Evaluating agency needs in the face of new directives like the Federal Cloud Computing Initiative can be daunting. Analyzing emerging technology in terms of an enterprise architecture is complicated at best, but divorcing the service mission from the technology can highlight less disruptive paths for integrating new paradigms. Understanding and leveraging the benefits of a loosely coupled design will make technology shifts attainable. Cloud computing is the next step in computing evolution. The concepts and techniques in play are the culmination of years converging technologies. We are seeing the perfect storm of technology and practice bringing out a new and exciting methodology. Cloud architecture promises all of the features that system architects and administrators have struggled to deliver for years: elastic, scalable, fault tolerant computing resources.

Normally this space is reserved for technical talk, but I was recently fortunate enough to attend Mil-OSS and wanted to take a moment to talk about the group. First off, Mil-OSS is a working group, not a conference. There are presentations and talks, but this is a group of people coming together to work toward a common goal: increasing the adoption of Open Source Software (OSS) inside the Department of Defense. It runs the gamut of interested parties: end users who are deploying OSS solutions in the field to members of the defense technology industry to prominent OSS project members. The group has one overriding tenant: through the adoption of open source software and methods, the DoD can accomplish its primary mission while increasing capability and agility.

In my last blog, I talked about how U.S.

Not new to the dance, the perennial wallflower, virtual desktop, is now showing up on people's dance card.  As administrators and managers realize the benefits of server virtualization, virtual desktop is coming to the forefront of the virtual discussion.  Centralized management of the desktop has clear advantages, but until recently desktop virtualization had pitfalls that made it untenable for most shops.  The open source SPICE protocol looks to change the playing field. Late last year,

Virtualization is very much on the minds of IT managers this year. Some have the vision of a low power, smoothly running, optimized data center; thinly staffed but capable of provisioning new users almost instantaneously (AKA 'Nirvana').