services, by selecting the right architectural assets, such as storage, databases, application servers, and process servers, to place on cloud platforms. That requires some additional thinking and planning to make cloud computing work for the agencies. Those agencies that just purchase these services in hopes that some miracle will occur won't find the pot of gold at the end of the cloud computing rainbow -- indeed, perhaps the opposite.

"There's still confusion among government technology professionals about cloud computing. A recent MeriTalk survey found that 'IT managers do not share a common understanding of the technology.' Almost half say they are still learning about what cloud computing is and how it works, and predict that it will take two-and-a-half years to realize the benefits of cloud computing," the InformationWeek article notes.

The issue with cloud computing is that many of those being asked to use it do not have an understanding of exactly what they are dealing with. Many have operational responsibilities, and while cloud computing looks interesting, perhaps exciting, they don't have a clue as to how cloud computing works in the context of their existing architecture and future strategic needs. This problem is solved with some basic understanding and advanced planning. However, the right approach will differ from agency to agency, enterprise to enterprise.