Cloud Conference Offers Clarity
Jinfo Blog

By Penny Leach

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On 31st March 2009, TFPL held a conference on the topic of cloud computing with the aim of shedding light on this nebulous subject. 'Get inside the cloud of information -- private data in public places' picked up on a theme that came out of TFPL's SharePoint conferences last year. Chaired by TFPL Senior Consultant John Davies, the speakers represented the public and private sectors. The morning was more about concepts, with John Sheridan from The National Archives talking about the opportunities for the public sector, Lynn Collier from Hitachi Data Systems talking about the benefits to the private sector, and
Roger James of the University of Westminster facilitating an interactive session where the delegates were asked to discuss and vote on theoretical situations where cloud computing provided possible solutions. The afternoon turned in to bit of an inadvertent ad for Google as the three case studies which followed Jeremy Bentley's Smartlogic presentation all turned out to be about Google Apps implementations.

John Sheridan is Head of e-Services at the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI, part of The National Archives); he is also part of the secretariat to the Power of Information Taskforce and co-chair of the W3C's e-Government Interest Group. He quoted Ted Nelson -- 'Everything is deeply intertwingled' --
as part of his describing his role at the OPSI which is in part to think about how information policy and the web are interlinked. Simply put, John said, cloud computing is a marketing concept, to express how services can now be accessed via the web on a easily scalable and relatively low cost (even free)
basis. It promises opportunities for new business models to monetarise the web, as well as to other entities to expand their offerings. Government is already using some services - John mentioned YouTube, Flickr, and Google Docs. Benefits include not only cost savings and economies of scale but the freeing of
technology resources for basic activity, and also carbon neutral services (green IT). John cited Vivek Kundra's reassignment from the District of Columbia to be the first Federal CIO after his championing of Googledocs as an alternative to vulnerable data centers post 9/11 (although subsequent allegations of theft seem to have tarnished that appointment).

There are challenges currently -- data protection, authentication and private (making sure only the right people see the right data and in the right place), security concerns (for example when transferring data), possible vendor lock-in -- but John believes these will be resolved. Open standards for long term
availability and choice are important to resolving such issues, and also linked data (semantics) to index the cloud and beyond and improve findability. The National Archives are talking to vendors to make sure that there is mutual understanding over the need to protect information long term for business use and historical value. In the meantime there are some contradictory practices within government -- locked down computers can't access the open web -- which the Power of Information Taskforce is looking at.

Lynn Collier looked at public clouds (services over the web to anyone) and private clouds (for internal users). She also noted that the drivers towards implementation included a reduction in the total cost of ownership of IT (storage costs, implementation costs of new technology, inability to reach economies of scale, lack of specific skills, low utilisation), but added the increasing business trend of outsourcing. She cited reports from Information Week, Gartman and IDC as evidence of how seriously the opportunities are being viewed, enabling technology to be aligned more easily with business objectives, instead of technology being a constraint. Hitachi Data Systems Information Economics can provide various tools to help entities gather metrics and diagnostics on their current information life cycle, and build the business
case for migration towards cloud computing.

Jeremy Bentley is Chief Executive of Smartlogic Semaphore Ltd. He sees cloud computing as simplifying infrastructure, platforms and software as a service (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS). Capital expenditure becomes operating expenditure, risk is mitigated by contract termination options and SLA penalties, and costs are
reduced through optimal utilisation. Jeremy predicted that in 30 years everything will be in the cloud, but in the meantime baby steps are needed to build proof. He finished with a case study based on Smartlogic's project for ABN AMRO, to create a portal for searching (using natural language) their external information subscription services and internal data.

Roger James, Director of Information Services, outlined how the University of Westminster moved to Google Apps after identifying problems with the its outmoded email system and has seen significant additional benefits. Paul Driscoll, IT Manager of Erith Group, a demolition firm, was trialling Google Apps when his office and servers were destroyed in a fire; those on the trial were able to operate almost as normal, making it a no-brainer to migrate completely to Google as soon as possible, a decision which he has had no cause to regret. Andy Beale, Technology Director at Guardian News & Media, led a move to Google Apps so that the newspaper had 21st century technology to match their new offices at King's Place (part of London King's Cross redevelopment); his first focus was on the collaborative features, and he is only now rolling out Gmail. Roger James wrapped up with a brief presentation on collaboration: Customers used to be outside and the aim was to move costs to them; now they are inside and adding value.

Find TFPL's writeup of the morning sessions online now and a summary of the afternoon presentations.

Attendees at the Conference will be provided (via the cloud of course) with access to the presentations for their future reference.

Penny Leach is the Secretary and Awards Chair of SLA Europe.

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