1. Federal Cloud Computing:
From Business Use Cases to Pilots to
Implementations
2nd Annual Cloud Computing for DoD & Government Conference
Premier Tyson's Corner in Vienna, VA
Brand Niemann
Semantic Community
February 7, 2011
http://semanticommunity.net and
http://semanticommunity.info/Federal_Cloud_Computing
1

2. Introduction
• Federal Cloud Computing has evolved in the past
year from business use cases, to pilots, to
implementations. This interactive discussion will help
you build your professional network, understand the
complex landscape, see the cloud computing use
cases identified by NIST, see some pilots and
implementations that I know about, and learn what I
have learned from doing all of this the past 3 years.
Your participation should empower you to engage in
Federal Cloud Computing!
2

3. Introduction
• Recent Email: Google Apps Training Seminar, Open Seats!
– In December of last year, Federal CIO Vivek Kundra announced a
"Cloud First" policy. OMB is requiring that agencies default to
cloud-based solutions whenever a secure, reliable, cost-
effective option exists.
– This will be an interactive training seminar where we will create
a personal account just for you! This will be a great opportunity
to come get a hands-on look at the email and collaboration
tools that have been selected by the General Services
Administration for all GSA employees.
– Hopefully you can attend!
– P.S. Google Apps typically saves organizations 50% or more
compared to existing email systems, while equipping agency
employees with modern tools that help them be more
productive.
3

4. Highlights
• 1. Introductions
– Objective: Build Your Professional Network
• 2. Roadmap
– Objective: Understand the Complex Landscape
• 3. Business Use Cases
– Objective: Cloud Computing Use Cases identified by NIST
• 4. Pilots
– Objective: Some examples that I know about.
• 5. Implementations
– Objective: Some examples that I know about.
• 6. My Own Work
– Objective: What I have learned from doing all of this the past 3 years.
• 7. Questions and Answers
– Objective: Empower you to engage in Federal Cloud Computing!
4

5. 1. Introductions
Six Questions Discussion Attendee 1 Attendee 2 Etc.
Leader
Who (are you)? Brand Niemann
What (do you Enterprise
do)? Architecture &
Data Science
When (have 30+ years of
you done it)? federal service
Where (did you U.S. EPA
do it)?
Why (did you Idealistic about
do it)? public service
How (do you Communities
do it)? of Practice
Purpose: To help build your professional network especially for doing
Federal Cloud Computing going forward.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws
5

6. 1. Introductions
http://semanticommunity.info/Federal_Cloud_Computing
6

7. 1. Introductions
http://semanticweb.com/put-your-desktop-in-the-cloud-to-support-the-open-government-directive-and-data-gov-semantic_b15540
7

8. 2. Roadmap
• "Executive's Guide to
Cloud Computing,"
published by John Wiley
& Sons, and co-
authored by Mr. Eric
Marks, president and
CEO of AgilePath, and
Mr. Bob
Lozano, founder and
advisor of Appistry.
http://www.amazon.com/Executives-Guide-Cloud-Computing-Marks/dp/0470521724
8

9. 2. Roadmap
http://www.agile-path.com/solutions-cloud-computing-practice.html
9

10. 2. Roadmap
• Software as a Service
Inflection Point: Using
Cloud Computing to
Achieve Business Agility
– Melvin Greer
– http://www.melvingreer.
com/books.html
10

11. 2. Roadmap
• Over the last few years, industry has begun developing
a model of information technology known as Cloud
computing, which includes Software as a Service. This
new model has reached an inflection point and will
give users the choice to purchase IT as a service, as a
complement to, or as a replacement of the traditional
IT software/hardware infrastructure purchase.
• It's time for businesses to transform how they
approach advanced software and innovative business
models so they can achieve real agility. If you are a
decision maker involved with the deployment of
information technology, then it's imperative that you
understand Software as a Service Inflection Point.
11

12. 2. Roadmap
• Cloud Computing Workshop Day 1:
– Overview of Cloud Computing in Government: What you need to know
– What is cloud computing and why is it so compelling?
– Cloud computing role and significance in agency agility
– Federal cloud Initiative: Summary and what's important
– Exercise
– Cloud computing delivery and deployment models
– Strategic benefits of cloud computing in Government
– Wrap-up and Q&A
• Cloud Computing Workshop Day 2
– Recap of Day One and Questions
– Technical considerations and architectural options
– Public cloud offerings: What you need to know
– Potential Risks of Cloud computing and how to manage them
– Exercise
– Open Source Cloud computing: What you need to know
– Security, Privacy and Confidentiality
– Emerging Cloud computing design pattern
– Wrap-up and Q&A
http://www.melvingreer.com/courseagenda.html
12

13. 2. Roadmap
• Recent Announcement:
– The National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST), Leader of the Federal Government Cloud
Computing Initiative, has selected Melvin Greer,
Lockheed Martin Senior Fellow and IS&GS Chief
Strategist Cloud Computing as lead for Federal Cloud
Computing Roadmap, Business Use Case Working
Group.
– Melvin will lead interested USG agencies and industry
to define target USG Cloud Computing business use
cases (set of candidate deployments to be used as
examples) for Cloud Computing model options, to
identify specific risks, and concerns and constraints.
13

14. 2. Roadmap
• A Manager’s Guide to
Cloud Computing:
– A Five-Step Process to
Evaluate, Design and
Implement A Robust Cloud
Solution
• The Essential Desk
Reference and Guide for
Managers
– Kevin Jackson & Don
Philpott
– Published by: Government
Training Inc. Jan 2011
– ISBN: 978-0-9832361-3-9
http://www.governmenttraininginc.com/GovCloud-Cloud-Computing-Handbook.asp
14

15. 2. Roadmap
• The United States Government is the world’s largest
consumer of information technology, spending over $76
billion annually on more than 10,000 different systems.
Fragmentation of systems, poor project execution, and the
drag of legacy technology in the Federal Government have
presented barriers to achieving the productivity and
performance gains found when technology is deployed
effectively in the private sectors.
• All that is about to change as the Obama Administration
obliges federal departments to look to Cloud computing to
cut costs and solve many of the problems that have
plagued IT deployment for decades. The problem, however,
is how do federal IT managers and those controlling the
budgets go about deciding what is best for them.
15

16. 2. Roadmap
• A Five-Step Process to Evaluate, Design and
Implement A Robust Cloud Solution:
– Step One - What is cloud computing?
– Step Two - The Need
– Step Three - Setting Goals
– Step Four - Implementation
– Step Five - How to make sure it’s working
16

17. 2. Roadmap
See Complete Taxonomy of
Federal Cloud Computing in
the book’s Table of Contents!
Because of unprecedented demand, this book
is back ordered until the end of February!
http://semanticommunity.info/Federal_Cloud_Computing/A_Manager's_Guide_to_Cloud_Computing
17

18. 2. Roadmap
Points of Contact:
Dawn M. Leaf, NIST, Cloud Computing Executive Program Manager
(301) 975-2900
Lee Badger, NIST, Cloud Computing SAJACC Lead
(301) 975-3176
Robert Bohn, NIST, Cloud Computing Reference Architecture/Taxonomy Lead
(301) 975-4731
Kirk Dohne, NIST, Cloud Computing, Business Use Cases Project Lead
(301) 975-8480
http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud/
18

19. 2. Roadmap
• The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing
• Authors: Peter Mell and Tim Grance
• Version 15, 10-7-09
– Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-
demand network access to a shared pool of configurable
computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage,
applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and
released with minimal management effort or service provider
interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is
composed of five essential characteristics, three service models,
and four deployment models.
– Note: Cloud software takes full advantage of the cloud paradigm
by being service oriented with a focus on statelessness, low
coupling, modularity, and semantic interoperability (my
bolding).
Source: http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud/upload/cloud-def-v15.pdf
19

20. 2. Roadmap
http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-computing/bin/view/CloudComputing/WebHome
20

21. 2. Roadmap
• Working Groups of NIST Cloud Computing:
• As part of the NIST plan, Working Groups were created as a
public/private ownership to define standards. Follow the
links below to go directly to the working group pages.
– Reference Architecture and Taxonomy
– Standards Acceleration to Jumpstart the Adoption of
Cloud Computing (SAJACC)
– Cloud Security
– Standards Roadmap
– Business Use Cases
21

22. 2. Roadmap
http://semanticommunity.info/Federal_Cloud_Computing/State_of_Public_Sector_Cloud_Computing
22

23. 3. Business Use Cases
http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-computing/pub/CloudComputing/BusinessUseCases/Federal_Cloud_Computing_Use_Case_-_BrandNiemann04122010.doc
23

24. 3. Business Use Cases
http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-computing/pub/CloudComputing/BusinessUseCases/Federal_Cloud_Computing_Use_Case_-_BrandNiemann04122010.doc
24

25. 3. Business Use Cases
http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud/use-cases.cfm
25

26. 4. Pilots
• Federal Cloud Computing Case Studies:
– Department of Defense
• Project: Army Experience Center
• Project: Rapid Access Computing Environment
– Department of Energy
• Project: Cloud Computing Migration
– Department of Health and Human Services
• Project: Supporting Electronic Health Records
– Department of the Interior
• Announced Project: Agency-wide E-mail
– General Services Administration
• Project: USA.gov
– National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• Project: World-Wide Telescope
• Project: Be A Martian
• Announced Project: Enterprise Data Center Strategy
– Social Security Administration
• Project: Online Answers Knowledgebase (SOASK)
– Federal Labor Relations Authority
• Project: Case Management System
– Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board
• Project: Recovery.gov Cloud Computing Migration
– Securities and Exchange Commission
• Project: Investor Advocacy System
http://semanticommunity.info/Federal_Cloud_Computing/A_Manager's_Guide_to_Cloud_Computing
26

27. 4. Pilots
• State and Local Cloud Computing Case Studies:
– State of New Jersey
• Project: Customer Relationship Management
– State of New Mexico
• Project: E-mail & Office Productivity Tools
– Commonwealth of Virginia
• Project: Enterprise Application Development Platforms
– State of Wisconsin
• Project: Collaboration
– State of Utah
• Project: Cloud Computing Services
– City of Canton, Georgia
• Project: E-mail
– City of Carlsbad, California
• Project: Communication & Collaboration Services
– City of Los Angeles, California
• Project: E-mail & Office Productivity
– City of Miami, Florida
• Project: 311 Service
– City of Orlando, Florida
• Project: E-mail
– Klamath County, Oregon
• Project: Office Productivity
– Prince George’s County, Maryland
• Project: School District E-mail
– State of Colorado
• Announced Project: Launching an Enterprise Cloud
– State of Michigan
• Announced Project: MiCloud
Source: http://semanticommunity.info/Federal_Cloud_Computing/A_Manager's_Guide_to_Cloud_Computing
27

28. 5. Implementations
• Learn cloud computing from content (previous) and
now doing it with that content!
– Federal Cloud Computing:
• Cloud Tools: MindTouch and Spotfire.
• Methodology: Document Process in MindTouch, Build Databases
in Excel Spreadsheet, and Build Analytics in Spotfire.
• Results: Spotfire Embedded in MindTouch with Excel Spreadheets
and Other Supporting Files Attached and Referenced.
• Kevin Jackson, Robert Marcus, and I started this Wiki in
October 2008:
– See http://kevinljackson.blogspot.com/2008/10/federal-
cloud-computing-wiki.html
28

29. 5. Implementations
With the power of MindTouch DReAM, MindTouch products excel at loading, transforming
and re-mixing data from web services, databases and enterprise applications.
http://cloud.mindtouch.com/
29

30. 5. Implementations
http://goto.spotfire.com/g/?SK3YHYAQFI=clicksrc:home
30

31. 5. Implementations
Scroll down to see
table of contents and
file attachments below.
http://semanticommunity.info/Federal_Cloud_Computing
31

32. 5. Implementations
• Contents:
– Federal Could Computing Wiki
– NIST Cloud Computing Web Site and Wiki
– Kevin Jackson Cloud Musings Blog
– Kevin Jackson’s Manager’s Guide to Cloud
Computing Table of Contents
– Vivek Kundra’s State of Public Cloud Computing
– Linked Open Data Cloud Datasets
– Linked Open Data Cloud RDF Triples
32

33. 5. Implementations
http://semanticommunity.info/@api/deki/files/8435/=FederalCloudComputing.xlsx
33

34. 5. Implementations
Spotfire on the PC Desktop 34

35. 5. Implementations
Spotfire Web Player
35

36. 5. Implementations
• John Monroe, Editor of Federal Computer Week: You mention
that information architects should re-architect legacy systems
-- in what way should they re-architect them?:
– Great question and the answer is like I did at EPA and for interagency
programs - get the data out of the legacy systems and use it in free
cloud tools like Spotfire.
• http://semanticommunity.info/@api/deki/files/7163/=BusinessAn
alyticsInformationalFactSheet08182010.doc
– Vivek Kundra's requiring agencies to put their high-value data sets into
Data.gov and to reduce the number of data centers can save money
and improve results if there are more people like myself that will take
advantage of that by "doing their own IT" with cloud computing tools
and becoming data scientists - see my list of data science products at:
• http://semanticommunity.info/#Data_Science_Products
36

37. 5. Implementations
• John Monroe, Editor of Federal Computer Week:
You mention that information architects should
re-architect legacy systems -- in what way should
they re-architect them? (continued):
– I should add a specific example in answer to your
question: The IT Spending Dashboard took 6 months
and cost $8M for GSA to do - I re-architected and
implemented it in about 3 days for free (except for the
cost of my time at EPA) with Spotfire - of course part
of the $8M was to build the databases which I did not
have to do, but not the entire $8M - see:
• http://semanticommunity.info/Federal_IT_Dashboard
37

38. 6. My Own Work
http://fcw.com/Articles/2011/01/31/COMMENT-Brand-Niemann-social-media-archives.aspx
For links see: http://semanticommunity.info/A_Gov_2.0_spin_on_archiving_2.0_data 38

39. 6. My Own Work
• My model for this approach is based on my work at EPA and the classification of
EPA and interagency information. Here are the steps I followed:
– I put all my critical e-mail messages, attachments, work products, Web pages,
scanned documents, etc., into a wiki — first using the General Services
Administration’s ColabWiki, then 40 MindTouch Deki wikis and now the
MindTouch Technical Communication Suite.
– I developed an information classification system at EPA and created a living
document version of the Census Bureau’s Annual Statistical Abstract for
organizing interagency information, which is the basis for organizing Data.gov.
– I developed an EPA ontology that organized and preserved the agency’s best
content by topic, subtopic, data table, and data elements or dictionary.
– I developed a case study of the CIO Council that suggested how to organize
the human resources and information across the entire government.
– I recently migrated everything I had done into a new environment, the
Semanticommunity.net’s Community Infrastructure Sandbox for 2011. It
includes the complete archive and tutorials of what I have learned from
building each piece and what I needed to create a new environment for
multiple communities of practice to use in 2011.
39

40. 6. My Own Work
The Five Stars of Linked Open Data
YouTube:
10:17 Minutes
Source: http://inkdroid.org/journal/2010/06/04/the-5-stars-of-open-linked-data/
40

41. 6. My Own Work
• The Five Stars of Linked Open Data:
– 1. Make your stuff available on the web (whatever format);
– 2. Make it available as structured data (e.g. excel instead of
image scan of a table);
– 3. Non-proprietary format (e.g. csv instead of excel);
– 4. Use URLs to identify things, so that people can point at
your stuff; and
– 5. Link your data to other people’s data to provide context.
Source: http://inkdroid.org/journal/2010/06/04/the-5-stars-of-open-linked-data/
41

42. 6. My Own Work
• The Linking Open Data Cloud Diagram:
– How can I get my dataset into the diagram?
• First, make sure that you publish data according to the Linked Data
principles (see previous slide). We interpret this as:
– There must be resolvable http:// (or https://) URIs.
• They must resolve, with or without content negotiation, to RDF
data in one of the popular RDF formats (RDFa, RDF/XML, Turtle, N-
Triples).
• The dataset must contain at least 1000 triples. (Hence, your FOAF
file most likely does not qualify.)
• The dataset must be connected via RDF links to a dataset that is
already in the diagram. This means, either your dataset must use
URIs from the other dataset, or vice versam. We arbitrarily require
at least 50 links.
• Access of the entire dataset must be possible via RDF crawling, via
an RDF dump, or via a SPARQL endpoint.
Source: http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/
42

43. 6. My Own Work
Source: http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/
43

44. 6. My Own Work
• The image shows datasets that are published Circle size Triple count
in Linked Data format and are interlinked
with other dataset in the cloud. Very large >1B
• The size of the circles corresponds to the
number of triples in each dataset. The Large 1B-10M
numbers are usually provided by the dataset
publishers, and are sometimes rough Medium 10M-500k
estimates. The arrows indicate the existence
of at least 50 links between two datasets. A Small 500k-10k
link, for our purposes, is an RDF triple where
subject and object URIs are in the Very small <10k
namespaces of different datasets.
• The direction of the arrows indicate the
dataset that contains the links, e.g., an arrow Arrow thickness Triple count
from A to B means that dataset A contains
RDF triples that use identifiers from B.
Bidirectional arrows usually indicate that the Thick >100k
links are mirrored in both datasets. The
thickness corresponds to the number of Medium 100k-1k
links.
Thin <1k
Source: http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/
44

45. 6. My Own Work
• Cloud Computing for and with Linked Open Data Visualizations:
– “What the 5 star system does not take into account, however, is the quality of the data
itself. As with everything on the Internet, remember that even if you get your hands on a
well published Linked Open Data set, it may be incomplete, taken out of context or badly
curated. Bad content in, bad content out does still apply. This problem is especially acute
for Linked Open Data at the moment, because everyone is just starting out with creating
the ontologies and links and there is no way to do this overnight, so incompleteness will
probably prevail for a while.”
– “The basis of all visualizations is content, and the availability of Open Data certainly
helps visualization creators and data journalists to find data that lets them support and
discover the stories they want to tell. These are exciting developments and I’m looking
forward to seeing all the interesting (Linked) Open Data visualizations the visualization
community comes up with!”
• Posted My Comment: Excellent article! Please see my Linked Open Data Visualizations at
http://semanticommunity.info/#Data_Science_Products
• Also See Spotfire Community Post: http://spotfire.tibco.com/community/forums/t/952.aspx
• My Bottom Line: Do the “5 stars” and “linked data cloud” in MindTouch, Spotfire
and the Concept-Map Ontology Environment with the Data Science approach.
Source: http://datavisualization.ch/opinions/introduction-to-linked-data
45

46. 6. My Own Work
• Opening Data Sources to Spotfire:
– In a previous post, I mentioned how I was creating Linked Open Data with MindTouch and
Spotfire, now I want to share what I have learned about actually importing Linked Open Data
in RDF and Google Map/Earth data in KML/KMZ to Spotfire:
– KML/KMZ data presents a challenge since Spotfire only imports Shape files at present, but an
EPA Geospatial Colleague, David Smith, helped me solve this one for an application.
– Richard Cyganiak , a Linked data technologist at the Linked Data Research Centre, helped me
solve this for RDF to CSV as follows:
• I'd suggest starting here: http://semantic.ckan.net/sparql
• Here's a query to get some basic data (see below):
– Just paste that in and hit "Run query". The endpoint can actually produce CSV, if
you select it from the format dropdown. So here's that data in CSV:
http://bit.ly/fdrIvX
– So you just need to adapt the SPARQL query to return the information you want.
For some clues as to what properties are available, you could study this (a Turtle
rendering of the RDF data available about a given dataset -- DBpedia in this case):
http://bit.ly/f5ro7k
– I appreciate the help I have received from David and Richard and wanted to share this with the
Spotfire Community because there is a lot of free and open data in KML/KMZ and RDF that
can now be used in Spotfire.
• See Spotfire Community Post: http://spotfire.tibco.com/community/forums/t/1542.aspx
46

47. 6. My Own Work
Sort Number of
RDF Triples in
Descending Order
Growth in Number
Of LOD Datasets!
Web Player 47

48. 6. My Own Work
• Semantic Community: Community Infrastructure Sandbox 2011:
– http://semanticommunity.info/
• Build Network Centricity for the NCOIC in the Cloud:
– http://semanticommunity.info/Network_Centricity
• Build Your Own Data.gov GEO Viewer in the Cloud: To Create a
Data.gov and "Fighting Off One Map" GEO Viewer in MindTouch
and Spotfire:
– http://semanticommunity.info/Data.gov/GEOViewer
– http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-
computing/pub/CloudComputing/BusinessUseCases/BrandNiemann0
1202011.ppt
• Build Air Force OneSource in the Cloud for the Data.Gov and Open
Government Vocabulary Teams:
– http://semanticommunity.info/Air_Force_OneSource
48

49. 7. Questions and Answers
• NIST Cloud Computing Future:
– Calendar of Working Group Meetings:
• See next slide.
– Cloud Computing for the Business of Government “Update
and Outlook” press conference in DC, March
29, 2011, Kevin Jackson
• http://governmenttraininginc.com/Press-Conference-
GovCloud.asp
– Workshop III - April 7 & 8, 2011:
• See next slide.
• 11th SOA for E-Gov Conference, MITRE, McLean, VA
(Cloud Computing Speakers and Panel)
• https://register.mitre.org/soa/
49

50. 7. Questions and Answers
http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-computing/bin/view/CloudComputing/UpcomingEvents
50