US Government Begins Largest IT Consolidation in History

miller60 writes "Saying 1,100 data centers is too many, the federal government has begun what looms as the largest IT consolidation in history. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra has directed federal agencies to inventory their assets by April 30 and prepare a plan to reduce the number of servers and data centers, with a focus on slashing energy costs (full memo). Kundra says some applications may be shifted to cloud computing platforms customized for government use."

Comments

... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Zarf]

I predict a rash of job openings that you can get hired for provided you can spell "Cloud Computing"

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Clud Crumpooting

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

You spell it "A huge cloud of shit".

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

You, my friend, misunderestimate.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, no. "Nookuler" is not merely a different pronouncement. It's a total failure to understand the phonemes that constitute the word. Ever wonder why people who pronounce "nuclear" like "nookuler" don't have equally strange pronounciations for other words? That's because it isn't an accent. As important as the office of the presidency is, there's nothing wrong with being particular about the intellectual ability of the person holding that office. It's perfectly reasonable to question whether a person who cannot handle a simple task like pronouncing this word is fit to wield executive power. You can cry "elitism" all you like, it does not change this.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[dkleinsc]

It depends entirely on the political clout of your congressional representation.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

You are wrong my friend, very wrong. For example, Missourians have plenty of different pronunciations when compared to the North East, the South, California, the other Midwestern states, etc. Here in Missouri, many people say "nookyuler" 9or whoever you want to phoneticize it). We also have pronunciations such as "Da-ad" for "dad," "Missour-uh," and we drop are G's as often as the East and West Coasters use the term "fly-over states." (Another example of elitist BS.) There ain't nothin' wrong with th' way we speak.

I'm not trying to say GW was an intelligent person. (Are any politicians very bright? You'd have to do a lot to convince me.) I'm saying he wasn't an idiot because of his accent. I hate elitist crap like that. And frankly, it is sad you can't see the inherent prejudice and ignorance in statements such as the one we are discussing. It upsets me, but I get some satisfaction when I see arrogant people get intellectually sucker-punched when they underestimate "us poor country folk" and end up showing who is the real idiot. I'm not directing that at you, I'm sure it's just an honest mistake on your part, but again, you have an ill-conceived notion that has no basis in reality.

http://web.ku.edu/~idea/northamerica/usa/missouri/missouri.htm

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should pay some attention to your Spam folder... I believe there are messages in there from people willing to sell you vallium, which you clearly need.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

I'm replying to flame-baiting you idiots, not the other way around. I like how you can say some bigoted piece of shit sentence and when someone defends themselves and their region/dialect/whatever, they are labeled as malicious rabble-rousers. What a fucking failure in moderated discussion.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[pluther]

That doesn't preclude him from being stupid.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Captain Splendid]

That right there is good strategery.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Runaway1956]

40, 50, or 60 years ago, there were indeed pronounced accents in the United States. Sometimes, crossing a state line meant everyone sounded quite different. Today? Come on - damned near no one speaks with a pronounced accent. Just a bit of a drawl here, some slurring there - nothing that accounts for nuke-you-lar physics.

I always liked this song - especially the line, "Learned to talk like the man on the six o'clock news" at about 2:40

When I was in junior high school, a teacher from out of state told us, "No matter how far from home you go, people will know that you're from Western Pennsylvania as soon as you open your mouth, and they'll dismiss you as an ignorant hillbilly." Like the song says, I learned to talk like the guy on the news, and I simply don't use those three terms the teacher was telling us about.

Bottom line? Ignorant is as ignorant does.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Runaway1956]

Ooops. Forgot the link to the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzGx_XzxDeM#

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missourah."

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

those 1100 servers were already serviced by a lot of people, they'd be stupid to fire them and then seek others to replace them, oh wait, we're talking about a government project, never mind

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[oldspewey]

Nonsense.

Once upon a time, there was an expectation that the person holding the highest office in the land would conduct themselves in a concise, careful, and wise manner. The fact that a growing majority of Americans would rather embrace the contrived folksy populism of people like W or Sarah Palin is strong evidence (though hardly the only evidence) that America is entering the long decline suffered by every past empire.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

lol wtf does this have to do with cloud computing... i think we found the 1st guy that will have his app rejected lol

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

Like I said, I don't even care about GW and Palin. I didn't and wouldn't vote for them. But it is patently false to call regional dialects "contrived populism." That may be a problem in our country, but the fact that you think someone who speaks differently from you is somehow inferior or contrived, is a bit unnerving. What is not "concise, careful, and wise" about speaking the way you were brought up to speak, the way those around you speak, and loving one's home place? Nothing. They are not mutually exclusive - that is a great fallacy in our nation. I'm proud to be a Missourian, proud to speak like a Missourian, and I have no problem evaluating the ideas people express regardless of how they speak. Looking down on people for the way the speak is elitism, plain and simple.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Pojut]

MISSION: The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government. We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots volunteers, we will support leaders who work toward positive solutions, and hold accountable those who obstruct them.

We are 100% grassroots. No lobbyists here. No pundits. And no hyper-partisan strategists calling the shots in this movement. We are a spontaneous and collective expression of our desire to forge a culture of civic engagement that is solution-oriented, not blame-oriented. We demand a government that responds to the needs of the majority of its citizens as expressed by our votes and by our voices; NOT corporate interests as expressed by misleading advertisements and campaign contributions.

http://coffeepartyusa.com/

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

So superficially changing the way you act is not ignorant, because people will have bigoted notions about you? "Ignorant is as ignorant does" is a true statement, but it shows your own prejudice to assume that speaking with a regional dialect is "as ignorant does." Shame on you! Show some pride in your origins!

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cayenne8]

"Why? It doesn't seem to have been a job qualification to be able to spell or pronounce "nookuler"

Nor to know how to pronounce corpsman (hint:not corpse-man)

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[billcopc]

Pride in your origins ? You were born. Whoop-tee-doo! One person's birth doesn't make an arbitrary geopolitical territory automagically awesomer than the one next to it.

If we're going to take the gloves off, I'll posit that the entirety of "American English" is ignorant, as it is an inferior, jocular, slurred dialect that only loosely resembles English syntax. It is to English what Afrikaans is to Dutch.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[The Wild Norseman]

So you're saying it's really more 'clout computing?'

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as someone lives in Missouri, people who pronounce it "Missour-uh" ought to be shot.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[david_thornley]

C-L-U-O-D C-M-P-U-T-E-N-G.

Is that close enough for government work?

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[GameboyRMH]

You could forgive Bush for this if he at least took the time to learn to pronounce it before using it in his speeches. Or maybe even after mutilating the word the first time. But he didn't.

It would be like the CEO of Intel saying "sillycone" instead of silicon in presentations at multiple conferences.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Zarf]

So you're saying it's really more 'clout computing?'

I'm so totally using that. *yoink*

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[AndersOSU]

Once upon a time, there was an expectation that the person holding the highest office in the land would conduct themselves in a concise, careful, and wise manner

When? I'm interested if you can rectify your statement with the Andrew Jackson presidency. (also the antebellum presidents were, without exception, hacks, most of the reconstruction presidents were corrupt, then you've got the racist Woodrow Wilson, the oblivious Herbert Hoover, and more recently tricky Dick and our good friend W.)

We've been lucky, as a country to get good presidents when we need them (Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Truman, and JFK) but trite populism has always played well in politics - though Sarah Palin may yet prove to be a new low.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever even visited the South?

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cashman73]

How do you say "cloud computing" in Mandarin? Hindi?

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

arbitrary geopolitical territory automagically awesomer than the one next to it.

You said that, not me. Take pride in where you are from. It doesn't diminish the pride others should feel for where they are from. But, I think you have shown your own bigotry, anyway: What makes American English, or any of its dialects inferior to British English or any of its dialects? Does British English (in so much as it is even a homogeneous set of modes of speech: it is far less so than you are implying) communicate ideas more accurately? (No.) Does it express a wider variety of ideas? (No.) Does it increase more the virtue of those who speak it? (No.) I think you would be hard pressed to find any language in the developed world, and probably even most of the undeveloped world that expresses fewer ideas, expresses ideas less clearly, etc. than any other language. And, I'm going to assume you aren't denigrating Afrikaans for racial reasons. It's a strange example to use, to say the least.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

Wow. Great modding, you knee-jerk, bigoted fucks. I'd like to say that I have learned about a darker side of humanity today, but sadly it is all too prevalent. It's not even surprising anymore. I just hope people whose wills aren't as strong don't let people like these fucks and the moderators so far tell them they are inferior because of who they are, where they are from, or how they speak. You'd think this country would have learned something from the Civil Rights Movement, the divisive nature of our politicians, our entrenched socio-economic differences, but the larger, abstract concepts involved in Liberty, Equality, Independence, and Community are apparently lost on many, even among the more educated Slashdot crowd. Y'all have truly disgraced yourselves, Slashdot, and those who would call you brother. A shame! You would think we would have gotten past more of this in the last 50 to 100 years, but I guess some people never learn what it truly means to be a free and reasoned person.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Runaway1956]

Ahhhh - you miss the point. All those wonderful "dialects" which you seem to think we should take pride in, are little more than mutilations of the English language. There were three terms that marked a Western Pennsylvania person as exactly that, because NO ONE in the world used them. Worse that the common "y'all" - at least that one can be called a contraction of "you" and "all".

If you did some research, you could find a number of words and terms that were unique to ignorant little pockets of humanity, from the coal fields to Boston, to Brooklyn - to where ever you care to wander. Some of the people in Old England had their own little pockets, prior to television. And few of them signified anything more, or less, than ignorance.

Television has largely cured that ignorance. And, that was the real point I was making above. No longer can an American go to another state, town, or region where he has genuine difficulty understanding the people.

In my entire life, the most difficulty I have encountered with a people who claimed to speak English, was on the Isle of Man. But, THAT was a genuine accent, rather than the mutilation of a language by uneducated, ignorant people.

I could ask where you are from, and what idioms you use, that are not found in any dictionary - but I doubt you'll post them here. Feeling brave? Come on, show some pride, alright? You can make fun of my kinfolk after you read some of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_English

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Great modding, you knee-jerk, bigoted fucks. I'd like to say that I have learned about a darker side of humanity today, but sadly it is all too prevalent. It's not even surprising anymore.

Darker side of humanity. Pfft. See if you can be a little more melodramatic about the Slashdot moderation not happening the way you would have liked. With all the evil that exists in the world, if you think this is some manifestation of the "dark side" then I don't know whether you should consider yourself fortunate, or lament how sheltered you have been.

I just hope people whose wills aren't as strong don't let people like these fucks and the moderators so far tell them they are inferior because of who they are, where they are from, or how they speak.

If "nookular" was an accent or dialect, I'd agree with you. Unfortunately for your argument, it isn't. It's a mispronounciation that deseparately wants the legitimacy of being viewed as a dialect. Evidence is that George W. Bush didn't have such unusual pronounciations for any other words. If he did, I'd be far more inclined to believe it's just an accent or dialect.

Since it's not an accent or dialect, and since this is a person who wants the most powerful position in our government, scrutiny will be applied to him for things that I would ignore and let slide if it were anyone else. This is some great injustice to you? Come down off that high horse, I'm having to shout for you to hear me up there.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Jane Q. Public]

I disagree.

I am from the West coast. When I took a job in S. New Jersey I was very surprised, not just at the amount of accent people had in the S. Jersey - Philadelphia area (very pronounced, no pun intended), but also by how much that accent differed from a New York City accent (1.5 hours away by car). And some people from different parts of New York City still have different accents.

Drive another 2 hours and you are surrounded by people speaking a completely different Boston accent, and in another 2 or 3 hours you will be in the middle of Maine.

Yes, we in America still have accents. Not as much as we used to, but they are still there, and they are still pretty heavy in places.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

You should hear me talk, and you might change your opinion a bit. Ever hear of "Missouri Mud-Mouth?" What I'm trying to say is that the way people speak doesn't make them ignorant, and lumping everyone who pronounces nuclear a certain way together with Bush is a huge travesty. You underestimate the people you are describing.

Language is organic. I find it absurd to think of any dialect as a mutilation - it serves its purpose about as well as any other dialect.

Television dispelling ignorance: now that's one I haven't heard before! It's funny, I meet a lot of people who have trouble understanding people from the surrounding counties and the southern part of the state, or who have trouble understanding certain groups of Black people around here. I don't get it. Every linguistic nuance in speech is as salt to me. And I've never found any group of people with any dialect to be more ignorant than any other, although there are plenty who feel defeated by being put down for the way they speak, and their are plenty who put others down for the way they speak (and believe me, a lot of these people weren't that bright themselves).

Ah, I found your link quite interesting. Very colorful. Here are few from Missouri: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostone/fun/slang.htm

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

It's not a great injustice, but fucks who fancy themselves as superior have lead to pretty much every major human catastrophe on our fair green globe, so I don't think it's grandiose to lament bigotry wherever you find it. The link between this, and the same kind of bigotry that caused slavery, the Indian massacres, concentration camps, etc. are lost on you and these other people, and that is sad.

Unfortunately for your argument, it isn't. It's a mispronounciation that deseparately wants the legitimacy of being viewed as a dialect. Evidence is that George W. Bush didn't have such unusual pronounciations for any other words. If he did, I'd be far more inclined to believe it's just an accent or dialect.

Come down to Missouri, and tell that to the 90% of the population that pronounce it that way. Believe me, it's not because we don't know how to spell it, or because we don't know that people from other regions pronounce it differently. I am guessing you are the sheltered one, if you don't know about the dialects of the states in our nation...

Oh, and PS, it is very much a difference in dialect. Dialect is defined as "A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, especially a variety of speech differing from the standard literary language or speech pattern of the culture in which it exists." (The American Heritage Dictionary)

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Darinbob]

Too late. I submitted a bid to support all of the federal government's IT needs. Apparently $125K/yr was the low bid. How hard can it be?

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Runaway1956]

Ahhh, the Maine-iacs. I spent two years in Winter Harbor. Now, THAT is a genuine dialect.

But, maybe you missed my point about dialects half a century or more ago. They were MUCH more pronounced than they are today, to the point that people actually had difficulty understanding each other. Even the dialect that I grew up with is watered down today. A smaller percentage of the people use those odd words that mark them as Western Pennsylvania, and the odd inflections of words is less apparent. Television, radio, and music have eroded all of our many dialects. Oh, you'll still hear it, from time to time, if you sit with the old men in the community centers while they play checkers or something like that. You have to go looking for it, though.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a great injustice, but fucks who fancy themselves as superior have lead to pretty much every major human catastrophe on our fair green globe, so I don't think it's grandiose to lament bigotry wherever you find it. The link between this, and the same kind of bigotry that caused slavery, the Indian massacres, concentration camps, etc. are lost on you and these other people, and that is sad.

Unfortunately for your argument, it isn't. It's a mispronounciation that deseparately wants the legitimacy of being viewed as a dialect. Evidence is that George W. Bush didn't have such unusual pronounciations for any other words. If he did, I'd be far more inclined to believe it's just an accent or dialect.

Come down to Missouri, and tell that to the 90% of the population that pronounce it that way. Believe me, it's not because we don't know how to spell it, or because we don't know that people from other regions pronounce it differently. I am guessing you are the sheltered one, if you don't know about the dialects of the states in our nation... Oh, and PS, it is very much a difference in dialect. Dialect is defined as "A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, especially a variety of speech differing from the standard literary language or speech pattern of the culture in which it exists." (The American Heritage Dictionary)

Ok, that's nice and all, but here's the part you keep failing to address. It's not going to go away just because you find it inconvenient. People with, say, a British accent, pronounce EVERY word the "British" way. People with say, a French accent, can speak any word and you can detect that it is in fact a French accent. You want to silence everyone in this discussion who disagrees with you, then pay attention to this part.

When people with no significant accent pronounce every word they speak in a relatively standard way, and then choose to pronounce this single word in a radically different way, this is not an accent or a dialect. It's a mispronounciation. Bush has never corrected this error, which does indeed say something about his intelligence or his ego or both.

Incidentally, saying "this is the wrong way to pronounce something" doesn't cause any catastrophes. No more than saying "this person has a much darker skin tone" causes a catastrophe. It doesn't. It's just a statement of fact. No catastrophe can occur until some bigoted idiot says "this person has a much darker skin tone, therefore we should stop treating them like human beings and enslave them." Then and only then do you end up with i.e. slavery in the old South or any other catastrophe. No one here is suggesting that we stop treating anyone like a human being just because they fail to pronounce a word correctly, so yes you are being melodramatic.

The melodrama is designed to give you the moral high ground by portraying anyone who disagrees with you as some kind of bigot. That's cute and all, but it's an incredibly weak argument based on emotional appeal. Try actually addressing what I have asked you three times now, which is that mispronouncing a single word and pronouncing all other words in a more standard way does not constitute an accent.

So far, you are only making me think of that saying "I'm sorry if the correct way of doing things offends you."

Furthermore, you can't even reasonably derive "nookular" from the spelling of "nuclear". This isn't like the sound "tomayto" and the sound "tomahto" where it the word would, in both cases, be spelled like "tomato" and the only difference is whether you pronounce a vowel with a long 'a' or a short 'a' sound. No, to read "nuclear" and come up with "nookular" you would first have to believe that "clear" should be pronounced like "kewlar", and if you believe that, you should re-learn the alphabet and whoever taught you to read should be fired.

I'd believe your "it's just a regional dia

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Jane Q. Public]

I agree with you in general and I did not miss your point. Note that I wrote "not as much as we used to".

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

I could give a fuck about how Bush pronounces things, although you will find that the way he pronounces "nuclear" is a prevalent pronunciation in much of the South and Midwest. The thread started with someone implying that Bush was stupid because he pronounced nuclear "incorrectly." Except the point you are missing is that this pronunciation is part of several American dialects. So if you have proof that it is not part of a dialect, not a regional variation in English, that is what you need to say in order to advance your point. Just saying it doesn't make it so. I live somewhere where it is pronounced that way, because of our dialect. I'm not sure how to prove that to you, but if you will take me as an honest person, I don't see how you can miss that point. Bigotry is bad in and of itself - I'm not trying to say that anyone has reached a level of murderous bigotry in this thread. Melodrama schmelodrama. People are insulting my region, and me, implying that we are unintelligent because of the way we speak. If you can't understand that I have answered your question three times, I'm not sure how to make it any clearer! I'll ignore your vailed insults for now, giving you the benefit of the doubt that you actually want to have a conversation>

you should re-learn the alphabet and whoever taught you to read should be fired.

But stop insulting me and my neighbors and family!

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

That's real friendly of you. It's this kind of fraternity that makes America great.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

The thing is, "sillycone" isn't a part of the dialects of large parts of the Midwest and South (or any other region), while this particular pronunciation of "nuclear" is.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Pride in your origins ? You were born. Whoop-tee-doo! One person's birth doesn't make an arbitrary geopolitical territory automagically awesomer than the one next to it.

If we're going to take the gloves off, I'll posit that the entirety of "American English" is ignorant, as it is an inferior, jocular, slurred dialect that only loosely resembles English syntax. It is to English what Afrikaans is to Dutch.

Actually I've heard that American English due to our being isolated from other European influences has deviated less from the 'original English' than the English spoke in England. You might find the same true of Afrikaans relative to Dutch in which case maybe we agree if we define inferior as being closer to the original language.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[oldspewey]

In my experience (having travelled fairly extensively in both Canada and the US, both for business and pleasure), the use of the pronunciation "nookuler" has little or nothing to do with regional dialects. I've met people in urban settings who pronounce it correctly and I've met people in urban settings who pronounce it incorrectly. I've met people in rural settings who pronounce it correctly and I've met people in rural settings who pronounce it incorrectly. What I have noticed, and maybe this is just my experience, is that it's primarily about intellectual carelessness. The same people who say "nookuler" will say things like "dethaw" or will use the spelling "definatly" in an email. These are the people who can't be bothered to listen carefully. These are the people who place a low priority on presenting themselves well.

If it's somebody serving me a cup of coffee and a donut, I'm not too worried about it. Go ahead, be intellectually lazy. If it's somebody driving my taxi, I'm not too worried about it. Go ahead, be intellectually lazy. But if it's somebody who holds the highest post in the United States, somebody who holds the metaphorical keys to the nookuler arsenal, somebody who represents an entire nation to the world ... well, being intellectually lazy is simply inexcusable.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure how to make it any clearer!

Don't you mean kularer?

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[oldspewey]

LMFAO

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

More like sickylone. "Nuclear" --> "Nucular" involves the swapping of a consonant and vowel, not just a different pronunciation.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[bangthegong]

has anyone on slashdot ever learned to use a dictionary? clearly there are two accepted ways of pronouncing it
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuclear
Pronunciation: \nü-kl-r, nyü-, ÷-ky-lr\

usage Though disapproved of by many, pronunciations ending in \-ky-lr\ have been found in widespread use among educated speakers including scientists, lawyers, professors, congressmen, United States cabinet members, and at least two United States presidents and one vice president. While most common in the United States, these pronunciations have also been heard from British and Canadian speakers.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

Yes, I'm intellectually lazy computer programmer from Missouri, who reads voraciously, loves music and food, all the finer things in life, works hard for my family and community, and because you don't know enough about the regional dialects in the South and Midwest of the US, you label us as "intellectually lazy," i.e. stupid. When 90% of the people in Missouri pronounce nuclear differently from the way the "rest of the nation" does, I'm not sure how you can overlook the fact that that is the definition of variance in dialect. And that's just one state. Of course, "the rest of the nation" mentality shows your inherent bias against a large portion of the US. Hell, we say February as "Febyu-ary" too. We pronounce a lot of things differently than other regions in the US.

Hey, you pronounce the K in "know" right? Because at one time that was proper English, but languages don't change, don't grow apart into different dialects, so anyone who doesn't pronounce the K must be an idiot. And you drop the H in "have" and "herb," right? I'm sure you speak Old English and only dain to speak to us modern-English-speaking fuck ups in order to ridicule us right?

Fuck you guys. Fuck your elitist, ignorant bullshit. You all go on thinking you are superior to "us poor country folk," and we will go on being fine people, despite whatever you think. I thought you two were interested in discussion, but now I am just sorry I wasted so much typing on you.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, "sillycone" isn't a part of the dialects of large parts of the Midwest and South (or any other region), while this particular pronunciation of "nuclear" is.

And if millions of people in several US states suddenly decided to look at the word "silicone" (or "silicon") and pronounce it "sillycone", they'd still be WRONG. Whether 10 million did this or 200 million, they'd still be just as wrong. Whether those people have pronounced it that way in the last week or the last century, they'd still be just as wrong.

This is what you just don't want to understand about "new-kou-lar" because you imagine you are fighting some kind of crusade against bigotry. Tell me, if somebody posted that "2+2=5" and I respond telling him that this is false, would you defend him and call me a bigot because multiple people in his physical location also believe that 2 and 2 sum to 5? Would you then refuse to acknowledge, at all costs, that two plus two actually equals four, and anyone who believes it equals five is in need of remedial mathematics education? Would you refuse to acknowledge that if a US President repeatedly stated that "2+2=5" then this reflects poorly on his intelligence, that maybe this isn't the ideal way to represent the highest office of the country?

Because that's what you are doing here with the word "nuclear." The more flak you catch for it, the more of a martyr I suppose you will consider yourself. That must be easier than wondering if all the opposition to your position is well-founded, isn't it? I mean after all, if you were willing to entertain that notion you might just lose face.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[nurb432]

Or even if you cant spell it but at least pronounce it.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Runaway1956]

I learned to say Mizz-OOR-ee in high school. The first girl I met who came from there taught me that it's MIZ-er-ee. Ehhh. If you don't like that one, you can shoot her. She was rather homely. Short of ugly, but somewhere beyond plain. Come to think of it, that describes Missouri too, doesn't it?

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[losfromla]

dain -> deign, unless you were making some ironic point with choosing to spell that particular word incorrectly. As an FYI, the etymology of the word nowhere leads to dain or any variation anywhere near that. BTW, Are you enjoying being the center of attention in an off-topic thread?

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

Ha I wish I had both more attention and commentary in this thread, and I wish I had had more time to look up "deign" because my spell check was flipping out, but I had things to do! Thanks for your pedantic interlude!

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

Hey, fuck you! I've listened to your point but you won't listen to mine. So, fuck you!

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha I'm going MAD!

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[cromar]

Hey, fuck your ignorant elitist bullshit. Do you pronounce the K in "know?" Then shut the fuck up. Do you pronounce the H in "herb?" Then shut the fuck up you don't know what you are talking about and you are assholes to boot.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

We are talking about Clod Computing, you insensitive cloud !

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you're flipping out on an AC. This is the very definition of coming unhinged.

Re:... if you can spell "Cloud Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

This one probably came unhinged a while ago...

Dear Contractors...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Dinner is served! Please approach the money trough in an orderly line...

Re:Dear Contractors...

[hedwards]

I know you're joking, but it could go either way. Trying to manage, secure, track and backup the huge number of servers that the various agencies and departments use costs a pretty considerable amount of money to do right. Of course they haven't been doing it right up until now. Consolidating into a smaller number of server farms that are somewhat spread through the US has definite potential in terms of dealing with those factors more efficiently. That being said, we won't know until it happens, there's still plenty of ways for pork and waste to creep into the equation.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[wealthychef]

I for one have full confidence in the government that after reorganizing their data centers, they will have a lean, optimized, efficient operation. Who's with me?

Re:Dear Contractors...

[BitHive]

Sure, as long as they bring in the free market to do it. Nothing gets a job done on time and under cost like unfettered free enterprise and rugged individualism.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[ArcadeX]

I work on the DoT network, and this thought scares me. Please remember the lowest bidder gets the job in most cases, we recently started putting VM servers in, and these guys can't even reboota a virtual server without screwing it up. As a regional subcontractor, I'm completely locked out, to the point that I had to spend 10 minutes on the phone with our official helpdesk explaining the runas command in windows to the guy on the other end so he could run a command I don't have access to...

Re:Dear Contractors...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

There are, absolutely undeniably, substantial economies of scale in IT at virtually every step of the game. Hardware gets cheaper as it is produced in greater volume, software costs serious cash to write but nothing to copy, small shops might have a 1/25 admin/server ratio because the minimum number of admins is 1(.5 admins just lie on the floor oozing organ goo) while large ones might have a 1/10,000 ratio plus a few screwdriver monkeys.

And, honestly, I'd be delighted if the feds can realize some of those economies. I'm sure that there are plenty of grossly inefficient little fiefdoms out there, just waiting to be consolidated.

My concern is twofold: one is that there are non-obvious potential diseconomies of scale(and not just because this is the evil gummin't with its waste and corruption, a lot of the good stories are private sector). Centralization and standardization are all well and good until you end up waiting three weeks and submitting petitions in triplicate just to get some software installed or setting changed, and don't even think about setting up a little wiki or git repo or something for your team with approval from a half dozen departments.

The second issue is, of course, concern over the government contracting process, regulatory capture, revolving door incentives, outright corruption, and whatnot. The magical efficiency of the private sector isn't going to do us a whole lot of good if the project ends up as a cost-plus job for SAIC or one of the other byzantine contracting behemoths that specialize in landing(and on occasion even fulfilling) contracts.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Improv]

While we're in irony mode, yup, that's why we have the best health care system in the world, we have the best train infrastructure in the world, and why our scientific and cultural literacy is top-notch!

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Anonymous Coward]

they will have a lean, optimized, efficient operation.

I'm sure that it'll be as lean and efficient as most of the companies where I've worked. While those 'darn government bureaucrats' take a lot of heat for like every one who runs for office, incumbent or not. However, personally, I've seen plenty of waste, fraud and abuse in the private sector to know that those issues are just examples of human nature run amok in large organizations.

Of course with government, special problems exist, in particular voters and politicians who instead of trying to improve government seem more willing to destroy it and 'start fresh'. Of course that that does is empower the status quo. Practical people who talk of incremental change and steady leadership are downed out by radicals who demand 'nothing', or 'everything'.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Pojut]

And why we have the most imprisoned people per capita in the world! Everyone knows a privately owned prison system is the best way to-

*NO CARRIER*

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Improv]

But it's impossible for people to end up in jail in a free market! Any time people might need something they don't have, whether it be stuff or emotional fulfillment, a market is created, and the invisible hand provides!

This incidentally is why in a free market nobody is killed by bullets - need to be saved -> market -> invisible hand deflects bullet.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[cayenne8]

"While we're in irony mode, yup, that's why we have the best health care system in the world, we have the best train infrastructure in the world, and why our scientific and cultural literacy is top-notch!"

I'm quite happy with my current level of healthcare, it meets all my needs.

And who needs a fucking train? I have a car and a motorcycle that allows me to get where I want on MY schedule. If it's too far to drive, I fly.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[wealthychef]

Irony is not the same thing as sarcasm. I guess you might be right about the education thing. LOL

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been playing BioShock, haven't you?

Re:Dear Contractors...

[wintercolby]

There in lies the problem. The fed will likely outsource to Raytheon or Northrup Grumman, who will again contract out to recruiting firms. Before I know it, I'll be getting calls and emails from people who clearly aren't even state-side asking if I'm willing to relocate for a 6 month contract. Of course it would be on my dime to move. That's why they can't get qualified people. Qualified people won't (don't) sub-contract for firms based in India to get paid the lowest going wage and relocate at the same time.

I know this because I get 5 to 10 emails/week asking me to relocate to the DC area for jobs that I've already seen posted on Ratheon or NG's websites. I work with plenty of multinationals, and can easily tell English Grammar from an Indian perspective. Not all Indians speak or write poor English, just the recruiters that have contacted me regarding subcontracting for the Fed through NG and Raytheon.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[AndersOSU]

That's not how it works - stop distorting the invisible hand.

In a true free market, you just pay the fine for killing poor people.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[corbettw]

Part of a free market means that those industries that best suit the needs of their customers will succeed. Trains, while they might satisfy some personal desire of yours, are not a popular choice of personal transportation in this country. Since no one uses them or cares about them, they fall apart. It's really not that difficult a concept to understand, one wonders why you marvel at it.

As for our health care system, as long as foreign politicians come here for their operations we can safely that, yes, we do have the best health care system in the world.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[BitHive]

Wow awesome insights there, broheim. Trains not a popular mode of personal transport? Hardly a marvel, indeed! Members of the world's political elite have the wealth and influence to buy good medical treatment? Wow, I guess that means the rest of us should just shut up and stop our bitching right?

You're so far behind you think you're in first place.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Buelldozer]

The failures of Health Care, Train infrastructure, and Scientific literacy are _arguably_ the fault of Government INTERVENTION and not the free market.

I'm not claiming that the free market is a perfect solution but I am saying that many of the problems in these three examples can be traced DIRECTLY to intervention by the Federal Government.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[BitHive]

You know what's even better than asserting something? Backing it up with references and supporting information. Did BIG GOVERNMENT fuck that up for you too?

Re:Dear Contractors...

[BitHive]

No, in a true free market only the amoral are poor and thus they deserve to be executed. This is why we all need guns, so that executions can be "crowdsourced" if you will, eliminating the need for BIG GOVERNMENT involvement. Keep government out of our prisons, hospitals, and schools!

Re:Dear Contractors...

[twiddlingbits]

Well the reason they won't pay real $$$ is they bid it so low to win the work and MUST staff it with H1Bs. In the end the epitath of the failed project will be "Yea, but we did it CHEAP". I've worked for NGIT on a Gov't project and as the PM (Contract..they offered me perm for 30% of my rate) saw the rates we were offering to firms to bring us GOOD Java people and they were talking $25/hr and this was during the good times in IT!!! I get 5-10 emails a week from people with Indian last names asking me to sell them my 25+ yrs of expertise for $45-55 per hour plus pay my own expenses. I don't see how H1Bs do it. Rent is the same for everyone, food is the same price and transportaton is needed. So how do you live on those kind of wages in a place like DC or Beltway or NYC or LA?? Until the Gov't gets rid of lowest bid wins and actually looks at expertise, value and past success as predictors of future sucess versus dollar cost we are going to be stuck in this rut. Unfortunately while it does cost LESS to do it the RIGHT way in the LONG term, no one looks past next year's budget number. And if the buttload of debt and other issues the US has right now those budget numbers are going to be skinny so expect the trend to continue and maybe even get worse thus the savings that were planned will not be realized and we are right back in the same overpriced and underdelivered IT.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Buelldozer]

Listen closely BitHive.

First, if you want to bitch about unsupported assertions why don't you lead the way? I'm seeing a decided lack of citations and references in the post where you more than casually suggest that the failings in your examples are the result of the free market.

Second, rarely have I encountered anyone on the Internet who is worth the time investment necessary to provide citations, examples, and references. Almost without exception its entirely one sided. I provide all the work and they provide a steady string of assumptions, hand waving, and vulgarities.

So far you're batting two for two. No references or citations in your original post plus vulgarities in your reply.

You want research, citations, and proof? I'll be happy to give it to you under one of the following two conditions: Either you take time out of your day to provide references and supporting information for your assertions OR you pay me $500 for my time to go first supporting mine.

I've given away enough time and effort to people who couldn't be bothered to respond to anything that was well thought out and researched.

Your move. Put up or shut up.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Red Flayer]

Part of a free market means that those industries that best suit the needs of their customers will succeed. Trains, while they might satisfy some personal desire of yours, are not a popular choice of personal transportation in this country. Since no one uses them or cares about them, they fall apart. It's really not that difficult a concept to understand, one wonders why you marvel at it.

Let's subsidize them at the same rate we subsidize car travel and see how they fare. Let the government pay for all the bridges, track, and maintenance of the track just like it works for cars. While we're at it, let's make sure we make people pay the environmental costs of operating their cars, in cash. Mass transit and auto transport are not on equal footing -- we subsidize road transport with billions (trillions?) in spending.

As for our health care system, as long as foreign politicians come here for their operations we can safely that, yes, we do have the best health care system in the world.

Ah yes, let's consider the well-being of our health-care system by only looking at the care the wealthy and connected get. Because obviously if people can't afford healthcare, they don't deserve it.

Either you're uninformed or willfully ignorant wrt mass transit, and either you're clueless or an asshole (imo) wrt healthcare.

Take your blinders off.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[crispytwo]

In a true free market, you just pay the fine for killing poor people.

There's a fine? And where does that go?

Re:Dear Contractors...

[nedlohs]

No you just need to pay their owner to compensate him for the lost property.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[xav_jones]

Regarding the demise of light rail and government intervention: http://culturechange.org/issue10/taken-for-a-ride.htm

Re:Dear Contractors...

[corbettw]

Trains not a popular mode of personal transport?

Not in the US, they're not. Rail ridership is a small fraction of the ridership of cars, planes, even buses move more people.

Members of the world's political elite have the wealth and influence to buy good medical treatment? Wow, I guess that means the rest of us should just shut up and stop our bitching right?

Pretty much, yeah. Your health care is your own responsibility, not mine. So act like an adult and take care of yourself and quit your pathetic whining about how life isn't fair. It never has been and never will be.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hilarous! thanks

Re:Dear Contractors...

[BitHive]

You heard it here first, folks:

- Very few people drive trains to work or the grocery store
- If you don't take care of trains they will fall apart
- Heads of state can buy services in a country therefore everyone in the country has the same access to those services
- Stop whining and get some bootstraps

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Anonymous Coward]

The failures of Health Care, Train infrastructure, and Scientific literacy are _arguably_ the fault of Government INTERVENTION and not the free market.

I'm not claiming that the free market is a perfect solution but I am saying that many of the problems in these three examples can be traced DIRECTLY to intervention by the Federal Government.

citation needed.

PS. Glen Beck is not a valid citation.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[emt377]

One can only imagine how many data centers out there run some app that by today's standards is utterly trivial, on some leased z Series hardware. It might have started out on a row of 4341 or such and gradually gotten consolidated into a single low-end system. Today dozens if not hundreds of these apps could be hosted on a single system. They can provisioned as needed from a pool of servers, remotely by the admins who actually manage the apps (aka cloud).

Re:Dear Contractors...

[dontbgay]

The fact that we have Health Care, Train Infrastructure, and Scientific literacy are _arguably_ the fault of Government INTERVENTION and not the free market.

I'm not claiming that Government INTERVENTION was a perfect solution but I am saying that many of the societal advances in these three examples can be traced DIRECTLY to intervention by the Federal Government.

See how much fun this game is? Polarizing comments and stating "site some sources" doesn't make you any more or less intelligent than anyone.. It just makes you seem myopic at the very least... And willfully negligent of your civic duties to look at the whole picture and not just what's good for someone's wallet or what some talking head on TV tells you to say.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Jawn98685]

The failures of Health Care, Train infrastructure, and Scientific literacy are _arguably_ the fault of Government INTERVENTION and not the free market.

Utter bullshit.

How is it that, by any credible measure, U.S. healthcare lags behind that ofevery other industrialized western nation when it comes to getting value ("health") from money spent on care? Simple - a free market only works in the theoretical world where consumers are able to make informed decisions about what to buy and from whom. Health care, by it's very nature, defies this requirement. Often, the "purchase decision" must be made in a time frame that does not permit anything even remotely resembling an informed decision. More importantly, the vast majority of health care consumers lack the expertise to effectively "shop", even if such an exercise were practical in most health care scenarios.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[moosesocks]

You can only use the word "arguably" for cases such as Amtrak, in which the agency has been deliberately mismanaged by small-government advocates looking to produce justification for their causes.

If people want to advocate for less government, they're welcome to do it. However, it would seem incredibly unwise to put those people at the helm of the remaining government services that we'd actually like to keep.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Buelldozer]

I'm agog that you're attempting to argue this.

Are you aware of the Interstate Commerce Act and more specifically how it came to be? http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h743.html

It's obvious that you don't know much about the history of railroads and the U.S. Government.

I mean really, the Government RAN some of them until as late as 1987!

Here's a compressed history: http://www.laughtergenealogy.com/bin/histprof/misc/railroads.html

Have you ever seen the intermodal regulations that apply to the railroads? It's gigantic, and by that I mean it's an enormously large pile of regulation spread across no less than TEN government agencies.

The RR industry is probably one of the most heavily regulated in the United States. How can problems they've suffered NOT be somehow related to government?

It's much the same with Health Care. There is an enormous body of government regulation in Health Care. I mean absolutely mindbogglingly huge. We should junk the whole thing and replace it with the public option.

Science is much the same. One idiot legislates against the federal funding of stem cell research and another legislates for it. One idiot says to "To Mars!" and another says "Don't leave L.E.O.!".

Government legislation / regulation is one constant in all of these cases. Pick a direction and go for it but don't waffle back and forth and then claim that the Government has nothing to do with the ills of an industry.

I'm no anti gubbermint goober but c'mon, much of this stuff is as plain as the nose on your face once you start looking into it.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[glitch23]

I do some DOJ work where the contracts are components of a larger program or contract vehicle. So once the contract vehicle is established it is usually done for a reason (i.e. a lot of projects coming down the pipe to take advantage of the new contract vehicle). Multiple companies can bid on projects that utilize that contract vehicle. This means that as long as my employer continues bidding (and winning) the contracts being released for bid then I have a job. I'll just move from contract to contract. I've done this for 7 years *in the same building* and my customer has always been the DOJ. I've never had worries of being out of a job when a project I'm on is nearing completion. Note that this isn't always the case and I understand where you are coming from (i.e. many projects are one offs such as installing something or doing a small upgrade over a few months) but realize that not all contracts are like that. For reference, I used to work with (but not for) Lockheed Martin as a sub but now I work for Keane Federal Systems as a prime contractor.

The primes will fill some positions through sub-contracting (luckily, because that's how I got my foot in the door). However source selection by the government to choose a winning contractor is also key. It is sometimes based on the lowest bid but not always, especially if the customer and the source selection team are personally aware of those people who are bidding and will be on the project if they win. If the source selection is flawed then yes, bad things can happen. Where I work proposals are required to include resume's of the key people on a project so the gov't can see who will be leading the efforts. That helps the source selection team. Security clearances are sometimes required in the government which means that no foreigners will be allowed to work remotely and those who can work onsite must be capable of passing a background check.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[moosesocks]

You missed my point: Although I'm a firm believer in Hanlon's razor (Never ascribe to malice what you can to incompetence), I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe that the same nation that put a man on the moon cannot figure out how to reliably or profitably run a train service between DC and Boston.

One can only conclude, then, that governmental regulation of the railroads was designed with the intent of strangling the rail industry. It's no secret that the government was in cahoots with the auto industry for a great many years (particularly when much of this regulation was put in place).

I do not believe that government regulation is intrinsically corrupt, although I do believe that it can be prone to poisoning, as was the case here. Virtually every rail network on the planet is nationalized, and all of America's peers (with the exception of Canada) have absolutely no problem making the trains run quickly and on time.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[corbettw]

Jesus you're a moron.

- Compared to automobile usage, train usage in the US is nearly non-existent.
- If you don't take care of anything it will fall apart. Or are you completely unfamiliar with the concept of entropy?
- If heads of state in one country go to another country for their health care, the second country should not try to emulate the first in their health care decisions.
- This is the only one you got right. You're responsible for your life, no one else. Stop asking for handouts and go be a man for once in your pathetic, miserable life.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[Anonymous Coward]

We have the best health care system in the world because ours is faith-based.

If you get sick, you're supposed to go to a tent revival so the preacher can lay hands on you and
cast the devil out of you.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[BitHive]

- Internet usage in the US was non-existent until the government invented the internet. Lack of demand for something doesn't mean it's a bad idea. Your original statement that nobody uses trains for personal transportation was laughably stupid because trains aren't for personal transportation, they're for mass transit. Learn to use words and terms correctly before you go jerking off over how smart you are and how dumb everyone else is. I know, it feels good, but it's masturbation.

- No, I've never heard of entropy. I am super stupid and was so awed by your original assertion that trains fall apart when not cared for that I had to repeat it just to make sure the wisdom wasn't lost on me.

- Whatever. The fact that we have the best care available to people who can afford to pay top dollar says jack shit about the suitability of the system for everyone else. You know, "we, the people".

- Sorry to offend such a rugged individual. Go take on the day you self-made titan of industry, you.

Re:Dear Contractors...

[JobyOne]

I read the SAIC article, and found something fascinating.

The FBI found 400 notable bugs in the software SAIC provided them. SAIC said the FBI requested 399 spec changes over 15 months. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.

I've seem some private industry that works really well, some not. The same goes for government-run operations. Ultimately I think government and private industry don't have terribly compatible business processes.

Bout time

[Monkeedude1212]

See, the last time we upgraded we put everything on eleven hundred windows 95 machines with 1 gig hard drives. That did pretty good for a spell, all things considered. Now we're thinking about one of them pointy computers... whaddya call em? Blade servers? Yeah, we hear good things about those.

Re:Bout time

[Arthur Grumbine]

See, the last time we upgraded we put everything on eleven hundred windows 95 machines with 1 gig hard drives.

One data center for each machine?! I think you've unfairly misrepresented their efficiency. I think an estimate of 200 total machines would be more appropriate.

Prediction

[maugle]

This being a government IT project, I predict it will take 5 years longer than planned, cost 10x the initial budget, and still never really work quite right.

Re:Prediction

[Blade]

This being an IT project, I predict it will take 5 years longer than planned, cost 10x the initial budget, and still never really work quite right.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Prediction

[Nadaka]

This being a government IT project, I predict it will take 5 years longer than planned, cost 10x the initial budget, and still never really work quite right.

Then it will be a complete success.

Re:Prediction

[jellomizer]

It depends if the idea happened with you/your party supporting or rejecting the idea initially. So if it was your party idea then it is a success otherwise it would be a failure.

Re:Prediction

[ElectricTurtle]

I'm glad I don't work where-ever it is that you do...

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, at our place it's 6 years longer than planned, costs 11x the initial budget, and failed on initial launch.

Re:Prediction

[megamerican]

Government: There's no success like failure.

Re:Prediction

[BitHive]

Unless they outsource it to the FREE MARKET in which case it will be the most efficient, cost-effective solution ever completed six months ahead of schedule.

Re:Prediction

[oldhack]

Hey, beltway bandits have families to feed and boat payments to make, like everyone else.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like a typical American corporation. These days, they're about as inefficient as the government. It's no surprise, given that the same people end up running both.

Re:Prediction

[timeOday]

The high failure rate for large software projects is well known: "If Las Vegas sounds too tame for you, software might just be the right gamble. Software projects include a glut of risks that would give Vegas oddsmakers nightmares. The odds of a large project finishing on time are close to zero. The odds of a large project being canceled are an even-money bet (Jones 1991)."

Here is another fun page: "Most IT experts agree that such failures occur far more often than they should. What's more, the failures are universally unprejudiced: they happen in every country; to large companies and small; in commercial, nonprofit, and governmental organizations; and without regard to status or reputation."

I only question why, when large projects are almost universally over-budget or fail altogether, we persist in being surprised and outraged every time? The simple fact is, we don't know how to do it, any more than we know how to land on mars; that is, we can do it, sometimes, but you better know going in it is likely to end in tears.

(In general, it seems to me that most of the problems in government have direct parallels in private industry because they flow from the same underlying cause; the unaffordability of medicare/medicaid corresponds to skyrocketing premiums in the private market; social security corresponds to slashing pensions and now even 401k matches in private industry. But private industry does hold a trump card - they can always cut their losses by tossing people aside and moving on, whereas government is the safety net.)

Re:Prediction

[shentino]

Considering that the data being processed is most likely confidential in some way I'm not sure that's an option.

Re:Prediction

[DigitalDeviation]

I feel a Federal Datacenter Consolidation tax coming on.

I shudder every time I hear about a government I.T. project. Can't wait to see what mess occurs after this and who steps down as a result.

Re:Prediction

[Sandbags]

I don't know, we started with a network of well over 3,000 servers, and in less than 2 years we've moved almost entirely off Win 2K, virtualized over 1,000 servers, moved to AIX 6 and VIO, delpoyed a VMWare infrastructure, deployed an Exchange architecture in place of a legacy e-mail system, and converted more than half our web apps into SOA and put it on IFLs in a mainframe. We cut from over 3,000 systems, nearly all physical, to under 2500 with near half virtual, and saved significant money in the process vs budgeted outlays. We've reduced our data center footprint by 60-70%, and our power draw is down dramatically.

The forward looking TCO now that the bulk of the migrations are done is impressively smaller.

We did all this while holding to DOD network standards.

The problem the government will have, which we fought with a bit but was no where near as big of a deal, is getting hundreds of small business units to agree to consolidate to central systems, and to convert from "these servers are mine, see, here's where I paid for them" to a metered utilization budget system where hardly any smaller government agency owns it's own infrastructure.

Re:Prediction

[cayenne8]

"Considering that the data being processed is most likely confidential in some way I'm not sure that's an option."

From what I've observed...there really is NOT much in the way of govt. run tech, they are mandated to only be managers, it is ALL contract work these days. I started some projects with govt. years ago, and there were a few govt tech types doing tech work, but shortly after that, they were mandated to ONLY be mangerial and could not do direct tech work.

So, this is common, and it is no problem. You just have to sign forms and take educational instruction for PI stuff, and you're good to go.

It will likely NOT go out for work off US soil, so that's one nice thing...no offshore work on privacy information, and usually no non-citizens working on confidential information (clearances required), but it will likely be 99% contracted work.

Re:Prediction

[Sandbags]

Good thing this has little to do with software, it's about hardware, system image, operations support, and physical consolidation. Once it's all done, they can work on the software.

I'm not disagreeing with your post, you;re dead on for massive software projects. Just pointing out this isn't one...

We just went through a massive consolidation like this, for about 3,000 servers. it was mostly smooth, and run under budget in terms of the project cost (and saved us tens of millions by going through it).

Re:Prediction

[CorporateSuit]

We just went through a massive consolidation like this, for about 3,000 servers. it was mostly smooth, and run under budget in terms of the project cost (and saved us tens of millions by going through it).

Famous last words.

Re:Prediction

[wintercolby]

[rant]
I'm sorry, but the FREE MARKET is another way to say LINING FATCATS POCKETS when you mention Government contracts. The best thing that could be done is for the Gov't to relocate the admins that have known and loved those systems/servers for years, and help them work with the new structure. On some levels, they may even be able to let them telecommute and save on the relocation/cost of living adjustment for moving the data centers. Release admins through attrition, with 1100 data centers it shouldn't be hard to find people retiring over the next 5 years.

It's time to stop second and third sourcing positions that only end up degrading service and costing workers their retirement/benefits. The money saved looks great on paper, but with the FREE MARKET all it does is make it so the people that use the systems will have poorer service at the same cost.

This is why 401K and insurance premiums are rising, fewer and fewer people are receiving any employer assistance for them. Without employer assistance, few can justify paying the premiums that the insurance companies are used to charging. As state and federal government agencies follow the path to the FREE MARKET, the parts of the FREE MARKET that they prop up fail. There are times and places for the free market, inside our government isn't one of them.
[/rant]

Re:Prediction

[wintercolby]

This is why 401K contributions are declining and insurance premiums are rising . . .

fixed that for me.

Re:Prediction

[newdsfornerds]

. . . or never get off the ground.

Re:Prediction

[twiddlingbits]

Umm..NO..the Gov't Agencies will still "manage" the contractor(s) into doing stupid things in order to save a few bucks or save political face for someone. And don't forget the CongressCritters who don't want DC's in their districts closed. Think the BRAC (DoD) process on a much larger scale of agencies and locations. Total freaking chaos. Looks great on paper, works pretty well in the private sector, but it will be a massive fustercluck in the Gov't.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

If I weren't a die hard AC, I'd mod this one Troll or Funny, but as far as I can tell, BitHive is actually serious...

Re:Prediction

[T5]

This being an IT project, I predict it will take 5 years longer than planned, cost 10x the initial budget, and still never really work quite right.

Fixed that for you.

This being a large, overarching, overreaching government project, I predict that it will take 10 years longer than planned, cost 50x the initial budget, and be cancelled halfway through by a shift in the political winds.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Prediction

[BitHive]

I'm seriously cuckoo for free markets and Ron Paul.

Re:Prediction

[The Wild Norseman]

fixed that for me.

Whoa, wait a second. Didn't you know that one of our fine Indian slashdotter friends would have fixed that for you, and at a lower price? What's wrong with you? Don't you want to save a few pennies?

Re:Prediction

[KORfan]

Egads, my work is slow enough already because I have to store my work halfway across the state. I don't need to spend three weeks fighting to get my computer back to working so it can be even slower accessing files halfway across the country.

Re:Prediction

[indiechild]

From my observations, it's because the majority of working professionals are essentially incompetent. It makes my heart bleed to see how many people can't even do their basic job properly: greedy, unethical and lazy pricks who masquerade as "professionals".

Throw a couple of dozen or more of these incompetents into the perfect storm of a major project, and you'll see why projects fail so much, even with one or two competent (or even brilliant) people thrown in. And this is especially true for the upper echelon of personnel in the project -- if they are incompetent, then you have absolutely no hope.

Computer Rooms

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't have data centers! We have "Computer Rooms"!

IT as a commodity

[DogDude]

Finally, IT is on its way to being considered a commodity, as it should. There's no reason for every organization to maintain their own IT infrastructure any more than there's reason for every organization to maintain their own electricity generation and distribution. Of course, the hordes of IT people won't be happy, as the number of It jobs will continue to fall precipitously, but such is life. Because everybody has access to relatively significant computing power, society as a whole gets to reap the rewards, as opposed to 20 years ago, when only the largest organizations had the money and the manpower to maintain an IT network of any kind.

Re:IT as a commodity

[clang_jangle]

And if you like the way your bank is not liable for identity theft, you'll just love the upcoming government data-filled Cloud!

Re:IT as a commodity

[Anonymous Coward]

WITCH! A witch! Burn her!

Re:IT as a commodity

[FuckingNickName]

I am not quite sure what you are talking about. Because everyone has access to yesteryear's supercomputer on their desktop, there is no reason whatever to go back to a 1960s outsourcing model. If you want to distribute load over your machines, go ahead! But why do it over someone else's?

If you think this is going to reduce IT expenditure requirements, you have barely worked a minute in IT. When you outsource, you are simply paying someone else to do your job, plus profit, plus a gaggle of negotiators in middle management collecting their kickbacks, plus downtime costs because your business is less important to them than your business is to you (if you have enterprise e-mail and it has been down more than, say, GMail, you have done something very wrong)...

Re:IT as a commodity

[eln]

I agree with the government's effort to consolidate, because you can take advantage of cheaper per-gigabyte costs and have more robust backup, recovery, disaster recovery, and redundancy solutions when you're using enterprise equipment in large data centers. I think the government has a lot to gain from consolidation in this manner.

However, I don't see that they'd have much to gain by outsourcing. Government data, by nature, is quite a bit more sensitive than just about any private company's data. The kind of security the government needs is not going to come cheaply, and it's arguable that any private company is really capable of providing it (although they say they are). Even if they can provide it, it's doubtful they can do it cheaper than the government could. For people in need of true commodity services like web hosting, outsourcing makes sense because it can be done far cheaper that way. For people in need of large-scale custom solutions, like the government, keeping it in-house is going to tend to be both more secure and less expensive.

Re:IT as a commodity

[Anonymous Coward]

Computing power is a commodity, but there are plenty of other IT things that aren't.

Re:IT as a commodity

[maxume]

Stop calling it identity theft.

It as "Banks refusing to take action to prevent fraud".

Re:IT as a commodity

[Daniel_Staal]

You assume they haven't already outsourced everything already.

From where I'm sitting (in a government IT center, with about 5 actual government employees among the couple thousand that work here), that's not all that likely to be a valid assumption.

Re:IT as a commodity

[rainmayun]

You must not be aware of how many government data centers are already privately operated.

Re:IT as a commodity

[jimicus]

If you think this is going to reduce IT expenditure requirements, you have barely worked a minute in IT. When you outsource, you are simply paying someone else to do your job, plus profit, plus a gaggle of negotiators in middle management collecting their kickbacks, plus downtime costs because your business is less important to them than your business is to you (if you have enterprise e-mail and it has been down more than, say, GMail, you have done something very wrong)...

I've worked in IT for... a few years. And I agree with the GP.

See, the thing is that while huge organisations will continue to require significant IT infrastructure (either managed inhouse or managed by an outside firm), huge organisations do not provide the majority of jobs in this world. The great majority of jobs are provided by SMBs. The really small SMBs have been outsourcing their IT for years - though "outsourcing their IT" probably translates to "get Dave's son to do it, he knows about computers".

Slightly larger SMBs have been outsourcing their IT to some little company who thought they could earn easy money doing installation and support. Look in the yellow pages, you'll find hundreds of little companies offering services like this. Few of these little outsourcing companies are making serious money - there's simply too much competition in the market.

Larger still SMBs (think medium rather than small, 40-200 employees) may have historically had a full-time IT person. But today there are dozens of companies offering outsourced Exchange, or you can sign up for Google for Domains and the price is so cheap that there is no way a single full-time IT person (even if you ignore their salary) can compete economically - never mind offering four or five nines uptime and spam filtering which doesn't leave people crying. Meanwhile, the cost of a single desktop PC is now so low that it's cheaper to have a spares cupboard containing enough spare PCs to re-equip an entire team at a moment's notice than it is to keep someone on staff to maintain them. Sure, they won't be particularly elegantly managed (there may not be a domain, antivirus may be totally forgotten about, they certainly won't have a standardised build) but let's be honest here - how many non-techies ever display any sign of caring about any of that? And business-specific niche software is frequently sold with a support contract anyway.

Seriously - while anyone who takes careers advice from a stranger on /. probably needs their brains looking at, I'd say if you want steady employment with minimal risk of finding that not only are you redundant from your current post, supply and demand has made you worth considerably less since you last were jobhunting - get yourself a job in the public sector or get the hell out of IT.

Re:IT as a commodity

[Target Practice]

Finally, IT is on its way to being considered a commodity, as it should. There's no reason for every organization to maintain their own IT infrastructure any more than there's reason for every organization to maintain their own electricity generation and distribution. Of course, the hordes of IT people won't be happy...

You need to go watch Metropolis. Just because the workers aren't visible, doesn't mean the workers aren't there. The jobs will still be there, just relocated a bit. Oh, and we'll have a hot female robot overlord to incite riots in all the workers.

Re:IT as a commodity

[tsm_sf]

Few of these little outsourcing companies are making serious money - there's simply too much competition in the market.

Little nit to pick with that... From my perspective it seems like the competent folks quickly reach carrying capacity and simply choose not to expand their operation. I don't know what you mean by "serious money", but having a steady roster of clients who are willing to pay a slight premium for your services doesn't look like a bad way to conduct business.

There may be a lot of competition, there certainly are tons of very intelligent people on the job market, but it seems like there aren't too many people who are both competent and professional.

Re:IT as a commodity

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume they haven't already outsourced everything already.

From where I'm sitting (in a government IT center, with about 5 actual government employees among the couple thousand that work here), that's not all that likely to be a valid assumption.

Who owns/leases the bulk of the equipment and building? I'm guessing it's still the government organization that has been contracting those thousands of people. There is usually a significant difference between totally outsourcing a function and having contractors do most of the day-to-day work. For instance, in the worst case the government can cancel all the contracts and still have physical control and access to the data and hardware. Although in that case it's likely the next few weeks is going to be rough for 5 or so actual government employees!:p

Re:IT as a commodity

[Sandbags]

Much of the data is to be secured, however, much of it is in fact already on 3rd party systems or outsourced to start with, so i don;t see a change in risk.

Also, the bulk of the systems i believe they're talking about here, that could be outsourced (non-military owned), are almost exclusively simply web apps tied to databases. yea, the IRS and a few others peg pretty high, but all those tiny little underfunded departments that currently run their own servers should not do so, and that's the low hanging fruit to start with....

Re:IT as a commodity

[Anonymous Coward]

All your data are belong to us!

Re:IT as a commodity

[FuckingNickName]

small SMBs have been outsourcing their IT for years - though "outsourcing their IT" probably translates to "get Dave's son to do it, he knows about computers".

Welcome to C21. Dave's son is now in the job market, and part of his employability at the SMB comes from his ability to do the IT work. Of course there will remain a significant proportion of sole proprietorships or similar where someone else has to be brought in, but the proportion goes down as everyone is brought up familiar with - rather than afraid of - the computer.

But today there are dozens of companies offering outsourced Exchange, or you can sign up for Google for Domains and the price is so cheap that there is no way a single full-time IT person (even if you ignore their salary) can compete economically

Wait, are you arguing that somewhere with up to 200 employees could get by with 0 in IT? The efficiency of the computer system has such an effect on the efficiency of every single employee in an office environment, but you want to do delegate this responsibility to... no-one? Some support contract involving an unknown, barely familiar with the company, visiting when there is a crisis? This is false economy. To build the strawman "well, you don't need a full-time Exchange server admin!" is obtuse.

spam filtering which doesn't leave people crying

What is your IT department doing wrong? SA+antivirus+sanity checks at MX level have given me fewer false positives than any year I try GMail and quickly retreat with disappointment. If you want outsourced small business mail (clearly your focus) done right, you need to look at the dedicated mail providers such as Tuffmail.

it's cheaper to have a spares cupboard containing enough spare PCs to re-equip an entire team at a moment's notice

In this unmanaged scenario, where has all the data gone? Who is deploying these machines?

won't be particularly elegantly managed (there may not be a domain, antivirus may be totally forgotten about, they certainly won't have a standardised build) but let's be honest here - how many non-techies ever display any sign of caring about any of that?

Some. Those who don't experience endless problems, shout at their computer a lot, and most importantly from a business PoV, waste time and lose data (to nowhere if they are lucky, to a competitor if they're unlucky).

if you want steady employment with minimal risk of finding that not only are you redundant from your current post

Oh, I'm one of the guys people outsource to. But it's just a bit of fun on the side, and I'm more interested in taking a fee to teach self-reliance than to keep people dependent on others.

Re:IT as a commodity

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you generate your own power? Maintain your own fiber? Probably not.

Generally, as soon as economies of scale kick in, unless a function is actually part of your business model [i.e. Edison may, indeed, generate its own power], why on earth would you do it yourself??? Google, MSFT, and a few others are getting pretty good at hosting the commodity-based services (email, chat, collaboration, calendering, etc.)... and, honestly, it is pretty hard to compete with the prices.

Your position sounded nice until i actually thought about it... then you started sounding like someone with a vested interest in keeping up the status quo [i.e. you are paid to be an exchange/notes/groupwise admin]...

Re:IT as a commodity

[newdsfornerds]

Yay! Even LESS privacy for you the taxpayer coupled with greater convenience for Chinese and Russian government sponsored haxors.

Re:IT as a commodity

[Bernanke]

The SMB market is tough, but you can definitely make a living at it (Full Disclosure: I'm a partner in a very small corporation that provides SMB outsourced IT in the US).

It requires excellent people skills (politics and feelings, arg!), technical skills, sales skills, discipline with your time, and... Well, you end up getting to wear about every hat you can imagine. So if you're talented in multiple areas and intelligent, you'll do fine!

The really tough part is laying out money for Managed Services tools, since you can't really make much of a steady living doing break/fix work anymore. If you can't afford something like Kaseya (or a less expensive Manged Services system), you're pretty much boned. Smaller-Medium organizations stick with you because you provide enterprise-class IT support at a monthly rate that is lower than a salaried in-house IT guy. Between our group of guys we have a ton of expertise that most organizations couldn't get for under six figures.

For all you guys that have worked in enterprise IT forever, just imagine your team, but pretend that everyone is competent, friendly, and working towards the same goal as you. That's a good SMB IT provider.

All digression aside, the market is there, but you have to bust your ass every single day to keep your customers and make new ones. Good luck ;).

Re:IT as a commodity

[benjamindees]

enterprise equipment in large data centers

Large datacenters don't use "enterprise" equipment. That bullshit is only sold to small datacenters that don't know what they're doing.

Re:IT as a commodity

[eln]

I've worked in large data centers, and they absolutely do use enterprise equipment. The difference is they can use their size and buying power to get that equipment with full-time on-site engineers at a fraction of the cost the little guys are paying for the equipment and phone support in India.

Re:IT as a commodity

[FuckingNickName]

Well, the only time I am paid for IT services is when something is outsourced to me, so my vested interest should be to tell everyone that they are incompetent and should rely upon me... except that I get more satisfaction teaching people how to do things for themselves.

Maintaining an SMB IT environment is like looking after a small garden: you pay someone else for good seeds, you pay someone else for good tools, but it is your experience with that particular environment which allows you to create something appealing to its users and maintains the health of the land.

Google does not develop tools for you: it develops tools for a lowest common denominator, and expects you to adapt to what it has available. Isn't the biggest benefit of electronic collaboration the ability to automate market-specific operations which previously had to be done manually? Otherwise you just have the paper office without paper. Google does not maintain the health of your business: it has no concern for the privacy of your data; it doesn't know that it would be problematic if it went down tomorrow at 9 PM because you would be waiting for something particularly important.

At the SMB level, you are basically stating that "it is pretty hard to compete with" someone installing exim and a nice HTML front-end on Debian stable and running an upgrade script every evening. I bet you'd have uptime to beat GMail, if you had two independent lines and were based somewhere relatively urban, because Debian have already got "pretty good at" providing a stable server suite long ago. But so what?

Re:IT as a commodity

[dbIII]

Wait, are you arguing that somewhere with up to 200 employees could get by with 0 in IT?

You end up with a defacto IT person where a doctor, lawyer, engineer or other dedicated professional works out how to do a few tasks properly and does it part time. I'm amazed at the number of medical specialists (gastroenterologists etc) I've met that have put in time to learn a lot about IT and then implement things. At some point it interferes too much with their real job and you're better off bringing someone else in even if they are only needed on occasion. That was really my path from engineering into IT (started as defacto IT guy) and later the reason my current employer took me on. When the defacto IT guy is running half the company it's better to get someone that can do it full time.

Better not use Northrop Grumman

[r_jensen11]

If Virginia's IT overhaul is any indication, this is going to be a slow-motion cluster of a mess for the next 10-20 years

Re:Better not use Northrop Grumman

[Anonymous Coward]

If Virginia's IT overhaul is any indication, this is going to be a slow-motion cluster of a mess for the next 10-20 years

Let's not forget that Vivek Kundra was Virginia's CIO when that fiasco took place. I predict that this will be at least as bad as the Virginia situation.

Re:Better not use Northrop Grumman

[mikefocke]

Of course it is

consolidations are always a mess and ones full of job implications mean political interference (I want em in my district).

But you have to do something as the growth of government IT gets out of hand and we can only afford so much.

IIRC, the government consolidated all the payroll systems it had into about 4 pay centers back about 10 years ago. Went from maintaining hundreds to one s/w run 4 places for redundancy. Everybody screamed they needed theirs because it had unique features, they learned to do without or incorporated the features into the new s/w. Wasn't that fairly successful?

While all govt computing is a bit more complex now than a single application was then, still if we are to afford the things we really need, consolidation and standardization makes sense.

Now the contracting and execution...that will be a challenge. And so what if it takes 5 years, if we are going in the right direction and saving money in the long run. Because we can't sustain even the current government spending on what we are willing to vote as taxes.

Re:Better not use Northrop Grumman

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are mistaking him with Anesh Chopra (Chief Technology Officer). I see Kundra (Chief Information Officer) as having been the Secretary of Commerce and Trade for Virgina

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivek_Kundra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneesh_Chopra

Re:Better not use Northrop Grumman

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the Department of Veterans affairs current massive centralization?

The article doesn't state what agencies are supposed to centralize, and if it will affect my branch, so I can only comment on what I know to be true.

The VA has been centralizing IT for 2+ years. Removing all IT employees from the hospitals and shifting them under one management umbrella. Co-locating and managing 30+ Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VISTA) computer systems? (Yes, VISTA)

Centralized storage management, networking decisions, and IT shops streamlined. We moved from maintaining 30+ VISTA systems, to managing 2 LARGE systems co-located at commercial data-centers. (We're moving off VMS to Linux front end user servers right now... WOW that is a HUGE savings, but the money is still spent elsewhere.)

What I'm finding is we won't spend less money, but the money will be better utilized. What you've got is sites in California who spend 3x what a site in Montana spends. So when we centralize, we even the playing field. We spend less in CA, but more in Montana. We upgrade the sometimes shameful IT shops, and knock the big spenders down a peg. The net result? Better overall standards, but no cost savings at all.

Now is doing more with less going to save any tax dollars in the long run? I doubt it... The budget seems to be completely disjointed from the mission in my 15 year government employment. They always find a way to spend the money... If we don't spend it... Then we must not need it, and if we didn't need it, they will cut our budget! We can't let that happen!!!! (Not my mentality mind you.)

The last time, that I am aware they tried to hold the VA to a strict budget some directors ensured they increased services they were offering. Running the hospitals into the RED on PURPOSE to hold congress hostage for a bail out. (This has happened twice that I am aware of in my term of employment.) Will congress simply not fund the VA? Will it 'turn it's back' on the vets? Not a chance in hell. So congress shook the money tree, and bailed out those hospitals. (I think they should have fired those managers for going over budget SO badly.)

I'm just saying... Don't expect the budgets to lower... Ever! Okay, maybe they won't increase as fast as the could by saving money, but they will not decrease.

--Anon Government IT
-15 Years and counting.

Re:Better not use Northrop Grumman

[Anonymous Coward]

Vivek was NOT the VA CIO. He was the Washington, DC CIO

Consolidate

[halcyon1234]

Every business I've ever worked for has had that one dusty 8086 off in a corner. It would run a single batch file every few hours. No one would touch it, because no one knew what it did-- just that whatever it did do was mission critical.

Thus, the US government should just consolidate everything down to a single batch program run by a 8086. I'm sure there's a spare closet in the White House or something they can use as a server room.

Re:Consolidate

[gestalt_n_pepper]

I know that as late as 1995, NASA still had some satellites that were still controlled by some Commodore 64s in a warehouse near White Sands, New Mexico.

I'm sure they've fixed that by now. Probably. Possibly.

Re:Consolidate

[TheLink]

Maybe they're now running in C64 emulators.

Re:Consolidate

[Anonymous Coward]

mission critical batch program?

Councillor Hamann: There is so much in this world that I do not understand. See that machine? It has something to do with recycling our water supply. I have absolutely no idea how it works. But I do understand the reason for it to work. I have absolutely no idea how you are able to do some of the things you do, but I believe there's a reason for that as well. I only hope we understand that reason before it's too late.

Re:Consolidate

[oneiros27]

*those* satellites are probably now defunct. It's the satellites that launched in the 1990s that are still dependent on running on old Alpha, Sparc or such hardware that are the current problem.

And there's no budget to hire programmers to port all of the software, run it through the proper testing, code review, etc.

So yes, there's a bunch of old systems hidden in closets and/or empty cubicles, limping along until the mission ends.

Disclaimer : I've seen one of those closets, and more than one of the cubicles. (because I work with folks that support a mission that launched in 1995)

Re:Consolidate

[groslyunderpaid]

Our voicemail server is a 486. I'm not joking. When it breaks it will be replaced by a voicemail card in the phone closet, but until then, let it work as long as it will work I guess.

Re:Consolidate

[edelbrp]

Every business I've ever worked for has had that one dusty 8086 off in a corner. It would run a single batch file every few hours. No one would touch it, because no one knew what it did-- just that whatever it did do was mission critical.

Ha ha, yeah, there's the real rub. Consolidating servers sounds like a good idea, but some of those servers are running some funky old proprietary services that were set up by folks who have moved on, or are maintained by an IT guy who wants people to believe that "it's just too complicated, you won't understand what it does or how it works".

They shouldn't be auditing servers, they should be auditing services. Phase out the old and take those servers out of service over time.

I find it odd that they think the energy savings would offset a pita consolidation effort.

Re:Consolidate

[znark]

I know that as late as 1995, NASA still had some satellites that were still controlled by some Commodore 64s in a warehouse near White Sands, New Mexico.

Are you sure those weren't actually Amigas? This page has some information - even photos and screenshots - about the usage of the Commodore Amiga at NASA.

Re:Consolidate

[Anonymous Coward]

dude, we _just_ finished the upgrade to alphas.

seriously.

Memo not clear

[bsDaemon]

The memo isn't clear if this project is only for what i'd call "paper shuffling" agencies, or if Department of Energy, NASA, DOD, etc, are going to be required to participate as well. I doubt they would be, but they're also the ones who require the most computing resources, I would think. Of course, it seems they put the CIO of DHS in charge of this (for what reason, I don't know, but probably a nefarious one), so who knows what sort of ridiculousness is going to come of it.

Re:Memo not clear

[gclef]

They put the head of DHS in charge of it because DHS wants to make sure they get their monitoring gear in front of all these sites, and the easiest way to make that happen is for DHS to run it. It's the same idea as to why DHS is so heavily involved in the TIC project: they want a specific outcome, but that outcome isn't what's publicly stated.

Re:Memo not clear

[rainmayun]

You might be surprised at what agencies and have requirements for the most computing resources. Sure, DoD and NASA are high on the list, but so are IRS, SSA, CMS. Operational agencies that serve most Americans have HUGE amounts of data to manage.

Re:Memo not clear

[QuantumRiff]

Are you referring to processing power, or computer resources? Cause I would think the IRS and Social Security both have a crapload more stuff than the DoE..

Where do I send my resume?

[gimmebeer]

In for some way overpriced consulting gigs. :)

Re:Where do I send my resume?

[JSBiff]

Oh, there's plenty of consulting companies you can apply with. Google is your friend. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Google was one of the companies whose 'cloud platform' will be making money off the government, so you could try there first. ;-)

Re:Where do I send my resume?

[Remus Shepherd]

This is no joke. I work at one of the biggest government data centers, and we consider Google to be alternately either our best friend or the people who will put us out of business. Google is our biggest domestic consumer -- I think they've already sucked down all the data we have here on site. I could easily see them positioning themselves to take over the ingesting and archiving responsibilities.

Google likely already has a copy of all the nonclassified data that the government is holding. The only people with more appetite for data are the Chinese. If the government decides to outsource data centers, that's where they'll be going.

Re:Where do I send my resume?

[gimmebeer]

Yes, Google is always the answer :) In fact, the number of 'virtualization' positions I've seen advertised for in the northern va area recently has gone way up....now I see why.

So there is Hope for the Secret Service ...

[foobsr]

"A classified review of the United States Secret Service's computer technology found that the agency's computers were fully operational only 60 percent of the time because of outdated systems and a reliance on a computer mainframe that dates to the 1980s, according to Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. "
(loc. cit.)

CC.

Vivek

[bigmattana]

Oh, Vivek, what brilliant thing will you think of next? How much energy will it take to replace all of these server farms? How much energy will be required for the taxpayers to earn the money necessary to pay for it? What about security concerns of consolidating all of this data?

I think Vivek wants to make himself look useful after being exposed as a fraud by John C. Dvorak. http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2009/08/12/special-report-is-us-chief-information-officer-cio-vivek-kundra-a-phony/

Re:Vivek

[BitHive]

Yes, no one should earn money, consolidate data, or expend energy reducing their overall energy consumption. You would make a great CIO, what are you doing giving away your insights for free on slashdot?

Re:Vivek

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a technically sound idea, it's just doomed to failure.
It might still have been a good idea even with some expectation of failure, but by the sound of this there will be too much failure to handle at one time, and the failure will come so fast that by the time they amass the competency to handle it it's all over.

Re:Vivek

[drinkypoo]

I think Vivek wants to make himself look useful after being exposed as a fraud by John C. Dvorak. http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2009/08/12/special-report-is-us-chief-information-officer-cio-vivek-kundra-a-phony/

So who will make Dvorak look useful after exposing himself as a fraud?

Re:Vivek

[raddan]

Apparently I lack the ability to pick out a single voice in a crowd. What the hell is he saying?

Re:Vivek

[benjamindees]

How much energy will be required for the taxpayers to earn the money necessary to pay for it?

Excellent point. Energy accounting is tricky business. Just adding up the energy saved in the government datacenters doesn't account for the energy *used* by all the contractors and employees brought in to realize those savings.

It's too bad that the federal government has abandoned the dollar as a universal measure of scarcity, otherwise we could simply say that cheaper == more efficient.

ALL HACKERS WELCOME, HOURLY RATES APPLY

[whtdrgn101]

Well, this strikes me as a good way to create one large highly vulnerable target. I understand conserving energy and creating a single uniform and tight security standard, but putting all your eggs in one basket is like putting up a neon sign that reads "ALL HACKERS WELCOME, HOURLY RATES APPLY"

BRB, buying VMware stock.

[gimmebeer]

All that's left to do now is pick curtains for my sea side villa in the Carribean.

We are too small to realize a savings

[coulbc]

We have 89 users and twenty five servers. The cost to move to managed hosting is 3x our current annual cost. We also still need bandwidth to servers that used to be local as well. It makes no sense at all. On top of that the managed services do not allow any bleeding edge deployments.

Re:We are too small to realize a savings

[Panaflex]

You sound like a perfect match, then! Seriously, it's all about moving crap around - that's how money/power/growth is made. In the business world, I've seen perfectly good 4 year old systems tossed because of "anticipated demands," "hardware obsolescence," and "lack of experienced staff."

Sometimes there are good, valid reasons. But usually it's someone out to make a name for themselves.

Sounds promising, but...

[adosch]

I work for a government project in a Federally funded building right now and all I can say is... it sound promising. Common sense, proper planning and innovation gets put on the back burner for under-estimated budgets, bad trade studies, botched planning and wrong decisions being made by the wrong people. In the end, everything will still be money driven and the stove-pipe approach to IT infrastructure will remain the same: everyone will take their OWN budgeted money and set up their OWN infrastructure that will be completely different than project-A over project-B, so you'd spend double that to consolidate it. If you want to use some of project-A's setup (e.g. authentication, storage, ect.) because mis-managed budgets being a huge concern, project-B will get quoted a ridiculous amount of money to jump aboard to do it; much more, in-fact, than it would take to do a trade study, setup of a proof-of-concept test, purchase what you need and implement it. Thus that's how stove-piped approaches become what they are: a mess.

What about "use it or lose it"?

[joocemann]

Didn't read the article, but my experience with government entities is that they receive a specific value of funding each year to spend on gear, training, energy costs, etc.

The nature of the funding goes that if you don't use all of it this year, you get a reduced amount next year. Now this may seem logical -- it may seem like a policy that governs spending. Instead what it is is a policy that drives UNNECESSARY SPENDING.

The places I have been were frugal but appropriate in their spending throughout the year. As the funding for the year would approach a close (in October), all-of-a-sudden the leadership would start spending money like crazy because they had a large surplus. Money would be spent on things that were not actually necessary; if they were necessary, why not get them at any other time during the year?

In several cases, seeing this strange frenzy of spending I would ask the leadership what was going on. They explained the 'use it or lose it' policy and that in order to maintain the funding they got this year, for next year, they *must* spend it all. I was in conflict because I was taught integrity/honesty and there is no integrity in spending up dads helpful money on worthless junk so as to appear that you still have 'need'.
------

The reason I bring this up is because I am curious if the units that will save money via IT consolidation will actually save us money or if they will be (by obvious standing procedure) driven to spend it in pointless/needless ways.

Discuss? Anyone else experience this?

Re:What about "use it or lose it"?

[eln]

That's the nature of funding in any large organization that has different departments with separately managed budgets. I've worked in large companies, and they all do this.

Re:What about "use it or lose it"?

[rainmayun]

You have to consider the personal incentives for managers with budget authority. If you manage a shrinking department, there's no rewards for spending less money. Your prestige and responsibility shrink, and your career path dwindles. For better or for worse, all of the incentives for budget managers are towards bigger and bigger spending allocations.

Re:What about "use it or lose it"?

[jwl17330536]

As the funding for the year would approach a close (in October), all-of-a-sudden the leadership would start spending money like crazy because they had a large surplus. Money would be spent on things that were not actually necessary; if they were necessary, why not get them at any other time during the year?

But, I seriously needed the 12 pairs of sunglasses that I got in October 2006. They were only $200.00 / each and we only bought 12 for 12 different people. When I say we needed them I mean we needed to spend more money! I actually wore a pair this morning.

Re:What about "use it or lose it"?

[joocemann]

You have to consider the personal incentives for managers with budget authority. If you manage a shrinking department, there's no rewards for spending less money. Your prestige and responsibility shrink, and your career path dwindles. For better or for worse, all of the incentives for budget managers are towards bigger and bigger spending allocations.

Yes, I can consider that. And when considering it, and as you have pointed out, the motivation to spend is selfish and not in the interest of the company and is also a perversion of the intent of the concept of use it or lose it.

Re:What about "use it or lose it"?

[ShelfWare]

Umm.. this is the same way that large corporations work. I think it is just a fact of life working in a large bureaucratic organization.

Coincidentally, if you are in a large bureaucratic organization that is also an IT company, then you see a large uptick in sales in 4Q (Oct-Dec) pretty much because of this fact.

I have never understood it, but the way to embrace it is to plan the budget to be *over* what you received and for valuable work. I'm not talking about spending it for the sake of spending - but planning your actual work (and spend) out and on purpose overspend it (go in the red) to get more done because there is bound to be some other schlump that didn't spend it - and that will cover your overage.

Re:What about "use it or lose it"?

[rainmayun]

Motivations for employees are always selfish - that's basic compensation theory. The trick is to try to align the rewards with the goals for the company or organization that you wish to accomplish, so that in serving their selfish interests, the employees are also serving the interests of the organization.

Re:What about "use it or lose it"?

[Culture20]

it may seem like a policy that governs spending. Instead what it is is a policy that drives UNNECESSARY SPENDING.

I've seen this in both academic and corporate scenarios.
For the academics, they tended to waste their grant money on truly unnecessary things: "Yes, this ipod touch is for my computational research; it is my portable storage drive." "This Nvidia Whizbang graphics card is for the research machine I brought home with me last year. It's totally unrelated to the RAM, power supply, computer case, hard drive, motherboard and UV reactive fans from last month's purchase (and they were all unrelated to each other)."
In corporate, most of the unnecessary spending is only temporarily unnecessary. Almost every time we bought an extra few machines, we were happy we had them when XYZ emergency came up and ate through what our normal emergency stock would have been.

Re:What about "use it or lose it"?

[jimbob666]

I see the 'use it or lose it' scenario where I work every March. In fact it is starting now... All year we are told to save money, then March comes around and all of a sudden we have £000's to spend. It doesn't fit in to how I think money should be spent.

Re:What about "use it or lose it"?

[joocemann]

That is not true. For most my employers I've gone above and beyond simply for the ability to improve the business. Much of the good deeds I've done go unnoticed but that doesn't matter to me.

I would agree many people don't take pride in their work and go above and beyond, but that doesn't mean it is always that way. There are people out there that are passionate about their daily doings and include their work in it.

Nice idea in theory...

[hrieke]

Now just wait for a data center to be scheduled to close in some Congressman's home district and see how big of a block is put into place.

He should resign

[Ricardo]

I wonder if he will insist the new computers will use "Cobol Data" and "skip logic". These are BS concepts he used in one of his early speaches. should should not act like he knows about IT when he obviously doesnt.
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2009/08/12/special-report-is-us-chief-information-officer-cio-vivek-kundra-a-phony/
Basically he claims to have been the CEO of a company with 2 employees. A guy like that should not be holding his Role

Re:He should resign

[Ricardo]

Sorry - my mistake - the company had one employee (guess who?)

History to Repeat Itself?

[lax-goalie]

I have no problem with the CONCEPT of consolidation, but Virginia's IT outsourcing/consolidation project to Northrup Grumman happened on Kundra's watch. It is an unmitigated disaster.

Years into it, there's not even a complete inventory of the systems that NG is supposed to be managing for the Commonwealth, and at least as of a few months ago, NG couldn't even produce an invoice for the Commonwealth to pay that had more than six or eight line items on it.

I sat through a special meeting of the House Committee on Science and Technology on the issue a few months ago, and the legislature is NOT happy about the situation. Privately, you will hear from them words like "gross negligence" to "I'm convinced it's corruption". The Delegates who engineered the legislation enabling the IT outsourcing are especially pissed.

No disrespect to Kundra, but I don't think he's the right guy to oversee it.

Re:History to Repeat Itself?

[Kaboom13]

By the government policy of failing upward, he is not only the right guy, he is the only guy! Noone else has failed on a scale to prove they really have what it takes to fail at this and still come out smelling like roses.

Re:History to Repeat Itself?

[mspohr]

So it sounds like outsourcing to the private sector (Northrup Grumman) was a disaster. So much for private sector efficiency. Hard to blame Kundra for that unless he was micromanaging NG and it looks like NG was in far over its head.

Re:History to Repeat Itself?

[bjk002]

"No disrespect to Kundra, but I don't think he's the right guy to oversee it."

Perhaps through 'lessons learned', Kundra could be just the person to do it right this time?

Free software and owned infrastructure

[Statecraftsman]

To run a sovereign state, it is necessary for all systems to be based on free software and to be run on public infrastructure. That means no privately hosted cloud computing and no proprietary software. How else are we to ever find out how our government is run?

Re:Free software and owned infrastructure

[BitHive]

If people want transparency in government they need only look to the free market. If a company provides a good software solution for sovereign states, why should they be barred from participating in the marketplace? The most free solution will win, by definition, since it's a free market and everybody wins in free markets. Socializing our software will only lead to more holocausts.

Re:Free software and owned infrastructure

[Improv]

But hey, that's the holocost of doing business! ;)

Re:Free software and owned infrastructure

[silanea]

That has got to be the most nonsensical comment I have read on /. so far. Either that or I just do not get your kind of humour. What does the free market have to do with government transparency? And what has free (as in speech) software to do with socialism and holocausts?

Re:Free software and owned infrastructure

[BitHive]

You've never argued with a libertarian, have you?

Re:Free software and owned infrastructure

[cynyr]

despite my better judgement,
How in 10 years do you plan on reading those closed format autocad files of the long ago built government building? or moving them to the new system?
How about all the training docs in pdf reader 10 format when the current version is 293?
how about using that critical piece of software that needs activation servers, from a company that disappears suddenly in 4 years from now?

Now I would agree that allowing the free market to participate is a good idea, but if you are biding it should be a work for hire that gives all the source and toolchain requirments(sources for those too), source for any other software dependencies(their build chains, etc etc) and it should provide some way to output the data in a easy to parse format. Otherwise how can "we, the people" ensure that our government remains viable into the future and is able to archive the data.(no a laser printer output on bleached paper won't cut it).

Re:Free software and owned infrastructure

[gtall]

There is no free market, go bitch slap some sense into Ron Paul. Free market in software, hah? Explain MS, please. Free market in drugs? No way are we going to let the drug companies put any magic elixir on the market without adequate FDA approval. Want to put a new vehicle on the road that rolls over at the first gust of wind? Nope. The market is not free and cannot be free if we value survival. Put Paul in your pipe and smoke him if you like, but you are just pissing in the wind.

Re:Free software and owned infrastructure

[BitHive]

If the market determines that there is significant value in reading closed format autocad files (if such things exist outside of liberal academia) then all it would take is someone with enough motivation and willpower (i.e. not a welfare queen) to form a corporation which can perform that function while providing value to its shareholders. Same for the other scenarios you mention.

The beauty of free market capitalism is that not only are these services guaranteed to arise, they will be the most efficient as inferior attempts are driven out of the market.

Any other way of conceptualizing commerce is immoral and anti-individual at best, and at worst a heinous insult to the good wealthy people in society who provide jobs and money to the rest of us.

Re:Free software and owned infrastructure

[vbraga]

Your prediction is right.

A consortium of software companies already provides an alternative framework for reading DWG files. (link)

Re:Free software and owned infrastructure

[griblik]

To run a sovereign state, it is necessary for all systems to be based on free software and to be run on public infrastructure.

Why? It hasn't been that way for the past several thousand years, what makes you think it's necessary now?

If you mean government should be open and transparent then that's what you should be asking for, not demanding without reason that government must use a particular software model.

dang, beat me to it!

[Tumbleweed]

I was halfway through the description and intended to make a "Let's move everything to the Cloud!" joke, but I see the OP beat me to it. How disappointing. Let me give you a little tip: the person who sets up the joke isn't supposed to then tell the punchline. C'mon, Abbot and Costello 101 here, people. I don't know! Third base!

Mark my words

[MikeRT]

It'll fail and be another boondoggle. The federal government is an incredible diverse organization with varying degrees of competence. Much of it, mainly the DoD and DoJ, can't even safely use cloud computing environments except in strict isolation from the rest of the world. Those two departments alone account for the overwhelming majority of federal employees.

consolidation and cloud computing

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I say, 'that's a paradox?'


I thought cloud computing was about adding more servers but sharing resources more efficiently, and not reducing your datacenters to a mainframe environment, which is what consolidation results in. What he is proposing, is like saying Google, Apple or Microsoft are reducing their datacenter/server inventory to that advantage of cloud computing...

Nothing is for 'Free'. Sure they can cloud compute and ship the same # of servers to specific locations, but they'll hit there bandwidth maximum within a year I bet.

Key phrase: "Budget Authority"

[Hasai]

Does CIO Vivek Kundra have budget authority over these data centers? If not, then the agencies will do with him what they do with every other "czar:" Flip him the bird and go right back to the way they were doing things before.

'Nuff said.

Re:Key phrase: "Budget Authority"

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't do that. Here's the problem. Vivek Kundra, as CIO at OMB, can dictate what the IT policies and procedures are for the Federal Government through the OMB 300 process. That process justifies all IT spending and major IT project activities. Federal IT projects are already having to justify their dollars and how their project aligns with using cloud computing. Now, I expect OMB to demand information on why each IT project is not involved in the server consolidation. And, if you don't cooperate, OMB will hold back funds and make your life a living hell in an agency.

While Kundra does not have budget authority, he and OMB do have disbursement authority. At least, that's the way I've seen it.

TEOTWAWKI.bat ... every 108 minutes

[knuckledraegger]

4 8 15 16 23 42

Re:TEOTWAWKI.bat ... every 108 minutes

[Z34107]

TEOTWAWKI.bat ... every 108 minutes

LIAR! That has 9 characters before the extension!

calls the 8.3 police

Re:TEOTWAWKI.bat ... every 108 minutes

[knuckledraegger]

WHAT???? You mean to say nothing will happen if the batch file doesn't run? Strange. as I write this, I get a sudden feeling of deja vu.

Re:TEOTWAWKI.bat ... every 108 minutes

[Z34107]

Naw. Maybe that was the batch file that kept Chile from having earthquakes... way to go.

Re:TEOTWAWKI.bat ... every 108 minutes

[knuckledraegger]

Now look who's a liar. That earthquake was 3 years ago.

Re:TEOTWAWKI.bat ... every 108 minutes

[Z34107]

Right you are; how silly of me.

Would you mind telling me what yesterday's powerball numbers were? >_>

Re:TEOTWAWKI.bat ... every 108 minutes

[knuckledraegger]

Sure, but I can' t think of any good yesterday's numbers will do you. They were 42, 23, 16, 15, 8, & 4.

Re:TEOTWAWKI.bat ... every 108 minutes

[Z34107]

So that's what that batch file did. Thanks, mate.

Government!

[Anonymous Coward]

More Government! They can't do anything right...! unless it's nation building....! and militarily outspending the rest of the world combined...!

I hereby declare that we all to trust the gov to build walls along borders and spend $700 annually on building better annihilation technology... but when the gov starts handing out free cheese, we need to wake up! Then we've got full blown socialist tyranny on our hands people!!!
AAAAaaaaHaaVietnam!

Pfft! Naive.

[Anonymous Coward]

This being an Government project, I predict it will take 5 years longer than planned, cost 10x the initial budget, and still never really work quite right.

Whereas a private sector project it would take 2 years longer than planned, cost 3x the initial budget, and still never really work quite right.

Fixed that for you.

Fixed that for YOU.

Government incompetence and stupidity is always a factor of 5 times private projects. Why? Because Government has much less accountability than private - it just gets buried in the bureaucracy.

Cloud Computing for Governments

[al0ha]

is such a colossally bad idea. Government data living on any system ultimately controlled by a corporation on that corporation's property is so rife for abuse, we are really opening perhaps the biggest Pandora's box of our times. Future Americans will likely rue the day the government gave all control of its data to Corporate America.

Re:Cloud Computing for Governments

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Cloud Computing for Governments ...is such a colossally bad idea. Government data living on any system ultimately controlled by a corporation on that corporation's property is so rife for abuse, we are really opening perhaps the biggest Pandora's box of our times.

Cloud computing != Privately run servers

A push to cloud computing could be moving things to Microsoft created and run server farms, or could be moving things to Google created, but government run and operated server farms, or it could mean moving things to government created and run server farms. Personally, I like the idea of most government agencies just having access to virtual servers in a nice, distributed set of server farms because it solves a lot of networking problems while potentially also getting rid of a lot waste.

By all means we should get rid of the separate servers at all these different departments within the government. Then we just have one group of professionals whose primary job it is to run IT operations, in charge of all the networking and most of the security and backup issues. We'll no longer have to worry about vanishing whitehouse e-mails because of supposedly incompetent IT. or will we have to worry as much about complete incompetents in charge of security for the DoHD. Don't let a corporation run it, but by all means you can let several corporations help design it to specs written by the state.

Re:Cloud Computing for Governments

[gtall]

You will get a sclerotic monolith of a clusterF. Any small change will require you contact a different agency than your own, i.e., the one running the data center. They will decide whether and when your new IT bauble the public has clamored for you to provide is appropriate for their pristine data center.

Re:Cloud Computing for Governments

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

You will get a sclerotic monolith of a clusterF

The entire government is a series of redundant clusterfucks right now. At least this would reduce the overall cost of clusterfuckery.

Any small change will require you contact a different agency than your own, i.e., the one running the data center.

Why? With virtual servers the same people can still create new ones, the only difference being they don't manage the hardware or networking. Thus, they have no incentive to spend money unnecessarily on servers and other gear just to keep their budget numbers artificially high.

They will decide whether and when your new IT bauble the public has clamored for you to provide is appropriate for their pristine data center.

I don't even know what you mean by this. Specialty hardware servers? They are an extreme rarity and are mostly for tasks that individual would no longer need to worry about. Can you provide an example? The only real concern would be making sure the overall computing power and networking and backup capabilities met the consolidated needs of the federal government. But this would provide incentive for reducing waste in that regard rather than providing incentive for it, like we do now.

Re:Cloud Computing for Governments

[gtall]

The entire government is not a series of redundant clusterFs right now. It is large, parts of it work very well, parts of it do not.

"Why? With virtual servers the same people can still create new ones, the only difference being they don't manage the hardware or networking." You have no understanding of how organizations work. There will be an "authority" whose job it is to keep the server store for "security" if nothing else.

"But this would provide incentive for reducing waste in that regard rather than providing incentive for it, like we do now."

It won't, it will provide a new government agency with the reasons for increase expenditures, increased staffing, and with that increase "regulation" on users (i.e., the rest of the government) who will be forced to use it. If your agency wants to provide a new service, it will have to run the gauntlet of the new "service" agency.

Not only that, every few years when the new agency gets a new director, s/he will issue new marching orders merely to piss in the corners and make the agency his/her own...why...just like the current dolt proposing this reorg. It isn't working in Virginia because dolts like him are great at proposing but have not the means to make the proposal actually work.

Re:Cloud Computing for Governments

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The entire government is not a series of redundant clusterFs right now. It is large, parts of it work very well, parts of it do not.

Really? What US department right now does not provide their managers with incentive to overspend for budgetary reasons or to benefit their own career via headcount?

"Why? With virtual servers the same people can still create new ones, the only difference being they don't manage the hardware or networking."

You have no understanding of how organizations work. There will be an "authority" whose job it is to keep the server store for "security" if nothing else.

I've done work with the DoD and the Navy as well as hundreds of private companies. I think I have a fair understanding. As for managing the server store for security, there may well be processing power constraints, but I don't even understand what you're trying to say with regard to a store. How and Why would departments be prevented from making virtual servers and based upon what cloud computing model. None of the major ones I've seen have any such nonsense.

"But this would provide incentive for reducing waste in that regard rather than providing incentive for it, like we do now."

It won't, it will provide a new government agency with the reasons for increase expenditures, increased staffing, and with that increase "regulation" on users (i.e., the rest of the government) who will be forced to use it. If your agency wants to provide a new service, it will have to run the gauntlet of the new "service" agency.

The new government agency, will have little ability to justify and ever increasing budget because the amount of usage will be determined by other departments. "Yeah we need 100 new servers" is awfully hard to justify if you can't show demand based upon the load being put upon it by those other departments who no longer have motivation to create useless servers. Further, why would departments need to "run a gauntlet" to offer a new service. They just create a virtual server and start it up as any cloud computing client does now. Unless the new agency really is constrained by processing power, there would be no reason for them to halt new VMs being created, and if that happens you'll have dozens of agencies clamoring for increasing the funding.

Not only that, every few years when the new agency gets a new director, s/he will issue new marching orders merely to piss in the corners and make the agency his/her own...why...just like the current dolt proposing this reorg.

Sure, new people always like putting their fingerprint on things. That might be switching underlying architectures or the interface or any number of things. The difference being, this department is a service one servicing other organizations, so any significant changes they want to push will get pushback from other departments and legislators.

It isn't working in Virginia because dolts like him are great at proposing but have not the means to make the proposal actually work.

Yeah, your argument applies to any and all changes. You could say "moving from coal fired engines to electrical engines for transit won't work because dolts like ... are great at proposing improvements but don't have the means to actually do it." That's not an argument against revamping US government IT in such a way that it takes advantage of cloud computing architectures. It's just a general "let's not change anything because all changes are bad" argument.

Easy pickins

[hesaigo999ca]

Great, now hackers will only have to bypass a few firewalls and hack a few servers instead on 1100.
Letting politics dictate security has always been a surefire way of decimating an empire,
I am going to go get some popcorn and come back to watch...wait for me?

Potential for massive savings

[Anonymous Coward]

The potential for saving is great - assuming they can get it right. I am a defense contractor and I go to military bases that have thousands of one-off servers that are dedicated to a single, specialized contract tasks and are probably being utilized at around 1% of their potential. One base I went to told me they spend $25 million on electricity for their primary data center each year. This base is now requiring all new systems to be virtualized and they are converting all their current systems to blade servers running 20-40 environments per blade. This setup reduces their electricity use significantly and reduces their management costs. Now, imagine if the federal government could do this for every site, every project.

Just think of the possibilities

[aarenz]

This will make it much easier to take down the government. We will only need 100 bombers to take the data centers offline instead of 1,100. Just think how many fewer families we will have to reward for that.

Actually, it does sound like a good idea, but after working for larger companies, it will not go as smooth as they would like since someone will be holding onto an old AS/400 that no one knows how to change the IP configuration and the pointers to the printers.

Virtualization-

[Xacid]

I'm pretty sure I'm seeing some of this where I'm at now. Basically it has become a bad word to suggest you need a "server". There's the hardware cost, operational cost, and then most importantly to those signing the checks - the bureaucracy costs involved with running such.

The push has now become to just acquire a slot on the virtual machines they've started to toss up which has actually worked out damned well. What used to run on two giant racks now runs on one little blade server. Definitely a newer angle that I'm glad to see is finally taking hold nowadays.

Re:Virtualization-

[OrangeMonkey11]

Virtualization of servers is the right approach to reducing hardware costs and power consumption. We have a facility that currently run on three virtualized server and just because the facility need to have high availability we have an additional blade server that can be fail over in case the primary crashed.

Buy stock in VMware

[Vrtigo1]

...if you don't already have some, sounds like now ought to be a pretty good time to buy up some stock in VMware.

Re:Buy stock in VMware

[IMightB]

I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that the gov loves Virtuozzo.

http://www.parallels.com/products/pvc45/

Let the NSA do it

[jjohnson]

The NSA has 1) the mad hax0r skillz, 2) massive reserves of hidden computer power, and 3) the security chops to actually create a secure U.S. government computing cloud. If they can keep their own codebreaking and intelligence records secure (when was the last time you heard about the NSA getting hacked?), they can do it for the government as a whole.

Re:Let the NSA do it

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Wow. I definitely can't think of any potential downsides to putting a military entity, with a strong history of not always sticking to its legal role of foreign intelligence gathering, in charge of all IT for our ostensibly civilian government...

Because IT is a pretty damn banal subject, your proposal doesn't elicit the visceral distaste that "Hey, we should let the army take over policing. The army has 1) mad combat skillz 2) massive firepower and 3) the security chops to actually keep the streets safe."; but it is basically in the same class.

Re:Let the NSA do it

[jjohnson]

The cynical response to your valid point is that having, say, the GAO in charge of IT is that it's probably no less vulnerable to the NSA's illegal actions than it would be if the NSA itself were hosting it. If they're as naughty as you say, then it's no protection to have some other branch of the government running things.

The NSA also has as a mission protecting US communications and IT, so it's arguably well within their scope to run a federal cloud.

The less cynical response is that the NSA is part of the U.S. government, so on paper at least there's no conflict of interest to them running IT, and it's arguably going to be a lot more secure than it would be for a Department of IT Services to run things with a bunch of contractors.

Re:Let the NSA do it

[Leebert]

If they can keep their own codebreaking and intelligence records secure (when was the last time you heard about the NSA getting hacked?), they can do it for the government as a whole.

Sorry, you touched a nerve...

Where does the NSA have a need (or a MANDATE) to interact with the public with their data?

I do contract work at NASA. We have an actual requirement to share data. Actual Internet exposure. People doing science. That sort of thing. Guess what? The agency gets hacked. Relatively speaking among federal agencies, fairly often. It's not surprising.

The IRS collects data online. Social Security. NHTSA. NIST. NOAA. FDA. Ad nauseum. All of them have heavy interaction with the public.

So yeah, when your requirements are, like the NSA, mostly to keep it all on the property at Fort Meade (or maybe a little bit to remote sites), it's (relatively) easy.

WTH is Federal CIO Vivek Kundra?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this a cabinet post that had to be vetted through Congress or is it another one of those Czar posts that Obama created without anybody's consent?

If this is a Czar, Kundra can "go outside and play a rousing game of Go Fuck Yourself" as that position has NO power.

Can Work When Appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

A department I work with is undergoing a transition to "cloud computing" now. The data stored is public information and some network downtime would not be catastrophic, so there's no reason why it must be kept in house. The biggest advantages I see are better hardware management and economies of scale. The current servers are not properly cooled (AC has gone out causing HD failures) and the staff managing them are incompetent. This department's server performance needs are pretty low and can be met with a single server or even a VPS.

The cost estimate is $200 per month, which includes backups at two sites. Of course you will need someone with the expertise to set things up and fix things when they go wrong, but that's really another issue and affects in house setups too. You get to eliminate hardware maintenance and hardware upgrade costs. Don't underestimate the cost of upgrades. I can't come up with a cost for in house hardware management, but I'll say as a tax payer and someone familiar with operations that $200 per month is a really good value.

Obviously there are things that should be kept in house. You must assume that whoever has access to the physical hardware has access to your data. You can encrypt, but not from where the data originates b/c the key is there. If you can't do with some network downtime you must keep your apps in house. Also, if going from a LAN based setup, security needs to be thoroughly evaluated. You may want to limit access to VPN or IP address blocks and such. For those what qualify, if well planned and executed I think there are big savings to be had.

You forgot Reagan and Bush 1

[bussdriver]

You forgot Reagan and Bush 1. Yet you mention Carter who did not do as much as any of the other recent ones.

Obama has just gotten started and is not on their level yet. The bailout wasn't on his watch (and is largely payed back no thanks to Bush and Republicans who never wanted the bailout money back... or ANY measure to prevent a repeat kissing bankster ass to the extreme. except ron paul and his hopeless move to audit the fed.)

Nixon.

[bussdriver]

Nixon did immeasurable harm; we are still feeling the damage today. HMOs, bad food, family farms dying, rise of GM food; and going off the gold standard to the oil dollar standard; putting us at the mercy of OPEC... Starting of trade with China for the purposes that came to fruition later; don't think for a second that wasn't the intention. it was.

Re:Nixon.

[Buelldozer]

Nixon took us off the gold standard during the Civil War? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard#Suspension_of_the_gold_standard

THAT BASTARD!

Re:Nixon.

[the_hellspawn]

fer real

Re:Nixon.

[Chris Mattern]

Nixon took us off the gold standard during the Civil War?

Don't you know yourself no history? He did it during the Great Depression!

Re:Nixon.

[Buelldozer]

Point was the process of coming off the Gold Standard was started during the Civil War. Robot Nixon may exist in 2135 but I don't think he was around in 1861 or so.

FDR surely drove in another nail in the 30s but the process started well before him.

Re:Nixon.

[Dun Malg]

family farms dying

Please. Family farms started dying around the end of the 19th century, when mechanization started to make operating a farm a business rather than a family pastime. Various forms of farm subsidies managed to stave off the inevitable decline of "pa and his sons working the farm" for quite some time, but by the 70's, the ride was just plain fucking over. Seriously, in this day of GPS guided multi-hundred-thousand dollar combine harvesters, there simply ain't no efficient way to operate a "family farm". The reason we have all the agri-business corps running giant farms is that technology has allowed tremendous economies of scale. There are a number of families that still manage to run small businesses based on farming, but that's because they run them as businesses. Most of them don't even live on the land they farm anymore, because there's no advantage to living on site when all you are is a manager and your kids don't work on the farm. The quaint notion of a man making a living hitching a plow to an ox while his wife sows behind him is ancient history.

Re:Nixon.

[bhiestand]

What a load of crap. There's still one traditional family farmer left in the US! Every time lobbyists need him to star in ads for farm subsidies he gets on his farm and plows by hand then poses in his pickup truck!

Also, there are some organic farmers who are still doing things the old way. Or pretty close to it.

Here's how Vivek will succeed at this project...

[Anonymous Coward]

• Get a thousand monkeys and feed them a bunch of Viagra before locking them into a room
• Toss a thousand footballs into that room
• ???
• Profit!!!

Good idea, but huge problems are coming

[ErichTheRed]

I've actually done a lot of smaller server consolidation projects. In most cases, the results are great...those lonely database and file servers that get hits 5 or 6 times a day are all combined into one big box that actually uses all the hardware capacity.

The biggest problems I've seen with VMs are the project managers who treat it as magic, never-ending capacity. The new favorite phrase in IT project management circles seems to be, "Oh, we'll just build a VM for it." Problem is, unless someone else is hosting your data center, you can't just call up and order more capacity without paying for more hardware.

Second-biggest with a consolidation like this is incomplete requirements. Lowest-bidder contractors are not going to do a good job of gathering every single requirement...even high-bidder contractors have problems with this. And the problem is that the more they miss, the worse the fallout. A certain large company I used to work for found this out the hard way moving their inhouse data center to one of the big IT services companies. I'm a systems guy, and had all my stuff well documented. Others were pissed off they were losing their jobs and intentionally withheld information...the contractors didn't follow up, and a lot of last minute scrambling had to be done to complete the migration.

Third problem for a government IT consolidation? Some huge services company like Accenture or IBM is going to win the bid and staff the project with dumbasses they pulled off the street in order to maximize profits. (Yes, this happened in my case in point #2 above...the sales staff presented the A Squad and swapped them out as soon as the contract was signed.) Not that government employees are rockstars, but they at least have a vested interest in keeping the data safe. IBM will probably win the contract too, given their involvement with government systems already. IBM has been so India-happy over the last ten years that I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the (non security critical) work ends up there.

Just like PMs treat VMs as magic hardware, CIOs treat outsourcers as magic black boxes that flawlessly run their IT operations. Unfortunately, the reality is not as sunny beneath the surface!

Who is doing the work?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only assume that IBM will play a role in this major effort, since Sammy P and Obama are such big pals. Right now, as I type this, my fellow IBMers are receiving their walking papers. I expect I may join them before the day is over. They/we will be replaced by offshore resources in India, Brazil, Argentina, etc. How do we as a country continue to let this happen; let money hungry megacorps like IBM take our jobs and our personal/classified governement information and put them in the hands of people in other countries? Is someone with a 21 syllable name sitting in Bangalore really concerned about how well he manages a job he's doing for someone 10000 miles away? Does a band 3 worker hired in Dubuque, Fishkill, or Boulder as skilled as the band 6-7-8 person he replaced? IBM wants their customers to believe this is the case, but ask anyone who is still stuck in this corporate rathole and has had an opportunity to work with these groups.

STOP SENDING GOVERNMENT MONEY TO COMPANIES WHO OFFSHORE

I post this anonymously because I fear for my job. I need to pay my bills.

WOO HOO

[Anonymous Coward]

Gimme one of those yummy gub'ment jobs!

Re:An Invitation From Microsoft:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/

XML parsing failed

XML parsing failed: syntax error (Line: 80, Character: 8)

Reparse document as HTML
Error:
mismatched end-tag
Specification:
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/

Double Fail.

Datamining and Program terminations

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

It seems to me this is a bad idea. If for no other reason than when all the different programs are together in larger clusters of applications and data storage, it makes it easier for someone in the government (or someone hacked in) to do more cross application data browsing. I'm not sure that we trust the government or the security of a data government data center to make private information secure. Not to mention covert clandestine operations we don't know about.

The second bad idea is that governement programs come and go. When the computing resources are closer to the program, it is easier to manage and in some cases turn off if defunded. With all the computation and data storage co-mingled, which is how you get the savings, then boundries and clean removal of all aspects of a project will be much much more difficult. Not to mention the nightmare of accounting for the resources used by one project vs another.

I remember hearing the story (I don't know if it is true) that AMTrak or one of its ancestor incarnations did an accounting dance, charging the passenger lines passing over track 100% of the maintenence cost whereas they did not charge any of that to the freight traffic over the same track. As I understand basically wanted to find a way to kill the passenger service by loading it up with expenses. The Chicago CTA did something similar I understand with switching the sides of two CTA runs, giving one of the lines the two least used ends and the other parallel route the most used. They then tried to claim losses on that line and planned on shutting it down. Luckily the Government stepped in and said, no problem, just pay back all the money from the Government that was given with the condition that those lines be kept open. We still have both lines, one it the one that goes close to my house.

So combined facilities means games with cost accounting that may or may not favor one type of application over another and may also be used for hiding black budgets more easily.

Winning a Cyber War?

[mi]

Perhaps, trying to do better in a cyber war ought to have a higher priority, than consolidation?

The rest of the article is scary too:

Huge Implications for Data Center Sector
The government data center consolidation has huge implications for the fortunes of system integrators, data center service providers (especially in northern Virginia), and cloud computing platforms optimized for hosting government apps.

Yes, Silicon Valley's support for Obama's candidacy was not in vain...

• Promote the use of Green IT by reducing the overall energy and real estate footprint of government data centers;
• Reduce the cost of data center hardware, software and operations;

Oh, again, the "greenness" goes before the cost. Hey, I have this $100 fan, that uses 1/3 less electricity, than the $10 fan from my polluting competitor. Per the Administration's instructions, you must buy my equipment...

Damn them to hell.

[Anonymous Coward]

We've been consolidating for the last few years in the Air Force. Needless to say the whole experience has been on par with getting punched in the face everyday. The concept of cloud computing works great until you realize that you have to pay for all that bandwidth when people actually want to use there computers for something other than email and a few web based portals.

Their solution has been to disable just about every usefull function since data transfer is no longer hopping a free ride across the base network. That combined with the fact that when the network at our primary factility goes down so does everyone else's since those oh so lovely portals that link us to everything else are only served up there.

The concept of cloud computing looks great on paper and actually does work for really light applications such as email, but who ever thought that converting everything including locally shared data over to the cloud (cloud served but still restricted to local access??!!) should be forced to lick the toilets in every office, just after lunch time while they are still warmed, in every office they've inflicted this crap upon.

Yes

[cromar]

I was born in Missouri, my family is from Virginia, and I've been all over this country from California to Texas to Massachusetts to North Carolina to New York to Montana and lots of places in between. I love the people of this country, and I wish people wouldn't be so divisive when it comes to those from other regions. It's truly sad. The South, the North, the Midwest, the East, the West all have their treasures and things to be proud of. It's sad that so many people are ignorant of this fact, and use any opportunity to put others down. (I am guessing it comes from some arrogant, deep-seated insecurity, but I am no psychologist.)

Nixon was also to blame for getting out of Vietnam

[tlambert]

Nixon was also to blame for getting out of Vietnam, normalizing U.S. relations with China, and ending the draft.

-- Terry

Sounds familiar

[kalirion]

So it will basically be this on a larger scale?

This will not turn out well. Ask the Navy!

[ScottFree2600]

The Navy did the "biggest IT contract ever let" and it was pretty much an expensive bloated disaster. See http://www.itsmwatch.com/itil/article.php/3813651 I'm beginning to think that "too big to fail" means "too big" and that failure is inevitable.

Redundancy is over rated....

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA..
"This growth in redundant infrastructure investments is costly, inefficient and unsustainable and has a significant impact on energy consumption"....

In other words, that mission critical server that does the whole income tax thingy..e-file i think its called, that only needs one server. Two servers with the same data are not required, they just waste energy and if it goes down due to a hardware failure (because parts are readily available on 10 year old servers) you will have to wait till we can rebuild the server and restore for tape. oh wait, tape is redundant data, we got rid of those too.

Well i didnt like paying income tax's anyway.

Re:Nixon was also to blame for getting out of Viet

[KC7JHO]

WOW Whata Punk!

Some separations are for a REASON. 1984...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Some separations are for a REASON.

For instance:

Tax data is separate from criminal investigative data because access to tax information without a VERY hard-to-get warrant is prohibited.

Similarly, gun transfer information is supposed to be destroyed after a small amount of time to prevent compilation of a database for confiscation - either by a runaway government or an invading power trying to disarm a potential resistance movement. (Also: It's tax information because the only way they could get federal gun bans and tracking passed back when congress and the courts paid more than lip service to the constitution was to disguise it as a tax. That's why BATF is part of treasury.)

Many other classes of information are confidential and access restricted to small groups of people with a particular need to know. Examples: Medical information. Competitive bidding information. Company secrets disclosed to regulators. I could go on.

Keeping this information restricted to the personnel of the agency with the need-to-know is easier if it's in the agency's own I.T. operation. Then other agencies don't have automatic access to it - and interdepartmental rivalry works to keep the information bottled up. "Consolidate the IT operations" and you have a much larger I.T. staff with back-channel access, while need-to-know compartmentalization is a bolt-on to the unified database, with enormous potential for failure or bypassing (if it's implemented at all).

So consolidating the IT operations is a grand opportunity for both foulups leaking data outside their authorized compartmentalization and the clandestine creation of a "Total Information Awareness" Big-Brother superstate.

Vivek Assholio says let's ship IT jobs to India

[jsepeta]

What exactly are Vivek Kundra's qualifications? He's a bozo with business interests IN India, so of course he wants us to close US IT facilities and offshore the work. Someone needs to bitchslap that jackass publicly, and unmask him for the worthless mouthbreathing piece of shit he is.