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Promise of cloud is appealing, but bureau is taking things slowly

Cloud computing promises some big benefits for many companies. Cloud computing can offer copmanies access to software as a service that allows them to deploy new software and databases quickly and at a lower cost than installing and hosting the software in house.

Not everything is good with cloud-based offerings though as many Sidekick users found out when faulty backups resulted in the loss of user data that was uploaded to the Danger cloud servers. With many corporations looking to cloud-based offerings for software, it's no surprise that the U.S. government is also looking to the cloud as a way to deploy new services faster and at a lower cost.

Census time is coming around again in America and the U.S. Census Bureau is looking to the cloud to reduce costs and accelerate the delivery of key services needed for census workers and citizens. The massive increase in the burden on the Census Bureau's IT infrastructure will be relatively short term as the 1.4 million temporary workers and 500 temporary offices increase the demand on the IT system during the census taking.

InformationWeek reports that Census CIO Brian McGrath sees promise in cloud offerings, but he is taking things slowly. The first use of cloud-based offerings for the bureau was using a contacts database from Salesforce.com. The bureau has a database of 170,000 partners that had been initially planned to be hosted in house. However, problems with the contract forced an alternative solution.

Salesforce.com was the alternative solution and the database was rolled out in six weeks. Compared to the months or years that the average government IT project requires for deployment, the Salesforce.com database was deployed shockingly fast. The bureau also plans to utilize cloud services for its busy website that received in the area of 1 million hits per day. The Census Bureau partnered with Akamai for its website to reduce the workload. InformationWeek reports that today about 99% of the hits form the census website never reach the census website and are handled by the Akamai content delivery network.


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Instead of two paragraphs of tangentialf intro...
By lagitup on 1/22/2010 11:18:11 AM , Rating: 4
could we have two paragraphs of relevant analysis at the end, instead?




By MrBlastman on 1/22/2010 11:33:15 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
The Census Bureau partnered with Akamai for its website to reduce the workload. InformationWeek reports that today about 99% of the hits form the census website never reach the census website and are handled by the Akamai content delivery network.


Que pasa, senor autor?

99% reduction of workload sounds like outsourcing to me rather than reduction. If you're only doing 1% work, you aren't working at all.

More importantly, the way those sentences are written it could easily be misconstrued to allege something quite differently about the Census Bureau. After all, if 99% of all data being collected by the Census Bureau is not reaching them, just how accurate is this agency to begin with? ;)

I call shenanigans on our government. Oh wait... that has been done quite often as of late. D'oh.


By MatthiasF on 1/22/2010 1:40:14 PM , Rating: 3
Uh, it's a Content Delivery Network, which means Akamai has servers all over the world that mirrors the data from the Census website to reduce the load on government servers. Lots of companies do the same thing to reduce costs and improve performance for their websites.

How's that outsourcing? Are you feeling pity for a piece of hardware sitting somewhere in Washington that's now only getting 1/100th the number of hits it once had?

That's just weird.


By MrBlastman on 1/22/2010 2:08:43 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Are you feeling pity for a piece of hardware sitting somewhere in Washington that's now only getting 1/100th the number of hits it once had?


Yes, yes I am. I want my government tax dollars working at 100%, no, 110%!. There are more facetious comments where this, and my previous post came from.

Please stand by!

You missed the ball entirely. My post was making fun at the wording of the article and in addition, to come off as quite nonsensical to boot as a tribute to portions of the actual article itself. I'm sorry you did not gather that. :P


By MatthiasF on 1/22/2010 6:26:28 PM , Rating: 1
Yeah, I don't like balls so I try to avoid them. So, could you please stop aiming for my face? Thanks.

I wasn't sure if you were trying to be funny or completely insane. It's the Internet after all, so I tried to cover my bases.


By Spookster on 1/25/2010 1:09:03 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I call shenanigans on our government. Oh wait... that has been done quite often as of late. D'oh.


Captain O'Hagan: I swear to God I'm going to pistol whip the next guy who says, " Shenanigans."


Granted the average government worker...
By Motoman on 1/22/2010 11:37:53 AM , Rating: 3
...when word gets to the census workers about the "cloud"...

Census taker #1: Oh, there's another one...looks like a...piggie. One more piggie.
Census taker #2: No, I think that one's more of a hedgehog again. Mark it as a hedgehog.
Census taker #1: We need a piggie/hedgehog ethnicity.
Census taker #2: Yup. Do it.
Census taker #1: Why are we counting clouds again? Do they get unemployment now, or what? Damn clouds. THEY TOOK ARR JOB!




RE: Granted the average government worker...
By FITCamaro on 1/22/2010 11:57:01 AM , Rating: 5
DEY TUK UR JERB!


By UNHchabo on 1/22/2010 12:58:39 PM , Rating: 2
DERR DURR DURRRR!


By techleadership on 1/22/2010 2:38:21 PM , Rating: 2
Using new technologies can increase efficiencies and benefit both the taxpayer and the country.

But when sensitive personal data is involved (as it is in this case) we should proceed with caution.

The issue of cloud computer security was recently discussed at a Brookings Institute panel discussion featuring Microsoft’s Chief Counsel Brad Smith. Lots of very interesting concerns were raised about what is being done to update the law that govern the evolving online ecosystem and widespread use of cloud computing.




Akamai = spyware/adware
By Screwballl on 1/23/2010 11:41:49 AM , Rating: 2
Akamai is also synonymous with spyware, adware, tracking cookies that pretty much all spyware/malware programs catch as an infection....

Somehow this is fitting for the government... finding more ways to "spy on you"...




"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer











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